Joined: 3/31/2013
Posts: 3
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The
Partizans, a 79,000 word New Adult paranormal, is Breakfast Club meets Joan of
Arc with a supernatural twist. It can stand alone but also has series
potential.
When a
basilisk sinks its teeth into her windshield, college sophomore Hannah
Slaughtery thinks she's losing her mind. Too bad her new reality makes her
nightmares look butterfly filled day dreams. Catapulted into a world where
witches and monsters maintain a secret underground society deep beneath the
Colorado Rockies, Hannah must accept the truth about her future even as the
lies of her past unravel around her.
Hannah is
a witch. More specifically, she's the only living Partizan witch left on the
mortal plane. Along with four other classmates, Hannah is charged with leading
the forces of good against their evil counterparts, the Formorians.
Unfortunately, her classmates can't stand to be in the same room with each
other.
In order
to harness her full potential, Hannah embarks on a metaphysical transformation
that has her struggling to survive and wishing for death. But making it through
her trial doesn't mean she's home free. The Formorians have been waiting for
her to complete the change, ending the protective spell her mother cast the
night she died. If they find her, a quick death is the best she can hope for.
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Joined: 2/27/2011
Posts: 353
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This starts off strong - Breakfast Club meets Joan of Arc - great image! - but sort of devolves into vagueness by the end of the second paragraph. "Hannah must accept the truth about her future even as the lies of her past unravel around her." This feels more like the closing sentence than part of your opening pitch.
Additionally, be wary of words like "metaphysical" in a pitch geared toward selling commercial fiction. It's a red flag word for agents.
Most agents want concise and concrete details in the query. You're really going to need to tighten this up and carve away the vague language.
Good start, though!
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Joined: 8/13/2011
Posts: 272
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The only concrete suggestion I have for you is to add 'like' to your fourth sentence ('Too bad her new reality makes her nightmares look like butterfly filled day dreams'). The rest is more stylistic.
You're selling this on it being like the Breakfast Club, but we're only seeing one character. It might be an idea for you to present quick sketches of the other classmates. It'll give us a chance to both see the different characters involved and some of the drivers of their conflict.
You also might want to define 'Partizan'. It's clearly the centrepiece of the novel, yet at the moment it mostly comes off as a piece of 'kool' spelling. Some clue as to its relevance might help you load this with some its greater significance to the world it's set in.
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