Query critique 5/26/22

Offer up your page (or query) for Nathan's critique on the blog.
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Nathan Bransford
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Query critique 5/26/22

Post by Nathan Bransford » May 23rd, 2022, 10:15 am

Want to see how your editing approach compares to mine?

Below is the query up for critique on the blog on Thursday. Feel free to chime in with comments, create your own redline (please note the "font colour" button above the posting box, which looks like a drop of ink), and otherwise offer feedback. When offering your feedback, please please remember to be polite and constructive. In order to leave a comment you will need to register an account in the Forums, which should be self-explanatory.

I'll be back with my own post on the blog and we'll literally be able to compare notes.


Dear Agent,

Complete at 120,000 words, my High Fantasy, SON OF PROPHECY, offers a fresh take on the chosen one trope. Its psychological twists and bisexual protagonist make it a good match for what you seek to represent.

ATHREL, Ka’el’s young king, hopes his reforms, his prayers — saints burned, even his freakish soul-reading! — will reignite his countrymen’s war-weary faith.

Winning the noblemen’s trust, convincing the Faith’s high priest, KALUNET, that he’s not a crazed zealot are the least of his problems when a band of hell-sworn Nethmals destroy a Ka’elian border town. Peace treaty dissolved, Athrel must abandon his God-vowed priorities.

He kills the lone enemy warrior lingering in the town’s ruins, and unknowingly gives a charismatic Nethmal access to his dreams. The Nethmal, seeking an alliance, commandeers Athrel’s thoughts, his speech, and even reorders his memories.

Friends question Athrel’s sanity. Kalunet challenges his sanctity. God, whose covenant Athrel carries in his blood, is strangely silent.

Athrel knows the Great Anointing, just two days away will reclaim him for the Faith, if his prayers can keep the Hell-sworn voices at bay, if he can refuse their seduction.

If he can trust the visitation of his sainted-mother dressed in Nethmal armor, and embrace a
suspect prophecy secretly cherished by the radical members of his religious order.

Torn between remaining true to his crown and covenant or professing a Nethmal’s creed, Athrel must decide if the cost of prophecy and his own healing are worth the price of his soul.

I draw on my fifteen years as a Secular Carmelite to shape Athrel’s spirituality and his dark night experience. With emotionally charged conflicts and religious-themed intrigue, it will appeal to readers of Mark Lawrence’s ‘The Book of the Ancestor’ series.

The opening of SON OF PROPHECY received Editor’s Choice recognition from (reviewer at well-know publishing agency) at (online critique group) and has placed in the top three contest submissions in (International unpublished writers contest).

Thank you for your consideration.

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