The Saturday Slash

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Don't be afraid to ask for help with the most critical first step of your writing journey - the query.

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Spencer is a shape shifter of Clan Kitsune and student of language and history in the Age of the Clans. After being attacked at Kitsune Academy by a fellow student, Spencer searches for a way out of Haniel. Right away you have a problem that can be really common to high fantasy queries - name soup. I don't know what Age of the Clans means, or if it's even relevant. or what Haniel is or means. So, the Praetor sends her to Sachi Prison in secret to find The Red Book, a text that has been lost for centuries and could shift the power in Lantea from Paladin to Praetor. How could a book do this? This drags Spencer into a decades old political battle between three parties: The Paladin, the Praetor, and the Archon, who is a leader of rebels on the Sachi Plateau. Rebelling against what? In her search, she learns the stories of three people who fought for their freedom and the freedom of generations in the Age of the Temples. Kahdea, Braid, and Owin. So do those stories take place in a different time period? The Age of Temples? How long is an age? These other characters aren't contempoaries of Spencer's?

Kahdea defied laws preventing her education in the Age of the Temples. After her twin brother, the Prefect of Fianna, is arrested by The Paladin Council, Again, so many world-building words that are just contributing to confusion. she takes his place in the building Famorian movement. With other shifter leaders who are demonized by the Temples, Kahdea helps set up the defense of their way of life. And this matters why? How is this relevant to Spencer's story?

Braid had little more than her air ship and her crew. Coming across a Famorian shifter on a trade route on the Kruvale, more names! she is able to see the danger of ignorance. She ends up going to The Hall for as an Oblate of Fianna. no idea what this means She's hoping to find more information on The Red Book to help catalyze the Famorian movement. Your tense is in past at the beginning of this para and shifts to present. Again, I don't know if these timeline are concurrent with Spencer's or not.

Owin overheard a friend of his and a strange woman from another territory talking about Famorians. He followed and fell into the Famorian movement after discovering his shifting ability. He was often thrown to a front and soon stepped into a leadership role. He and his small militia take action on Sachi Plateau following Kahdea and the other Prefects after an assault on a refugee camp in Werewood. Again, unsure how these tie together.

Fear is the great motivator. It was fear of extermination that brought shifters together against the Temples. And it was fear of the monstrous Famorian form that banished them to Sachi. What I'm not seeing is any type of continuity of these three storylines. What's the actual point and goal of the story? Right now I have three disparate tales and no idea of how everything relates to Spencer, or even if Spencer is the unifying character. I don't understand what Spencer's goal is, or why it matters or connects to these others. You've got too many names and world building elements in here at the moment, it's coming off as disjointed and reading more like a synopsis than a query. Boil down, eliminate names, and connect these storylines so that we understand what the main goal and story is here.