Demon King Reboot
Jul. 25th, 2021 03:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI think the trouble I was having with my query letter for The Demon King was that the project was not marketable, at least not as I originally envisioned it. I therefore need to rebuild the story after reducing it to its essence, which is:
- postapocalyptic
- time travel
- romance
In order to pare things down, these are some major changes that need to be made:
- Ananth’s time magic can’t be a secret to the reader.
- Ananth needs to be called by his real name (instead of Balthazar) from the beginning.
- Ananth and Ceres need to interact with each other in the same physical space.
- So there’s no desert tower, meaning that Ananth can’t be a “demon king.”
- A lot of the characters in the supporting cast need to be cut.
- Weive (my beloved) is definitely going to stay.
- I’m going to collapse Melchior and Abbas into one character.
- Gasper can stay too, but she’s going to be working for Ceres instead of Ananth.
- All of the court intrigue subplots need to be combined into one conflict.
- The four temples Ananth visits need to be reduced to two, one in the present and one in the past.
Also, the title needs to be changed. “The Ruins of Time” has a nice ring to it, but I’ll keep thinking.
In order to lean into the romance, it’s probably okay to have a five-act structure in which there’s at least one steamy (but not explicit) scene per act. Also, as much as I hate this, Ananth and Ceres need to be in their late twenties, not their mid-thirties.
I’ll need to put together a rough outline, but here’s the basic pitch:
Having used forbidden magic to cast himself into a distant future, the demonic wizard Ananth finds himself in the glittering royal court of the kingdom of Whitespire, where he seeks a powerful relic that will prevent the apocalypse that has decimated the world he knows. Knowledge of this relic is carefully guarded by the beautiful yet devious Princess Ceres, who has recruited Ananth as an ally to subvert a plot against her throne. Ananth allows himself to be drawn closer to Ceres, only to be faced with an impossible decision: Is saving the past worth destroying the future of the woman he loves?
- postapocalyptic
- time travel
- romance
In order to pare things down, these are some major changes that need to be made:
- Ananth’s time magic can’t be a secret to the reader.
- Ananth needs to be called by his real name (instead of Balthazar) from the beginning.
- Ananth and Ceres need to interact with each other in the same physical space.
- So there’s no desert tower, meaning that Ananth can’t be a “demon king.”
- A lot of the characters in the supporting cast need to be cut.
- Weive (my beloved) is definitely going to stay.
- I’m going to collapse Melchior and Abbas into one character.
- Gasper can stay too, but she’s going to be working for Ceres instead of Ananth.
- All of the court intrigue subplots need to be combined into one conflict.
- The four temples Ananth visits need to be reduced to two, one in the present and one in the past.
Also, the title needs to be changed. “The Ruins of Time” has a nice ring to it, but I’ll keep thinking.
In order to lean into the romance, it’s probably okay to have a five-act structure in which there’s at least one steamy (but not explicit) scene per act. Also, as much as I hate this, Ananth and Ceres need to be in their late twenties, not their mid-thirties.
I’ll need to put together a rough outline, but here’s the basic pitch:
Having used forbidden magic to cast himself into a distant future, the demonic wizard Ananth finds himself in the glittering royal court of the kingdom of Whitespire, where he seeks a powerful relic that will prevent the apocalypse that has decimated the world he knows. Knowledge of this relic is carefully guarded by the beautiful yet devious Princess Ceres, who has recruited Ananth as an ally to subvert a plot against her throne. Ananth allows himself to be drawn closer to Ceres, only to be faced with an impossible decision: Is saving the past worth destroying the future of the woman he loves?
