Meredith Mansfield, Author

Well, since I’m working through a polishing edit on MAGE STORM, preparing it for readers in the very near future, it’s time to think about queries and synopses again.

I have a query, although I’m quite sure it can be improved:. 

Fifteen-year-old Rell lives in a world where magic is dead.  It died with the all the mages at the end of the Great Mage War.  All that’s left are the mage storms, composed of the ashes of the dead mages, wreaking havoc.

Or so everyone believes until a freak mage storm infects Rell with magic he can’t control.  When he fails to learn how to control his frightening new abilities on his own, Rell runs off to seek help.  It turns out magic isn’t as dead as people think and real help isn’t as easy to find as Rell hoped.

The only teacher anyone knows of is Trav, who turns out to be an overbearing cult leader who murders anyone with real talent.  After witnessing his latest murder, Rell is next on Trav’s list.  Rell is forced to flee, but he can’t forget the friends he left behind.  Somehow, he has to learn enough to return and free the others.

That is, if Trav doesn’t catch him first, because Trav doesn’t let anyone get away that easily.

Now I have to start working on the synopsis.  I had a basic one I used as an outline, but it’s not helping as much as I hoped it would in creating a really interesting version of the story.  It’s still got to hook.

Ah, well.  Back to work.