First pass at synopsis: any thoughts?
May. 11th, 2009 04:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonOkay, not the first pass, but the first I'm willing to show anyone.
Anyone care to offer any input on my synopsis for A Rain of Angels? It's just under 2k, single-spaced—a lot longer than a simple query, I realize. Any input greatly appreciated.
A Rain of Angels
Not even the dead can rest in peace in an alternate Earth ruled by the Heavenly Realm, a group of mortals posing as gods. Their mind control keeps large numbers of the living docile, while the dead are left to wander as tormented spirits unless alchemists contain them in artificial bodies, spirit bottles, or spirit baffles. Fighting against the Heavenly Realm is the Movement, freedom fighters composed of mortals, fallen angels, and upraised demons, using steampunk tech, liberated minds, and gritty determination. Gangs also populate this world, dedicated to neither the Heavenly Realm nor fighting for freedom, but to narrow and brutish self-interest.
Carsten, a fallen angel once held in thrall to Kresh, the leader of the Red Neck Gang, now fights alongside the Movement. Her early days as a mortal were characterized by degradation, cruelty, and humiliation until rescue by the Movement, making it difficult for her to trust anyone completely. Her distrust is heightened by her genius for truthscrying, the ability to detect any prevarication. She's seen enough good people telling white lies to know that no one is entirely honest, leaving her confused about the process of being a mortal, and unable to get close to anyone. Instead, she channels her energies into fighting.
Sent to New Batch City to retrieve a newly fallen angel before the Red Neck Gang can claim him, she arrives just in time. Renaming him Rye in a ceremony which makes him her Name Slave, he becomes obedient to her every command—at least until he gains his full mortality and free will. This guarantees that the gangs will not be able to subjugate and humiliate him as they did Carsten. She fights her way to the safety of Movement HQ with the help of a mighty airship, the Cherubimticon.
Rye is innocent of the flesh and must be coached in the arts of becoming human. But he holds a powerful genius for healing by touch, a shining talent with a hidden dark side: he must drain his own energy to heal, and can drain himself unto death, and absorbs the inner pain of those he heals. Haunted by strange visions of wheels within wheels, circles within spirals, Rye first came to fall when a voice spoke to him from these spirals, enlightening him to the corruption of the Heavenly Realm. These visions pull him towards an arduous journey northward to seek a labyrinth which holds the key to unraveling the Realm's power. It's all quite confusing to him, but of one thing he's certain: he loves Carsten, and it has nothing to do with his Name Slave bond.
Carsten is glad to have saved Rye, but the the Name Slave/Name Lord bond draws her powerfully to him. Her history causes her to resist this contact, fearing she'll take advantage of Rye—or so she says. The real danger may be to Carsten's wish to keep isolated from other human beings. But one thing is true: Rye is the one person she's met who has never told even a white lie. When he gains his true mortality and the Name Slave bond is dissolved, Carsten is forced to admit to herself that whatever feelings she has for Rye are her own and not an artificial bond generated by magic.
Smiter angels, the fearsome avengers of the Heavenly Realm, attack the infirmary at Movement HQ where Rye has been housed, flinging fireballs they form between their hands, destroying the building and all within. Carsten fears she's lost Rye forever, but he escapes the carnage and afterwards, it becomes clear that someone has informed the Heavenly Realm of Rye's visions and the danger he poses to their power base. Carsten uses her truthscrying to hunt for the spy amongst her Movement brethren, but it's a long and difficult process. When yet another Movement secret is divulged, leading to a full-scale invasion of HQ by Congregationists, those cult-like mortals most in the sway of the Heavenly Realm, the spy is revealed to be Evia, an assistant to the Movement's chief alchemist.
Evia grew up in a society of alchemists who ruled a jungle people naturally resistant to the control of the Heavenly Realm. Her jealousy of her sister, chosen queen instead of Evia, grew so poisonous that she left her own people to align herself with the Congregationists. She has spiedon the Movement ever since. In the wake of the invasion, and with the help of smiter angels and a Congregationist suicide squad, she escapes HQ and heads north to the Congregation of Xondilu.
Carsten and Rye realize that the objective of the Congregationists and the Heavenly Realm has shifted: this time they tried to capture Rye rather than kill him. They also realize that these fanatics won't give up. The Movement has been devastated by the invasion. They won't stand another such blow. Rye decides to journey north seeking the labyrinth. Carsten is forced to confront her true feelings for him and declare her love. Together, they trek north aboard a miniaturized version of the Cherubimticon: a smaller airship called the Cherub. They cross unexplored jungle, following Rye's compulsion and his inner compass pointing him towards the source of the enormous Pachamama River. The river's heart lies somewhere underneath a mountain range, and the labyrinth Rye seeks is also there.
When the Cherub is damaged and forced to set down on top of a conical peak for repairs, the peak turns out to be a temple sacred to the jungle people Evia abandoned. They swarm the ship, taking the crew hostage, and force them to fly to the immense plateau where they have carved out a home for themselves—literally, inside the plateau. Once the queen learns of Evia's treachery, she agrees to help Carsten and Rye reach their goal, offering them the use of her greatest ally, the enormous sentient dragon named Bluchadawa. But the dragon has a grudge against Rye: when he was an angel in the Heavenly Realm, he commanded smiters, and sent them to kill her mate and hatchlings. Only when a part of Carsten that's been locked away since her fall, a part of her angel nature that was never shattered, speaks up for Rye does Bluchadawa relent and agree to help.
Bluchadawa ferries them across the mountains to the place where the Pachamama goes underground. They are attacked by smiters, but with Carsten's energy to help him, Rye produces fireballs of his own, fending off the smiters. They shatter like glass, releasing giant spirits, which turn on their fellow smiters to destroy them. They realize smiters are another, gigantic kind of artificial body like the ones the alchemists make for the tormented dead, but wonder what kind of spirits go inside them. Clearly not the ordinary mortal kind.
Carsten and Rye use a smiter wing as a boat to ride the Pachamama underground, following the pull inside Rye. Some power takes over their journey, protecting them and guiding their boat to a pebbled underground beach with two tunnels: one leading straight up from the beach, another off to their left. Before they can make it to the straight-ahead tunnel, Congregationists headed by Evia appear out of the other tunnel, capturing Carsten and Rye. Evia reveals that the glorious leader of Xondilu is dying, and they need Rye to heal him. The Heavenly Realm does not have the power to heal. Evia also reveals that smiters are created from the spirits of fallen angels, and says they need more to replace those lost. She produces a jar filled with swirling amber liquid and fatally shoots Carsten. Rye tries to heal her but is held off by the Congregationists—for which Carsten is glad, knowing he'd kill himself on her behalf.
She lets go of her life and her spirit shoots forth. Evia's alchemical incantations seek to coax her into the jar of amber liquid while Rye's healing energy tries to break her free. The voice of true death also calls from beyond. If she follows the voice of true death she'll be at peace, but she can't leave Rye to such an awful fate. She streams towards the amber jar. At the last second, before Evia can do anything to counter it, she swoops away from the jar and plunges into Rye's chest, cohabitating with him inside his body. This gives him enough strength to free himself from his captors and start unleashing fireballs. Evia and some of the Congregationists flee, and Rye's fireballs collapse the tunnel behind them, blocking their return. But when he turns to find Carsten's body, it's gone. He grabs one of the wounded Congregationists, demanding to know where she is. The man says the Abomination has taken her, and indicates the other tunnel, the one leading straight up from the beach.
They race through the tunnel, emerging in a vast cavern. On the cavern floor is a huge labyrinth, pathways composed of white stone and green glass walls. In the center of the labyrinth stands a black pillar. Lying beside it is Carsten's body. A voice speaks to them from the pillar, calling himself Asterion, and says that if Rye walks the pathway to the center and lays his healing hands on the pillar, Asterion will be freed. The control of the Heavenly Realm, who have been using him as their power source, will be at an end. In exchange, says Asterion, he will make Carsten as good as new.
As they enter the labyrinth, images sent from the Heavenly Realm appear on the walls, recalling Rye's shame, Carsten's degradation, image after image forcing them to fight their way through their own tangled emotions to get to Asterion. Only by overcoming their own tortured pasts can they break through. Rye surges forward, laying his hands on the black pillar. It cracks open, and the explosion knocks Rye back, and flings Carsten from his body. As her spirit hovers nearby, Asterion keeps his word, aiding Rye's power to heal her. She tumbles towards the ground, into her own body, becoming aware of herself in the flesh once more, but she doesn't know who she is. Rye is so small he can fit in the palm of her hand. Asterion has taken her healing too far: she is once more an angel, cold and removed from mortal life.
Asterion tells her she must walk back along the labyrinth to free the minds of the world. She does, carrying Rye. A host of gods and goddesses, emotions and modes of thinking, escape from the labyrinth walls as she passes, moving back into the world and the hearts of mortals. She takes the unconscious Rye out of the chamber and through the tunnels leading from the underground, breaking out into the open. She remembers more and more as she goes. They land in a mountain meadow while overhead angels, liberated from the Heavenly Realm, rain from the sky, and wandering spirits not trapped in bottles or housed in artificial bodies, are finally able to ascend to the place of true death and peace. Angel Carsten feels a strong pull to go there herself. Rye doesn't try to stop her, figuring she'll be happier there. But she remembers that there's a fight to continue on earth between the gangs and the Congregations; more trapped spirits to be liberated; and more than this, that she loves Rye and belongs here with him.
She signals for Bluchadawa to return and retrieve them, then touches Rye once more, transforming on a wave of energy back into her mortal self. She and Rye make joyful love in the mountain meadow. True death will have to wait. For now, she's going to stick with Rye, the closest thing she's found to Paradise in heaven or on earth.
Anyone care to offer any input on my synopsis for A Rain of Angels? It's just under 2k, single-spaced—a lot longer than a simple query, I realize. Any input greatly appreciated.
Not even the dead can rest in peace in an alternate Earth ruled by the Heavenly Realm, a group of mortals posing as gods. Their mind control keeps large numbers of the living docile, while the dead are left to wander as tormented spirits unless alchemists contain them in artificial bodies, spirit bottles, or spirit baffles. Fighting against the Heavenly Realm is the Movement, freedom fighters composed of mortals, fallen angels, and upraised demons, using steampunk tech, liberated minds, and gritty determination. Gangs also populate this world, dedicated to neither the Heavenly Realm nor fighting for freedom, but to narrow and brutish self-interest.
Carsten, a fallen angel once held in thrall to Kresh, the leader of the Red Neck Gang, now fights alongside the Movement. Her early days as a mortal were characterized by degradation, cruelty, and humiliation until rescue by the Movement, making it difficult for her to trust anyone completely. Her distrust is heightened by her genius for truthscrying, the ability to detect any prevarication. She's seen enough good people telling white lies to know that no one is entirely honest, leaving her confused about the process of being a mortal, and unable to get close to anyone. Instead, she channels her energies into fighting.
Sent to New Batch City to retrieve a newly fallen angel before the Red Neck Gang can claim him, she arrives just in time. Renaming him Rye in a ceremony which makes him her Name Slave, he becomes obedient to her every command—at least until he gains his full mortality and free will. This guarantees that the gangs will not be able to subjugate and humiliate him as they did Carsten. She fights her way to the safety of Movement HQ with the help of a mighty airship, the Cherubimticon.
Rye is innocent of the flesh and must be coached in the arts of becoming human. But he holds a powerful genius for healing by touch, a shining talent with a hidden dark side: he must drain his own energy to heal, and can drain himself unto death, and absorbs the inner pain of those he heals. Haunted by strange visions of wheels within wheels, circles within spirals, Rye first came to fall when a voice spoke to him from these spirals, enlightening him to the corruption of the Heavenly Realm. These visions pull him towards an arduous journey northward to seek a labyrinth which holds the key to unraveling the Realm's power. It's all quite confusing to him, but of one thing he's certain: he loves Carsten, and it has nothing to do with his Name Slave bond.
Carsten is glad to have saved Rye, but the the Name Slave/Name Lord bond draws her powerfully to him. Her history causes her to resist this contact, fearing she'll take advantage of Rye—or so she says. The real danger may be to Carsten's wish to keep isolated from other human beings. But one thing is true: Rye is the one person she's met who has never told even a white lie. When he gains his true mortality and the Name Slave bond is dissolved, Carsten is forced to admit to herself that whatever feelings she has for Rye are her own and not an artificial bond generated by magic.
Smiter angels, the fearsome avengers of the Heavenly Realm, attack the infirmary at Movement HQ where Rye has been housed, flinging fireballs they form between their hands, destroying the building and all within. Carsten fears she's lost Rye forever, but he escapes the carnage and afterwards, it becomes clear that someone has informed the Heavenly Realm of Rye's visions and the danger he poses to their power base. Carsten uses her truthscrying to hunt for the spy amongst her Movement brethren, but it's a long and difficult process. When yet another Movement secret is divulged, leading to a full-scale invasion of HQ by Congregationists, those cult-like mortals most in the sway of the Heavenly Realm, the spy is revealed to be Evia, an assistant to the Movement's chief alchemist.
Evia grew up in a society of alchemists who ruled a jungle people naturally resistant to the control of the Heavenly Realm. Her jealousy of her sister, chosen queen instead of Evia, grew so poisonous that she left her own people to align herself with the Congregationists. She has spiedon the Movement ever since. In the wake of the invasion, and with the help of smiter angels and a Congregationist suicide squad, she escapes HQ and heads north to the Congregation of Xondilu.
Carsten and Rye realize that the objective of the Congregationists and the Heavenly Realm has shifted: this time they tried to capture Rye rather than kill him. They also realize that these fanatics won't give up. The Movement has been devastated by the invasion. They won't stand another such blow. Rye decides to journey north seeking the labyrinth. Carsten is forced to confront her true feelings for him and declare her love. Together, they trek north aboard a miniaturized version of the Cherubimticon: a smaller airship called the Cherub. They cross unexplored jungle, following Rye's compulsion and his inner compass pointing him towards the source of the enormous Pachamama River. The river's heart lies somewhere underneath a mountain range, and the labyrinth Rye seeks is also there.
When the Cherub is damaged and forced to set down on top of a conical peak for repairs, the peak turns out to be a temple sacred to the jungle people Evia abandoned. They swarm the ship, taking the crew hostage, and force them to fly to the immense plateau where they have carved out a home for themselves—literally, inside the plateau. Once the queen learns of Evia's treachery, she agrees to help Carsten and Rye reach their goal, offering them the use of her greatest ally, the enormous sentient dragon named Bluchadawa. But the dragon has a grudge against Rye: when he was an angel in the Heavenly Realm, he commanded smiters, and sent them to kill her mate and hatchlings. Only when a part of Carsten that's been locked away since her fall, a part of her angel nature that was never shattered, speaks up for Rye does Bluchadawa relent and agree to help.
Bluchadawa ferries them across the mountains to the place where the Pachamama goes underground. They are attacked by smiters, but with Carsten's energy to help him, Rye produces fireballs of his own, fending off the smiters. They shatter like glass, releasing giant spirits, which turn on their fellow smiters to destroy them. They realize smiters are another, gigantic kind of artificial body like the ones the alchemists make for the tormented dead, but wonder what kind of spirits go inside them. Clearly not the ordinary mortal kind.
Carsten and Rye use a smiter wing as a boat to ride the Pachamama underground, following the pull inside Rye. Some power takes over their journey, protecting them and guiding their boat to a pebbled underground beach with two tunnels: one leading straight up from the beach, another off to their left. Before they can make it to the straight-ahead tunnel, Congregationists headed by Evia appear out of the other tunnel, capturing Carsten and Rye. Evia reveals that the glorious leader of Xondilu is dying, and they need Rye to heal him. The Heavenly Realm does not have the power to heal. Evia also reveals that smiters are created from the spirits of fallen angels, and says they need more to replace those lost. She produces a jar filled with swirling amber liquid and fatally shoots Carsten. Rye tries to heal her but is held off by the Congregationists—for which Carsten is glad, knowing he'd kill himself on her behalf.
She lets go of her life and her spirit shoots forth. Evia's alchemical incantations seek to coax her into the jar of amber liquid while Rye's healing energy tries to break her free. The voice of true death also calls from beyond. If she follows the voice of true death she'll be at peace, but she can't leave Rye to such an awful fate. She streams towards the amber jar. At the last second, before Evia can do anything to counter it, she swoops away from the jar and plunges into Rye's chest, cohabitating with him inside his body. This gives him enough strength to free himself from his captors and start unleashing fireballs. Evia and some of the Congregationists flee, and Rye's fireballs collapse the tunnel behind them, blocking their return. But when he turns to find Carsten's body, it's gone. He grabs one of the wounded Congregationists, demanding to know where she is. The man says the Abomination has taken her, and indicates the other tunnel, the one leading straight up from the beach.
They race through the tunnel, emerging in a vast cavern. On the cavern floor is a huge labyrinth, pathways composed of white stone and green glass walls. In the center of the labyrinth stands a black pillar. Lying beside it is Carsten's body. A voice speaks to them from the pillar, calling himself Asterion, and says that if Rye walks the pathway to the center and lays his healing hands on the pillar, Asterion will be freed. The control of the Heavenly Realm, who have been using him as their power source, will be at an end. In exchange, says Asterion, he will make Carsten as good as new.
As they enter the labyrinth, images sent from the Heavenly Realm appear on the walls, recalling Rye's shame, Carsten's degradation, image after image forcing them to fight their way through their own tangled emotions to get to Asterion. Only by overcoming their own tortured pasts can they break through. Rye surges forward, laying his hands on the black pillar. It cracks open, and the explosion knocks Rye back, and flings Carsten from his body. As her spirit hovers nearby, Asterion keeps his word, aiding Rye's power to heal her. She tumbles towards the ground, into her own body, becoming aware of herself in the flesh once more, but she doesn't know who she is. Rye is so small he can fit in the palm of her hand. Asterion has taken her healing too far: she is once more an angel, cold and removed from mortal life.
Asterion tells her she must walk back along the labyrinth to free the minds of the world. She does, carrying Rye. A host of gods and goddesses, emotions and modes of thinking, escape from the labyrinth walls as she passes, moving back into the world and the hearts of mortals. She takes the unconscious Rye out of the chamber and through the tunnels leading from the underground, breaking out into the open. She remembers more and more as she goes. They land in a mountain meadow while overhead angels, liberated from the Heavenly Realm, rain from the sky, and wandering spirits not trapped in bottles or housed in artificial bodies, are finally able to ascend to the place of true death and peace. Angel Carsten feels a strong pull to go there herself. Rye doesn't try to stop her, figuring she'll be happier there. But she remembers that there's a fight to continue on earth between the gangs and the Congregations; more trapped spirits to be liberated; and more than this, that she loves Rye and belongs here with him.
She signals for Bluchadawa to return and retrieve them, then touches Rye once more, transforming on a wave of energy back into her mortal self. She and Rye make joyful love in the mountain meadow. True death will have to wait. For now, she's going to stick with Rye, the closest thing she's found to Paradise in heaven or on earth.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 12:13 am (UTC)Generally speaking, the whole is amazing and exciting. But that said, I found the first half more exciting than the last half. I tried to look at why: my impression is that the tone becomes flat as it reports one after another happening, without as much of a sense of emotional variety, which I did feel more of in the first graphs.
Could just be me.
Again: it's an awesome story, one I'd buy.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 02:00 am (UTC)I also hit a speed bump when Carsten gets healed by Asterion. It isn't immediately obvious that she is in her angel form and it would add a lot more to this if it were. Yes, it is there, but after the fact. I also need to know angels can fly and this is what she does to get them out of there.
One more point. Have a purge on the but conjunction. I am noticing a lot of these.
And I would buy the book in a heartbeat. You have everything well laid out and I can see the story arc, the MCs, the threat and the consequences. Nicely done.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 08:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 04:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-12 04:54 pm (UTC)