Sorry for being so slow to comment. This really seems to capture the book very well now, but, with the proviso that I really know nothing about pitches to agents, here are a few comments.
1) I don't like 'Kiril Tesurik, sixteen' either - it sounds as if he is being interviewed for a newspaper! 'All his life, sixteen-year-old Kiril Tesurik' is much better.
2) I'm not sure about 'the cruel lord Marakis' - it just gives me a picture of him cackling madly and twirling his moustache while handing explosives to small children, somehow. Would it be possible to say something like 'sent to the desert mines, one of the children used to carry explosives down tunnels'? Or leave lord Marakis in, but leave out the cruel? After all, employing children in dangerous jobs is something we would automatically think of as cruel - it doesn't need to be labelled as such.
3) I like 'to survive, and to keep protecting his cousin and little brother', and it is true - but R J Anderson is right, he is not protecting them from anything specific. I rather like Deirdre's suggestion about leading them into an unimaginable new life - that might be a very good compromise, IMO.
4) I was going to say that including Niki might make everything too complicated, but you've managed to sum up her part in the story beautifully! I would however suggest toning down 'can hack into any computer system, even the government's'. I think this might just suggest to an agent that what you have is a clone of Lisbeth Salander from 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' - when really, Niki is anything but! So perhaps going easy on the preternatural hacking abilities, and including some of Niki's unLisbeth-like qualities (such as warmth, loyalty, family feeling) might be an idea. But perhaps that is just me?
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Date: 2010-08-08 02:22 pm (UTC)1) I don't like 'Kiril Tesurik, sixteen' either - it sounds as if he is being interviewed for a newspaper! 'All his life, sixteen-year-old Kiril Tesurik' is much better.
2) I'm not sure about 'the cruel lord Marakis' - it just gives me a picture of him cackling madly and twirling his moustache while handing explosives to small children, somehow. Would it be possible to say something like 'sent to the desert mines, one of the children used to carry explosives down tunnels'? Or leave lord Marakis in, but leave out the cruel? After all, employing children in dangerous jobs is something we would automatically think of as cruel - it doesn't need to be labelled as such.
3) I like 'to survive, and to keep protecting his cousin and little brother', and it is true - but R J Anderson is right, he is not protecting them from anything specific. I rather like Deirdre's suggestion about leading them into an unimaginable new life - that might be a very good compromise, IMO.
4) I was going to say that including Niki might make everything too complicated, but you've managed to sum up her part in the story beautifully! I would however suggest toning down 'can hack into any computer system, even the government's'. I think this might just suggest to an agent that what you have is a clone of Lisbeth Salander from 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' - when really, Niki is anything but! So perhaps going easy on the preternatural hacking abilities, and including some of Niki's unLisbeth-like qualities (such as warmth, loyalty, family feeling) might be an idea. But perhaps that is just me?