Blurb for A Child of Great Promise

[skip.knox]

I don't much care for this description, but I'm in brain lock and can't find a way forward. All comments very much welcome!

Orphan. Half-breed. The girl who can fly.

The young woman Talysse longs to escape her orphanage in southern France and find her parents. All she knows about them is that her mother is a noblewoman and her father an elf. She’s tired of her magic lessons and tired of living an isolated life.

When the wizard Saveric arrives, insisting she come away with him to a wizard school in Paris, she’s afraid she’ll be trading one prison for another. So she flies away.

Now, she and her faithful gnome companion, Detta, must find their way to the man who has been her patron ever since she was little. They are helped along their way by Occitan cowboys who ride pure white horses. They travel with elf wagoneers. They meet a troubador and an elf chevalier, both of whom link their fortunes to hers.

They are pursued relentlessly by Saveric, who commands all the resources of the powerful Syndicat. Is he hunting Talysse, or trying to rescue her? All answers lie high in the Pyrenees Mountains, where Talysse’s wizard patron lives. There she must face the truth about her past, if she is ever to have a future.

 

[Laurence]

Wow. I will definitely be buying.

To be honest, this bit was all I needed:

"The young woman Talysse longs to escape her orphanage in southern France and find her parents. All she knows about them is that her mother is a noblewoman and her father an elf. She’s tired of her magic lessons and tired of living an isolated life.

When the wizard Saveric arrives, insisting she come away with him to a wizard school in Paris, she’s afraid she’ll be trading one prison for another. So she flies away."

 

[Svrtnsse]

After last I posted asking feedback on my blurb (and the time before that, and probably before that too) Chessie2 suggested I get this book on blurb writing. It's a short read, and it had some good tips, so it's well worth getting. I'll try and sum up the main advice though. Basically, a blurb should address five questions:

1. Who's the main character?
2. What do they want?
3. What stands in their way?
4. What must they do to achieve their goal?
5. What's at stake?

In your case the first two questions are easy: The main character is Talysse, and she wants escape her orphanage and find her parents.

What stands in her way is a bit trickier to define.
To begin with she's at an orphanage, and she needs to get out of that, but there's more than that. The wizard Saveric wants to capture (or rescue) her, and he's got a whole lot of resources at hand to help him out.

What must Talysse do?
To find her parents, Talysse must travel to the Pyrenees and find her wizard patron.

What's at stake?
This is probably what's most unclear from the quote above. If Saveric manages to capture Talysse, what will he do with her, or is he even trying to rescue her? The part about whether or not he's trying to rescue her makes me suspect that maybe he really is, and Talysse is heading straight for her doom and then there will be some kind of confused mixup in the end where it's not really certain who's actually the bad guy.
It also says she needs to face the truth about her past in order to have a future. This is also very vague. There's not been much mention about her past, except she's an orphan, and her parents are an elf and a human.

- - -

They are helped along their way by Occitan cowboys who ride pure white horses. They travel with elf wagoneers. They meet a troubador and an elf chevalier, both of whom link their fortunes to hers.

I'm having doubts about this part. It lists cool stuff, but it doesn't feel cool. It feels more like a list of facts - a bit dry.
I don't know if it's the way to go. Maybe mention some of the things that threaten Detta and Talysse instead of those that help them?

I'm feeling a bit the same about the initial description of Talysse: the girl who can fly. It's got this ring to it like she's someone well known or famous, at least to the people of the story, a bit like a super hero. Compare: the man of steel.

I'll try taking a stab at it, maybe it'll give some ideas:

Talysse is an orphan and a half-breed - a student of magic since as long as she can remember. No longer a girl, but a young woman, she's finally ready to escape. She's learned the secrets of magic flight, and she's kept her true powers hidden even from her teachers. The time to seek out her patron and find her parent draws close.
Before Talysse can set her plans in motion, the wizard Saveric shows up at the orphanage and demands she come with him to Paris. She's to study at a wizarding school, or so he claims...
To save herself from trading one prison for another, Talysse makes her escape then and there, unprepared and without thinking, she flies away right in front of everyone.
But Saveric is not so easily foiled, and he's got more powers at his disposal than Talysse could ever dream of. To avoid his pursuit she must use all of her skill, and seek what help she can get from whoever she encounters on the way - nomadic elves and Occitan herdsmen, vagabonds and chevaliers.
In the end though, only Talysse herself can face the truth of her past, and only she can stand up to Saveric's nefarious machinations. ​

Okay, so that's not necessarily an improvement, and it doesn't fully address the points I made at the start of the post, but maybe it'll give you some ideas and set the wheels in motion.

 

[skip.knox]

Good feedback, Svrt. I agree that the list of secondary characters is unnecessary. Case of author fondness there. Let the reader discover those things.

I'm also thinking of leaving off that opening line entirely. We learn in the next paragraph she's an orphan and the flying bit is not crucial to the plot.

What's at stake is harder because there's nothing really earth-shaking at stake. There's a magic staff, but it doesn't come into play until late, so it's not at stake in plot terms.

I'll wait and hope to hear from others, rather than make a too-early stab at revision.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I'll wait and hope to hear from others, rather than make a too-early stab at revision.

I've learned from experience that this is a good thing. I did the other way around and began changing things up as soon as I got a comment, and it ended up confusing not only me, but the whole discussion.

 

[FifthView]

What I find to be unclear is the fact that she's had a patron "ever since she was little," yet she somehow, for some reason, has to find him "high in the Pyrenees Mountains."

The first suggests some sort of close association; the second, a gulf.

Given that this patron figures so much in the story and her backstory and the plot, I wonder if more attention on that person and relationship would be warranted for the blurb.

 

[skip.knox]

Another good point. I'm inclined more toward stripping things down than expanding them. I'll see what I think if I remove references to the patron entirely. He figures largely at the end, but a blurb should concentrate rather than dilute the message.