draft of a submittion

Lets try this, as a draft.

Dears sirs:
 I submit for your review an outline of a contemporary/fantasy novel. Tentatively titled Tywacomb, this story takes place in a contemporary time frame, with scenes on Earth,and the majority of the story happening on the planet Tywacomb, elsewhere in this galaxy. The main characters are a native of Tywacomb who is a magic user; and a husband and wife from Earth, he is a former marine sniper and now small business owner, she is a work from home mom who also teaches a martial arts class.

 The outline is as follows:
Prologue
  A place reminiscent of the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, but where real magic is available. A gathering of people representing factions that would normally be antagonistic bury a common enemy. One prophecies that the cycle that produced this enemy will produce another in the future. This is the under girding arc for a potential series.

Act One
  Caspian, a Mage, is sent by a clan of elves to travel from Tywacomb to Earth to find the descendants of one of their own who previously emigrated and went native. There are operatives from a certain kingdom who are also going to seek for the this same family, for their own ends. As Caspian travels to the bridge point to leave the planet, he sees that he is not alone in his journey. Caspian uses his magic to travel the distance.
Steven and Roxanne Caplan live in the area south of Carson City, Nevada. Roxanne is the unknowing great granddaughter of the elf who immigrated. They have two children, and Diana, age 10 and Alex, age 8.
  The bad guys get to the Caplan's before Caspian can, and kidnap Rox and the two kids, and take them back to Tywacomb. Caspian has to convince Steven to come with, and they set out for Tywacomb. Steve is at first skeptical of magic. Caspian later explains that for some reason Earth does not have real magic, while other planets in the universe do. On Tywacomb, Caspian figures out that the bad guys have sold off Roxanne, not needing her for their own plans, therefore the best thing to do is get Steven acclimated to the planet, while going after Rox first. The bad guys take the kids halfway around the planet by caravan, for reasons of plot.

Act Two: Roxanne is sold as a slave, and then paid by the slaver as tax to cross into a kingdom. She is then taken to the capitol and ends up the servant and apprentice to a Sorceress who advises in this kings court. The Sorceress figures out that Rox has elf-ancestry, and an undeveloped talent for magic. Rox begins to learn magic fundamentals while also earning enough money to either buy herself free, or outfit herself to go after her kids once her husband shows up to liberate her. She does not have enough information to tell either who her elf antecedents are or who the bad guys are, for this kingdom to be of any help that way.
  Caspian and Steven have to travel the comparative distance of Cardston Canada to Tri-cities Oregon by foot. Caspian has a tracker given him from the elves that will follow the descendants of the given elf, and is following it after Roxanne. He could be going faster, but is preferring to focus on getting Steven's 'head in the game' and acclimated to where he is at first. He figures that once they have retrieved Roxanne, they will be ready to go directly after the kids and kidnappers; there are other motives as well.
  Steven picks up a young woman in distress, stumbling over a local custom. This woman, once physical healed is helpful, knowing some of the local area and is an able woodsman.
  The three travel the distance to the capitol city where Rox is, and as they approach find a invading army in disguise as a caravan of traders. The three get away from the invaders and hook up with another caravan of real traders. Caspian tries to warn anyone but no one takes him seriously. In the ensuing fight the three lend a hand, and capture the leader, and trade him for Roxanne.

Act Three: Steven and Rox reunite and compare notes, then after some house keeping they set out with Caspian. The native girl goes off with the real trader caravan. The Sorceress helps equip Rox and send them on their way.
  The Caplan's and Caspian are intercepted by a messenger from the elf clan: they want to see Roxanne asap, and will help her get the kids back. So they change course, and head for the elves. At the elf city, they discover that most of the elves are not very friendly to humans. Caspian finally tells the Caplan's all that the elves instructed him to do, in allowing their kids to be kidnapped, upsetting the Caplan's. Steven tells off the head elves, after which the elves are more tractable, and help.
  Roxanne is taught elf-magic, to go with what she has been learning so far. She is still a beginner, but thanks to her martial arts practice, is confident she will learn more and better. They also begin to equip and dress her as one of them.
  Steven is sent after a particular sword, and after successfully getting it, the elves consent to outfit him similarly to Roxanne.
  To this end, Caspian, Rox, and Steven are given a few days to get back to Earth and do some quick shopping. They teleport to the planetary jump-point, and then to earth. Rox does the shopping, and Steven gets picked up and taken into police custody, on suspicion of helping kidnap his wife and kids, then fleeing town. Rox and Caspian hire a lawyer to start taking care of things, and them go pick up Steven and teleport away, back to Tywacomb.
  They get back to the elves and fully outfitted and on their way.
  The bad guys caravan arrives in the bad guys capitol and the kids are separated and sent to where the bad guys want them raised.

Act Four:
  Introduce Karen. She is a psionically talented assassin, and contracted by the Queen of the bad guys to kill Caspian and arrange for the capture of the Caplan's, or just kill them. The Viceroy of the bad guys counters this hire, for Karen to not kill the Caplan's but help them get their kids back and then teach them what they will have to do to kill the queen and king. Karen takes the contract, and does her research.
  The Caplan's and Caspian arrive in the bad guys city, having traveled much quicker than in act two. They begin nosing around, and find that the local royals are conveniently holding a ball, in celebration of their 'victory over their enemy', meaning kidnapping the Caplan's kids. The ball was held off to allow the nobles to come, and as a trap for the Caplan's, who are expected to attend to try to find where the kids were sent to.
  Roxanne gets in a magic fight in a banquet room, and Karen extracts her and leads her out of the palace into the city. Steven and Caspian start looking for Rox the next day, and Karen Rox find them. Karen takes an unusual tact, and is completely honest about being hired to kill Caspian, and help the Caplan's get their kids back. She does not say anything more about her job.
At Karen's lead they leave the city and go to the cave/highway that will lead to where the kids are. Along the way Karen uses her psionic talents to imprint into Rox and Steven's minds all she could find about the underground villages where their kids are. At the cave mouth, Karen refuses to go any further (she is claustrophobic). She will wait her for their return.
The three travel in a day, and then split up. Steven goes after Alex, who is being fostered in a community of psionic warriors. Rox and Caspian go after Diana being fostered by a community of subterranean-elves. Steven arrives after some minor adventures, and doing a bit of sneaking around and getting a certain scroll, simply marches in, identifies himself and claims his son. These warriors being honorable let Alex go; they send a sword with him, thinking he will have to return to them to learn how to use is, unaware that Steven has taken the scroll that will teach that. Rox and Caspian take a different tack with the elves, they blow up a few of the buildings in the elf village and then move through the chaos and retrieve Diana from the elf-witch Diana was fostered to.
  They all travel back up to the surface, meeting up and finding Karen waiting patiently. Karen reports she took down two elf messengers who were tasked with reporting Diana's disappearance. They start traveling to leave the area.

Act Five
Again Karen uses her psionic skills to teach all four Caplan's what their rolls are in trying to kill the king and queen. when she is confident, that the Caplan's are ready, she signals a nearby ambush of the queen's/viceroy's men who attack.
  Karen takes down Caspian in the attack 'killing' him. The Caplan's are led away, and Karen paid off. Karen then takes Caspian's unconscious body and heads for the closest town.
  The Caplan's are carried back to the city, and paraded into the palace. Roxanne and Diana are taken to the Queen in a palace garden. Steven and Alex are taken to the King in a dinning hall.
Rox gets free using magic and then frees Diana. The arbor is a magic power base for the queen, Rox manages to destroy it. Diana then uses a spell to throw the queen away from her across the rubble, and impales her on some killing her.
Steven gets free and thugs a few of the guards and gets the sword that the elves sent him after. This sword causes all magic in its area to shut off. The King foolishly/over confidently accepts Steven's invitation to duel. Steven gets Alex loose in the melee. In the middle of the fight the queen's arbor explodes, causing this to pause. With the king's magic armor negated by Steven's sword, Alex can get in close enough to run the king through with the sword the psi-warriors gave him.
 The Viceroy takes over as soon as the kings falls. He orders that the Caplan women be retrieved from the arbor, and then gives them a day to rest and recover strength, then to get out of the city.

Epilogue
  The Caplan's did not have the means to buy, and were not given horses, so they are on foot, most of a day out from the city when they encounter Karen and Caspian. Karen explains that she did not kill Caspian for her own reasons, but that she did program the information the Caplan's needed to kill the king and queen, and who specifically needed to do it. She apologizes for the upset, but not for doing it.

This book ends here, with the story of what happened while Caspian was in Karen's care, how and when the Caplan's get back to earth, and all the other loose ends covered in subsequent publications.


I write this as a draft of a submitting letter. On the website that I looked at that recommended this instead of submitting a full manuscript, suggested I add two or three chapters of the manuscript. But I refer the reader to other entries of this blog for those, just now.