Lauren Harsma & Kate Dias

The Mirror by Lauren Harsma & Kate Dias

The mapmaker crushed the shard with his heel. The silver sand of it ground into the sole of his boot; the grit of his bottom molars ground into the faces of his top ones. His face was a ruby, the whites of his eyes the tan of the flesh of a nut as he gripped his foot in his palm and stared at the sole. For a few moments: nothing.

Then, in a celestial swirl, the glass rose up and plunged down to meet the glittering residue on the floor. The particles swarmed like bees, brotherly, and knit themselves back together into a flawless shard of mirror. Miles continued holding onto his foot, staring at the sliver of glass with his walnut eyes. He’d have to start again.

– – –

It wouldn’t stay shattered, so it had to be scattered. Broken into a hundred pieces, put into a hundred boxes, scattered into a hundred worlds, the Mirror remained a vengeful, dark thing, but it wasn’t whole.

A cartographer and a pirate captain must align themselves with artisans, riders, and rogues to spread the shards of the mirror across the world and over the years to keep it from reforming and wreaking havoc on the lives of everyone it encounters. But as they battle an ethereal evil, they’re being unwittingly pursued by a more corporeal one…

The Book Doctors:

We like how this pitch starts.  We see the kind of magic you are going to be bringing us, and we get a sense of your style is a writer.  But some of your writing feels a bit awkward. “the whites of his eyes the tan of the flesh of a nut”  What exactly are you describing that is colored the tan of the flesh of a nut?  We really don’t see a plot here.  Or a hero who we know and love and are rooting for.  A cartographer and a pirate captain are interesting, but we need more because we don’t leave the pitch I’m invested in them.  And what is the nature of the evil, apart from ethereal?  We need more of a description of this evil thing, so that it makes us shiver in dread.  We also don’t really understand what the mirror does, what is the result of its vengeful darkness?