The agent I'm getting to query requires a 1-2 page synopsis of the story. Here's what I wrote up for Henry Rider: Clown Hunter. What do you guys think? The story begins with Henry Rider appearing at the house of Ethan Griggs, having been informed that a maiam attack is about to take place there. She loses the Escher Cube, the magic relic she uses to teleport between dimensions, and proceeds to fight the maiam inside the house. While doing so, she encounters Ethan, who holds an incredible amount of laughter inside him. After defeating the maiam, Ethan is attacked by a man in a clown mask. When Henry tries to fight him, he reveals that his laughter is poisonous, and Henry is incapacitated until Ethan sprays her inhaler (which is full of laughter) into her mouth. Knowing that Ethan’s laughter will attract more maiams, Henry decides to bring him with her. His uncle was also killed during the attack, leaving him without a guardian. She takes him around an interdimensional Corner, and they board train that brings them to Mauldibamm, the klaon capital. There, the reader is introduced to her Grandpa Teddy, representative of the Blues in the Council of Shnoob. Henry tells him and the other three representatives (Ichabod, Victoria, and Patricia) what happened, and they agree that Ethan’s laughter is too valuable to allow him to run free. Ethan says that he hasn’t been able to laugh since his parents died months ago. When the council’s solution is to imprison him, Henry volunteers to take care of him personally until he learns to laugh again. They agree reluctantly, threatening to strip her of her title if anything happens to Ethan. The following day, Henry retrieves the Escher Cube and brings it to her mentor, McGus. He reveals that her carelessly worded promise to the council means she has to bring Ethan with her everywhere, even on dangerous missions. He also provides the location for another maiam she needs to kill. Henry goes home to get Ethan, who is reluctant to come, and then teleports them both to an abandoned entertainment center. Despite Henry’s efforts, the maiam captures Ethan and almost feeds off of him before Henry manages to kill it. The day after that, Henry’s parents reveal that Ethan has been enrolled at Henry’s school, so she can continue to watch over him throughout the day. On the way there, she explains to him how klaons feed on laughter, and how stealing laughter turns them into maiams. Later, Ethan is introduced to Henry’s friends, Aesop and Jade. Aesop is a leprechaun, while Jade refuses to tell Ethan what she is. Aesop decides that Ethan needs to go through an initiation to be part of their group, and they all agree to go to Feverdream Field after school. After a quick training session with McGus where Ethan expresses interest in learning magic and is shot down, he and Henry meet Aesop and Jade and head to Feverdream Field. Henry notices a fire back in town, but Aesop and Jade refuse to talk about it. Ethan is told he needs to retrieve a baseball from the middle of the field, which is filled with mushrooms that spray hallucinogenic spores. While spectating, Jade admits that she started the fire in town by accident, and Henry comforts her when she says she hates herself. Henry then realizes that Ethan is nowhere to be seen and goes into the field after him. Henry gets into a fight with a gang of maiams, not knowing if they are real or hallucinations, and has to be rescued by her cousin, who she hates. She wakes up in the hospital, where Ethan is minutes away from dying. McGus and Grandpa Teddy tell her that she’s been relieved of duty, with her cousin taking her place. Her family and friends all disown her and leave her alone to watch Ethan die. She is then confronted by the masked man and several more maiams, including one that she managed to kill at the field. Henry realizes that this is all a hallucination caused by the mushrooms. She breaks free of the dream, finds Ethan, and as she’s carrying him out she sees the masked man again. He tells her to “Ask them about the farms,” but she ignores him, assuming he’s another hallucination. When Jade reveals that she and Aesop saw him too, Henry panics. Later that day, the reader learns that Grandpa Teddy is the one making the laughter inhalers Henry uses, and he plans to mass produce them for all the impoverished Blues in Mauldibamm. Ethan also tells Henry’s mom that he enjoys drawing comics and requests a sketchbook and some colored pencils. Henry later takes Ethan to Aesop’s house, which is the second floor of his father’s pawn shop. Ethan finds a book he wants to buy, but it’s too expensive. When Henry asks what book it is, Ethan refuses to tell her. She takes him to Uncle Junk’s Trash Emporium, a store that sells garbage, and introduces him to the insane Uncle Junk. Uncle Junk agrees to give them a golden bowling ball, which they will then trade with Aesop for the book, if they can retrieve an old teddy bear that’s in the possession of a trash dragon guarding a landfill. Ethan doesn’t think it’s worth the risk, but Henry wants to make up for the way she’s treated him, and fights the dragon anyway, which Ethan is grateful for. Once Ethan has his book, Henry is confronted by Ichabod, representative for the Reds on the Council of Shnoob. He tells her that he knows she left Ethan alone at Uncle Junk’s store when she went to fight the dragon, and he’ll tell the rest of the council if she doesn’t listen to him. He wants her to find the secret behind Grandpa Teddy’s inhalers so that he can beat Teddy to the punch and become rich. He reveals that he’s been trying to make them on his own, but his experiments have all failed. Ichabod also tells her that Teddy is too timid to run a business, and more people will benefit from the inhalers with him behind the wheel. Later, Henry finds the comic that Ethan has been working on. In it, three superheroes get into a gruesome car accident. Ethan becomes enraged when he finds Henry reading it and storms off. Henry goes to his room to apologize, and finds him practicing magic. The book that he got from Aesop is a spellbook, and he has stolen a magical spellhammer from McGus. Henry’s interruption distracts him, and the magic causes the two of them to become stuck together. They leave to take a train to McGus’ house so he can lift the curse, and Henry explains how a brain injury doesn’t let her see people’s senses of humor telepathically like other klaons. They’re then confronted by the masked man, who is somehow controlling a massive maiam, which nearly kills Henry before Ethan uses the spellhammer to destroy it. McGus then arrives and rescues them from the masked man. Back at McGus’ house, McGus explains how magic works to Ethan, who begs to be trained to use it. After the spell is lifted, McGus agrees to help Henry find out what the masked man is up to. Ethan finally admits that he caused the car accident that killed his parents and has been fighting the guilt ever since, which is why he can’t laugh. The following day, Henry is sent on another hunt, this time leaving Ethan behind with McGus so he can begin his magic training. She is again confronted by the masked man, who throws her around a Corner to a laboratory where people are connected to a giant machine. Each of them has a magic medallion on their head, which the masked man reveals he has too. He reveals that they are Legion, a singular consciousness made up of the minds of all the people connected to the machine. They force another medallion onto her head, putting her under Legion’s control. Possessed by Legion, she goes back to Mauldibamm, where she tries to separate Ethan from the others. McGus sees through the ruse, and helps Ethan escape with Aesop and Jade, staying behind to fight Henry. Legion, as Henry, defeats McGus and chases Ethan to where the council meets. She breaks down the door, defeats Ichabod when he tries to stop her, and attempts to make off with Ethan. Jade throws a necklace to Ethan, and when he catches it she declares that he is her new master. Ethan wishes for Jade to stop Henry, and the mind control medallion is destroyed in the fight. Freed from Legion’s control, Henry thinks the fight is over, until the masked man appears in the room, stabs Henry in the back, and poisons Grandpa Teddy with his laughter. Henry uses the last of her inhaler to cure Teddy, and then unleashes all of her power to destroy Legion. Without her magic to heal her, she begins to die. Ethan tells her how much he appreciates everything she’s done for him, and that thinking he’s going to let her die is the only funny joke she’s ever told him. He manages to laugh one time, but the power contained in it is enough to completely heal Henry. Henry wakes up later in the hospital, where Jade explains to Ethan that she is a genie, and the jeweled necklace she gave him is her core. So long as he has it, she is bound to grant him three wishes—the first of which he used to stop Henry. Aesop’s father manipulated the magic in her core so that she was allowed to exit it without a master, but doing so forced her to grant the wishes of everyone who said the words “I wish” around her. Aesop is extremely upset by this, saying that Jade just sold herself back into slavery after he and his dad worked so hard to free her. Henry finds out that Ichabod is being taken care of a few rooms down, and goes to confront him. She accuses him of building the machine that created Legion, saying that it was designed to suck laughter out of humans, and that Legion was one of the failed experiments he told her about. He denies this, but Henry vows to find proof and bring him down. Aesop, Jade, and Ethan all promise to help her any way they can. The book concludes there, with a satisfying ending, but enough unanswered questions to entice the audience to read the next book as well.
It's kind of hidden, but there is a section for synopsis here in the query letter section, so I moved it. You should get a few responses ...actually one from me as well, as I've been fortunate enough to read the story itself. Just for starters ...I would get in, right at the beginning, why 'laughter' is important. The notion that somebody has too much laughter inside, and that laughter is poisonous or that certain beings require it probably does need a bit of explanation. Somebody reading this synopsis cold is not going to have a clue as to why this is important ...when it actually is the point around which the story revolves. There is a grammatical mistake (given the context) in this sentence: The following day, Henry retrieves the Escher Cube and brings (takes) it to her mentor, McGus. He reveals that her carelessly worded promise to the council means she has to bring ( should also be 'take') Ethan with her everywhere, even on dangerous missions. I'll give the rest a look as well, a bit later on. Exciting to see you've taken it this far. It's a damn good story.
Oh, it's a pain, that one. But, in essence: If you are the destination, you would ask for something to be carried to you using 'bring.' As in "Please bring that plate over here." Or have received something. "He brought me the book I asked for." However, if you are describing something being carried from one place to another, and you are NOT the destination, the word is 'take/took.' "She took the plate over to Mr Jones." "Please take that plate to Mr Jones." Or "She was forced to take Ethan everywhere she went." Basically, 'bring' is a word you'd use only in dialogue—"Bring me the Escher Cube," said McGus. Or in a first-person story (narrated by McGus.) Henry brought me the Escher Cube.
