Is this a good summary?

[Cli-Fi]

How?
Many countries allow marriage at 16 now with Parental Consent. Some without.

Unless this is an alternate reality, not our Earth, none of it makes sense.

Understood then she must have to announce something else but what?

 

[Brian G Turner]

Chaos grips the Temporal Congress. First set up as a way to keep a lid on various innovative and emerging ways to travel through time. The once new and promising political body is now plagued with scandal and corruption. A secret religious faction inside Congress calling themselves the Temporal Consortium has emerged and they believe that time travel is at fault for the mess.

This is backstory, not the story itself. As I said, the industry model is to start with the protagonist, mention the antagonist, and the conflict and stakes.

It's also confusing how marrying an heiress merges two corporations - be aware that individuals and their business interests are completely separate legal entities. Also, her age may allow her to marry, but she may be considered too young to have full authority to make the sort of legal and business decisions you're putting across - in the West, she'd be more likely to be supervised by a trust or similar body to look after her financial and business affairs on her behalf until she's considered mature enough to handle them herself.

 

[Cli-Fi]

This is backstory, not the story itself. As I said, the industry model is to start with the protagonist, mention the antagonist, and the conflict and stakes.

It's also confusing how marrying an heiress merges two corporations - be aware that individuals and their business interests are completely separate legal entities. Also, her age may allow her to marry, but she may be considered too young to have full authority to make the sort of legal and business decisions you're putting across - in the West, she'd be more likely to be supervised by a trust or similar body to look after her financial and business affairs on her behalf until she's considered mature enough to handle them herself.

I understand your point about backstory but I have a really hard time introducing these characters without backstory.

It's not like I can simply say it's a space faring empire because while in later chapters and books they do become one, i feel there needs to be some explanation that this is a time travel story. Otherwise it won't be made clear due to the external conflicts all being about time travel!

Because without backstory it just feels like a regular family drama. Which is only half the story. I did introduce the protagonist first before the other characters though.

 

[Mad Alice]

I saw the phantom menace bitty bits, but to me it smacks of Galafrey falling, much much more. Is that why your basis is in the States?
You might have had a nice steam punky thing going with a Queens Privy Council messenger type thing.. Steam punk time traveling double o seven. .. Just thinking it through, though, not criticising.

Okay, let's have at it.
Temporal Continental Congress. .. Directly segues into the American government by its reference to the original political system.
Or even more specificly tailored;

The two thousandth Session of the Temporal Continental Congress of the United States of America opened in chaos. A tacked on supposedly innocuous sub bill that had quietly slipped through with the last house budget was now showing its teeth. And tearing through great bites of space and time. Revisioning the young marriages clause, history had been shattered. And for what? That soon to be fourteen millionairess Julie could time wed her affianced century's old beau? Temporally Thirty year old Henry has been the mastermind behind a new nanotechnology that has gone literally viral. And its making shockwaves through the big three corporations that Julie and Henry represent two of. What has this love cartel really in its sights? These two arent saying, but Julie's famed Children's Crusade for Independence is right at the heart of it, though.
The government is helpless and as time crumbles around the two unrepentant love revisionists it will take a mastermind to unravel these two's history hidden master plan. There is only one man immutable to time change that could help. That can resew the split seams of reality. And the Secret Order of the Knights of the Clockmaker, the Temporal Consortium, is going to make Dorian Black do just that... Before all Time breaks loose.


You see the form? This is just a lot of thrown together bloggity jibber. You will have to insert your own bits. But the idea is to hit them with a problem / threat/ consequence / danger pro forma, more or less.
Amp the tension up. And make it all sound world shatterly heroic.

 

[James118]

Tempted to ask about my upcoming blurb now...

 

[Brian G Turner]

This is the sort of thing I'd suggest, if we're talking about something like a small pitch:


Dorian Black is a maverick tackled to investigate corruption within the Temporal Congress, a government arm that regulates time travel.

What he discovers is far worse than anything he can imagine, as the keys to time travel have been bought by a private corporation intent on rewriting time itself to allow for more profitable expansion.

However, to expose those responsible he must take on not simply the might of this corporation, but also a secret cult, and find a way to fix a thousand years of manipulated history.

 

[Cli-Fi]

This is the sort of thing I'd suggest, if we're talking about something like a small pitch:


Dorian Black is a maverick tackled to investigate corruption within the Temporal Congress, a government arm that regulates time travel.

What he discovers is far worse than anything he can imagine, as the keys to time travel have been bought by a private corporation intent on rewriting time itself to allow for more profitable expansion.

However, to expose those responsible he must take on not simply the might of this corporation, but also a secret cult, and find a way to fix a thousand years of manipulated history.

Thank you @Brian Turner. That was something more in line with what I was trying to do here. I also liked the below from @Mad Alice. So I will likely combine those two into something...

I saw the phantom menace bitty bits, but to me it smacks of Galafrey falling, much much more. Is that why your basis is in the States?
You might have had a nice steam punky thing going with a Queens Privy Council messenger type thing.. Steam punk time traveling double o seven. .. Just thinking it through, though, not criticising.

Okay, let's have at it.
Temporal Continental Congress. .. Directly segues into the American government by its reference to the original political system.
Or even more specificly tailored;

The two thousandth Session of the Temporal Continental Congress of the United States of America opened in chaos. A tacked on supposedly innocuous sub bill that had quietly slipped through with the last house budget was now showing its teeth. And tearing through great bites of space and time. Revisioning the young marriages clause, history had been shattered. And for what? That soon to be fourteen millionairess Julie could time wed her affianced century's old beau? Temporally Thirty year old Henry has been the mastermind behind a new nanotechnology that has gone literally viral. And its making shockwaves through the big three corporations that Julie and Henry represent two of. What has this love cartel really in its sights? These two arent saying, but Julie's famed Children's Crusade for Independence is right at the heart of it, though.
The government is helpless and as time crumbles around the two unrepentant love revisionists it will take a mastermind to unravel these two's history hidden master plan. There is only one man immutable to time change that could help. That can resew the split seams of reality. And the Secret Order of the Knights of the Clockmaker, the Temporal Consortium, is going to make Dorian Black do just that... Before all Time breaks loose.


You see the form? This is just a lot of thrown together bloggity jibber. You will have to insert your own bits. But the idea is to hit them with a problem / threat/ consequence / danger pro forma, more or less.
Amp the tension up. And make it all sound world shatterly heroic.

 

[Cli-Fi]

I saw the phantom menace bitty bits, but to me it smacks of Galafrey falling, much much more. Is that why your basis is in the States?
You might have had a nice steam punky thing going with a Queens Privy Council messenger type thing.. Steam punk time traveling double o seven. .. Just thinking it through, though, not criticising.

You see the form? This is just a lot of thrown together bloggity jibber. You will have to insert your own bits. But the idea is to hit them with a problem / threat/ consequence / danger pro forma, more or less.
Amp the tension up. And make it all sound world shatterly heroic.

No it's based in the states because I live there and have no other point of reference, It's sort of ALT world though because TT is available in present day times or rather our very near future. Your summary is not quite the style I'm going for but it definitely spoke to me and I will probably incorporate some of that bloggity jibber somewhere in the next summary. So thanks for the inspiration.

 

[Brian G Turner]

@Cli-Fi - you may find this book illuminating:
Million Dollar Outlines (Million Dollar Writing Series): Amazon.co.uk: David Farland: 9781614751762: Books

IIRC correctly, pitches are also covered in Save the Cat.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

This makes a little more sense but it still needs work:

"Chaos grips the Temporal Congress." Leave as a separate line / para. It works as a tag line too.

"First set up as a way to keep a lid on various innovative and emerging ways to travel through time. The once new and promising political body is now plagued with scandal and corruption." Make this one sentence because the first sentence on its own does not feel complete.

"A secret religious faction inside Congress calling themselves the Temporal Consortium has emerged and they believe that time travel is at fault for the mess." That's fine.

"While Congress endlessly debates these alarming new developments, the infamous investigator Dorian Black convinces the Temporal" Just the consortium. "Consortium to let him get to the bottom of the mystery, instead." There's a line needed here - why does he do this?

There's a logic leap here. Should this sentence begin with a 'But'? "He never expected anything to come from troubling accusations that the Temporal Congress are being bought and paid for by the powerful future bloodlines of the Wilson Dynasty." And if I'm reading you correctly you don't mean that the Congress are being bought and paid for. You mean some members within it.

"Yet Congress’ incompetence is exposed when Child Activist and newly minted CEO of Carpenter INC, sixteen year old Juliet Carpenter reveals an intriguing loophole in their latest legislation. The Underage Marriage Act allows thirty-three year old industrialist Henry Wilson the power to wed the young heiress." Okay, here's a logic leap. First don't refer to her as "the heiress. Because it's not clear that she is the same person. Call her the young CEO or something that connects to the first part. Also why is it "yet"? Second the first part makes you think she's deliberately revealing something. If she was why would she be marrying the industrialist? Makes no sense. And if she's a child activist why would she a child, be wedding a man twice her age? I think you mean that she unintentionally exposes the loophole.

"In a controversial marriage ceremony two trillion dollar corporations become one, setting a new and unprecedented course for the very future of mankind."

"As the Wilson Dynasty manages to make its mark on many pages throughout history, Dorian is tasked with the impossible mission of keeping them in line. What he finds through future history is a paradoxical conspiracy one thousand years in the making that will change our understanding of the universe and what it means to be human…" Okay we've jumped too far again. First he's an investigator now he's keeping them in line? And shouldn't it be the Wilson - Carpenter dynasty? You need to explain future history, and perhaps give some dates here and there so inspector D is from the year 3000 AD and Julie from 2000 AD etc.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Cli-Fi]

I took out the wedding in the summary, it will be in the book somewhere, but trying to explain the complexities of the families may have been too much for a quick little summary. So here's another one starting with a different idea I had as to what conflict could possibly start this whole mess. It also places a specific date on the events in question and when this all takes place/starts.

The Temporal Congress of 2080, is in Chaos.

When Alan Cummings’ original time machine shows up on the streets of Newark NJ, during the nano-drug wars of the 2040s, it sends shockwaves throughout the space-time continuum. There is no record Alan ever visited that era. So at the personal request of Alan Cummings the inventor of time travel himself, maverick investigator Dorian Black agrees to his friend’s plea to help solve the mystery.

What Dorian finds is worse than anything he could have imagined! As Congress endlessly debates these alarming new developments, his findings reveal that some of the world’s most powerful families, are rewriting time itself to allow for more profitable expansion.

In order to expose those responsible he begins by looking into the mysterious origins of the fledgling time travel industry, and his journey through a thousand years of seemingly manipulated history leads him face to face with a much more dangerous secret, that will change history forever!

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Better.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Agreed. Much better.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Cli-Fi]

Thanks everyone at least now I have direction! You have no idea how hard that was! Or maybe you do...