I've lined up some more agents to query. The main thing I need is a shortened synopsis (my current one is about 1200 words), so I've got a little work to do for a couple of them.

Meanwhile I'm starting to assemble the next project, also YA fantasy but a bit more "fantasy" than the last one. I'm calling it Dragonfire at the moment and it's intended to target my daughter's age, twelve. Here's what I've got for a crude "query letter" (if I can't pitch it, then I figure I need to work on the story more, but this will never be an actual query):

Ice-wraiths are sweeping over the world like an all-consuming blizzard, and there is only one wizard who can save the five lands—the wizard twelve-year-old Trine has vowed to stop.

Driven from her home by the invading creatures of the north, Trine finds an inhospitable welcome in the southern lands. Enslaved, she’s forced to work tending to magical creatures destined to slaughter until she happens across a baby dragon. Trine has a way with animals, even savage dragons, and through her new friend she learns why the dragons are being hunted to extinction—they’ve lost their fire.

Trine sets out to restore the dragon’s fire, collecting an unlikely army along the way: a lost elf-child, a failed wizard’s apprentice, an exiled princess with a penchant for tavern brawls, and a dog. The path puts her and her friends up against the most powerful and beloved wizard in all of the five lands along with his army of heroic knights. Of course, she also has to deal with pirates, slavers, and all the kings and queens who see the wizard as their only salvation to hold back the frozen menace from the north.

Nobody wants Trine to succeed and bring back the dangerous beasts' greatest weapon, but if she doesn't, then the world will learn that the dragons have kept much darker and more dangerous creatures than the ice-wraiths at bay. And those forces are already secretly on the move.

That sounds great, Gud. I like your heroines a lot.

Drabble prompt:

leap

Gud, that looks very fun!

Thanks. I got the thumbs up from my daughter, so it looks like it'll be a go. As long as she enjoys it, anything else is just gravy.

I need a protagonist's name. For once, I have a title, I have the other characters' names, and I have no idea what this girl is called. Going around in circles and coming up blank.

I could pull a Rebecca? No?

Tell us a bit about the book, the character and the other characters.

I don't want that to matter, though. You know? I hate it when the teens are supposed to be believable and are named, like, Cinnamon, or Storm, or something.

She's just a contemporary teenager. Although I will say she comes from a marginal family -- parents' marriage is unhappy and now broken, father is an alcoholic, they have very little money. She has an older brother, too, and his name is likely going to be Michael.

OK, knowing her age tells me something and her borther's name. Around here, and not super typical town, a lot Amys, though I don't suppose you want to give her your name. Cindy is fairly common. Also two separate women I know named their kid "Sage", but I gather that is the kind of thing you want to avoid. One Rachel. One Anna-Marie. One Carmen. One Sonja. One Brenda.

Oh and one Megan and one Elizabeth. Tanya. Teresa.

Emily? Amanda? Picked from glancing at the Name Voyager for popular names in the 90s/2000s. [link]