Friday 20 May 2011

The most wonderful time of the year...

OK, OK,
I may have stolen the line for my own nefarious purposes.

But I can feel the winds of change in the air,
can't you?
The poignant smell  of sweat and fear,
mingled with a smidgen of fragile hope.
Yup, it's the dreaded writer's conference. :)

Sure it's delicious fun to go,
just think of all those books!
Being surrounded by other writerly geeks just like you.
But somewhere in the conference lurks the publisher.
And he's waiting for you...
dum, dum dummmmm.
to pitch your book of course! :)

The Word Guild is holding their Write! Canada conference from June 16-18th in Guelph, Canada.
More info here:
http://www.writecanada.org/
This is my first year going.

So I've been frantically planning my elevator pitch for it.
Using resources from Camy Tang on this website:
http://storysensei.blogspot.com/2005/08/50-word-elevator-pitch.html
I have finally come up with a reasonable pitch.
Here goes:


When her village is destroyed Rosalyn, an orphan shepherdess, seeks the truth of Aleph to fight the fallen angel Satariel and his minions.  Can she let go of the anger from the past to save her new found friends or will the ancient darkness destroy both the world and her soul?  
Rosalyn is a YA fantasy manuscript of 50,000 words.

So what do you think?
Are you interested?

3 comments:

  1. Hey Karen, it's Annie from Scribo. Thank you so much for the link.

    Elevator pitches are so hard to pull off! I think that's why we find formulas such as the one you used so helpful. I think your pitch does a good job at summarizing the novel, but I feel like I want more from it. To me, it seems a bit generic fantasy, when I know, from reading what we've critiqued so far, that it's so much more than that--this pitch focuses heavily on the plot, but I'm wondering if it might not be more appropriate to focus on the wonderful characters you've developed.

    It's the pitfall of a formula pitch, unfortunately, and the fact that none of us have more than thirty seconds to sell our work. But a pitch is meant to capture the heart and soul of our writing--why people would want to read it. And from my perspective, the main conflict between Aleph and Satariel is not the draw, but the vulnerability and journey of Rosalyn herself.

    Anyways, that's just my $0.02 :) I wish you the best of luck at the conference!

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  2. The pitch interests me, but I agree with Annie that it seems a bit generic. What does her being a shepherdess have to do with anything? Who are her new-found friends? I know you can't tell us everything in such a reduced form, but I don't know if it is good to leave us asking these kinds of questions.

    But how exciting that you are going to the conference and will get a chance, we hope, to actually pitch your novel! Good luck!

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  3. Thanks for the candor ladies. I think both of you are right and I am taking another look at it. I will post a revision soon. :)

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