November Novelists Contest #4 Winner Announced

I would have liked to see more entries for this one. Did people let the holiday interfere with their writing? Shame on them!

Or does everyone really hate writing sales pitches?

We'll never know.....

But, this week's winner is Jane L, with Love's Soft Surrender. Jane, email me at editorjennifer at gmail.com for your prizes!

Why did I pick Jane's? Of the two, hers does the job better - it tells me (the fictional publisher/editor you have cornered in the elevator, remember?) exactly what the book is about and sells me on it at the same time.

Let's pick these two "pitches" apart a little to see what went right and what went wrong.

Oddly enough, Jane L's first mistake comes right at the beginning.

"They say all is fair in love and war. That is until you meet a lady who lies, steals and cheats to gain her revenge."

Hmmm. Doesn't a "lady who lies, steals and cheats to get her revenge" prove that all is fair in love and war?

"Brianna is hell bent on avenging the death of her parents at the hands of Yankee soldiers. Using a clever disguise, she infiltrates a Confederate camp. Seriously injured and taken prisoner, her identity is discovered unexpectedly by, Yankee Captain Tristan Creighton."

Good, but take out "unexpectedly" and that comma. And hold on - isn't Tristan her fiance? Better put that important piece of info right here: "her identity is discovered by her fiance - Yankee Captain Tristan Creighton."

"Furious his fiancé has joined the enemy and shot his brother, Tristan soon finds his dedication to family and loyalty to country will face bitter challenges. From the trenches of West Virginia battlefields to the trenches of marriage they will contest their love for each other until the end.

No matter how much they try to deny it, their passion sizzles like liquid heat. Brianna and Tristan discover that passion will guide them to the point of… Love’s Soft Surrender, 75,000 words, 1864 historical."

Now we're back on shaky ground. I get what you're saying, but your message has become murky. How about:

"Tristan is furious his fiancee has joined the rebels and shot his brother, but it won't be the last time his loyalty to family and country will pull him in two different directions. From the battlefields of West Virginia to the drawing room of their own home in..(fill in the blank), the war that divides the country disrupts their private peace again and again.

Still, Brianna and Tristan discover the passion that sizzles between them will overcome every obstacle and ultimately lead them to Love's Soft Surrender...."



As for Linton Robinson's Mary of Angels:

Your pitch is a case of information overload. While your pitch needs to encapsulate your story in a way that the publisher/editor gets a quick idea of exactly what you've got, you can't bog them down in too many details.

You start with a list:

"Sold into marriage to drug dealer at age twelve.
Widowed by a grisly crucifixion at age fourteen.
Self-delivered to the protection of a brutal cop at fifteen.
One of the top-earning prostitutes in Tijuana at seventeen.
The only woman running illegals into California at eighteen.
Leader of a woman-centered crime ring at nineteen, and owner of a shelter for girls.
Subject of a popular radio ballad and cheap film at twenty.
Before her twenty-first birthday worshipped as secular saint."

This is all fascinating stuff - but you lose us after the fourth or fifth one. Human beings are very predictable. We like our lists in threes. We'll stand for four.

And that's it.

I would pick:

"Sold into marriage at age twelve. (We don't even need to know about the drug dealer - anyone who marries a twelve year old is BAD).
Widowed at fourteen.
Celebrated as a secular saint by twenty-one."

See? Minimal details. We get the picture - this girl is unusual. We want to know more.

Your next line is a summary statement that gives us a glimpse of the depth of this work:

"And all around Maria de Los Angeles twist the skeins of borderline lives, other frontier transformations, other deprivations turned to crimes, turned to hymns."

I would simply make this statement active:

"Maria de Los Angeles creates miracles in the borderline lives that swirl around her."

The rest of the pitch does more to confuse me than to enlighten me. For example, where are Barrio Loba and Grupo Bravo? Is one a third world neighborhood and the other first world? Or are they both a mixture. When you say governments on both sides - on both sides of what?

Your last paragraph tells me about the characters in the book, but leaves me wondering what, ultimately, the story is about:

"Creating their own culture, speaking their own language, living with only their own laws of each moment and faiths of convenience, they are converging flow of humanity with almost no allegiance to those with the duty or motivation to keep them under control."

Is this a book of short stories - vignettes of life on the border? Or is this a novel with a consistent cast of characters and a goal that is reached in the end?

It doesn't matter which one this is: what matters is that I as the fictional editor/publisher still don't know!

Do not ever be cagey with a pitch. A pitch explains exactly what the manuscript you are selling contains. I would re-do the rest of this pitch in a way that makes the scope of your novel crystal clear. It is okay to introduce a couple of minor characters at this time, but you also need to tell us what happens to Maria. And how does the book end?

Congratulations to both of you for having the nerve to enter this contest.

And that's it, folks. I hope everyone that participated in Nanowrimo reached their goal and got their 50,000 words! I managed to finish yesterday, so I'm certainly feeling relieved.

To all of you who are wondering when I'm going to post your book reviews - they're coming right up! Stay tuned....