How NOT to Write a Twitter Pitch

One of the things I love most about Twitter is that there are certain days where you can pitch your book to certain people with just a tweet. Today, Authoress is hosting a pitch contest in which writers can tweet their MS with the hashtag #BLOGPITCH. (For more information on Authoress and her contest, click here.) I’m going to participate, but in order to do that, I have to write a pitch.

And I’m terrible at writing pitches.

If you read the beginning of my last post, you know I said I’ve never been good at writing short stories because I tend to be wordy. So, if short stories are hard, just image a tweet. Because a tweet for this contest can only be 140 characters, minus the hashtag, which puts it at 129 characters (because of the space between the hashtag and the rest of the tweet).

So, with 129 characters, I’ll have to catch Authoress’s attention. Which is pretty funny for wordy me.

Not that I was going to let a mere 129 characters stop me. I knew that a pitch must include three things: the main characters, the conflict, and the stakes. So I turned on my MS playlist and gave it a shot:

For seventeen-year-old Emma, finding out why Alex is a ghost & fixing the problem would be so much easier if she didn’t have a huge crush on him…& if he was actually dead. #BLOGPITCH

For starters, the thing was 42 characters too long. Let me emphasize that: 42 CHARACTERS TOO LONG. Feel free to laugh, because I did. For another, it didn’t exactly include the stakes. Yeah, okay, NOT GOOD. But I gave it another shot:

Emma’s sure it’d be a lot easier to find out why Alex is a ghost if she didn’t have a huge crush on him…and if he was actually dead. #BLOGPITCH

Well, that pitch was only 3 characters too long, but still didn’t include the stakes. So I dug deep, gave it a few more attempts, and finally came up with this:

Only Emma knows hot classmate Alex isn’t dead…but going ghost will kill him if they can’t find out why it happened & fix it. #BLOGPITCH

I thought this one rocked. It had 5 characters to spare, included the main characters (Emma & Alex), the conflict (Alex is a ghost and they have to find out why), and the stakes (being a ghost will kill Alex if they don’t fix it). So I sent it off to two of my critique partners.

The first said it was great. The second pointed out a problem. Yes, in my MS, I explain the whole going ghost thing and it makes sense in the context of the story, but anyone who reads the tweet but hasn’t read the MS will be like WTF??? So my critique partner sent me a suggestion to get around the going ghost thing:

Everyone noticed Alex, until an accident turned him into a ghost. Now only nerdy Emma can see him, and help him turn back. #BLOGPITCH

I liked it. But while it fit in a tweet (with 7 characters to spare), I wasn’t sure it included the stakes (that this will kill Alex if they don’t fix it). So I took my CP’s suggestion and worked with it more. I came up with this:

After an accident turns popular classmate Alex into a “ghost,” only outcast Emma can see him & help him before it kills him. #BLOGPITCH

Now, this one fit the character requirements with 5 to spare. But I still wasn’t in love with it. For one thing, I struggled with the comma. Yes, it was supposed to go inside the quotation marks, I thought, but I Googled it just to be sure. I also wasn’t in love with the him, him, him…but I didn’t quite know how to fix that. Also, the it that’s the third word from the end, I wasn’t sure it was clear was that it was. Not that this one was BAD, I just wasn’t sure it was good enough.

For now, my pitch stands at this, but I plan to stalk the hashtag until this evening and see what others are pitching. I hope to borrow ideas from them on how to actually write a pitch because, as you can see, it’s definitely not my strong suit. If nothing else, I’ll go with this pitch, calling it my best shot at getting into this contest. I’ll also hope that with more characters (aka words) allowed in a query, I’ll be able to get an agent’s attention someday.

DESTINED FOR DOON

Short stories have never been my thing. I’ve always struggled when writing them because I can never limit myself to just a few pages; I’d rather write two or three hundred. I get too attached to characters and their worlds, wanting to spend more time there than what a short story allows.

I guess that’s why I’m more drawn to book series than books that stand alone. Even when I was little, I knew the difference and latched onto Narnia. I loved the Narnia world, loved reading about how it began, how it ended. Other book series I like? Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Justin Cronin’s THE PASSAGE and the sequel, Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles, Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian’s FIRE WITH FIRE series, Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girls books, and…well, I could just keep going. I get so hooked by these characters, their stories, their worlds, that I don’t want the series to end.

All of this echoes something Vee says in DESTINED FOR DOON...and speaking of, one of my most recent favorite series is the Doon books by Lorie Langdon and Carey Corp. I read the first book back in January (see here), after which Lorie and Carey asked me to join a street team to promote the second. That means that although the second book in the series—DESTINED FOR DOON—doesn’t release until September 2, an advanced reading copy arrived in my mailbox on Tuesday. By Thursday evening, I’d read the entire thing. Yes, it’s THAT GOOD.

First, check out the gorgeous cover:

Now, what I love about DESTINED FOR DOON.

NOTE: If you haven’t read the first one—and, P.S., why not???—you should probably skip this next part. I’m not going to ruin anything that happens in DESTINED FOR DOON—just talk about the basic plot, which is revealed early on—but I’m going to spoil the end of DOON. So if you haven’t read the first, skip down to the end of this SPOILER ALERT. If you have read DOON, keep on.

Because, if you remember where DOON left off, Vee’s got her happily ever after and Kenna’s gone off to her internship in Chicago…

…except Vee’s ending isn’t so happy after all. (I love how realistic this is.) Not only aren’t Vee and Jamie the perfect couple, but Vee’s also having problems with the citizens of Doon, some of whom don’t accept her—an outsider—as their queen.

…except Kenna’s stuck in Chicago and realized the truth about her Calling. Kenna’s pretty sure she’s ruined both her life and Duncan’s by abandoning him on the bridge. And if she had any doubt, when Duncan shows up in Chicago, he’s distant and cold. He’s only come for her because Vee needs her help in Doon. He has to wear the other ring for the magic to open the way back to Doon, where the witch’s black petunias are spreading and people are disappearing.

While I love the plot (and all the subplots!) of this second Doon book, what I love even more is all the details that Carey and Lorie incorporated throughout. For starters, Kenna calls Doon’s new witch problem zombie fungus, which made me laugh the first time I read it and smile pretty much every time after that. Then there’s the fact that Kenna brings a Wicked umbrella with her to Doon, a huge, hilarious irony considering Doon’s citizens assumed she was in league with the witch the first time she was there. Also, Vee uses references and analogies to various books I’ve read (what girl doesn’t love Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice?) and dances to music I love (Justin Timberlake, anyone?). And…well, I could just keep going.

The point is—END of SPOILER ALERT—I love DESTINED FOR DOON as much as I love DOON. As soon as I finished the second book, I wanted to read the third. Obviously that’s not an option, but I’m so glad Carey and Lorie gave me the opportunity to read it early. Not only did I get to read it, I also got to send them a list of typos to correct before Blink prints the hardcover copies of the book. (Readers, you’re welcome :) Even more, I got a glimpse of what it’s like to be on the other side, the author side of a published book. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to thank Carey and Lorie enough for the opportunity to be on this street team, but I know that on September 2, I’ll be out buying a hardcover copy of DESTINED FOR DOON.

DOON, A Second Read

I hate rereading my favorite books. I know this sounds like some kind of an oxymoron, but it’s true. I’m always afraid that when I reread a book I loved, I won’t like it as much. I’m afraid that the first time I read it, it was so perfect because of when and where I read it, because of who I was then…and there’s no way I can recreate that for the second read. Some of my favorite books I’ve only read once.

Of course, since I’m on a street team to help promote the sequel to Lorie Langdon and Carey Corp’s YA fairy tale DOON and since Lorie sent word last Thursday that the ARC’s of DESTINED FOR DOON are on their way to us, I knew I needed to reread DOON. Back in January when I first read it, I loved it so much that I tweeted, wrote a blog post (go here), and tweeted some more. I gave it five stars on Goodreads. I told everyone I know who likes YA that they should read it.

 

But rereading it now? Did I mention that I hate rereading my favorite books?

Still, when a book’s a part of a series, I like to reread the whole series to make sure I’m not missing any details. I took DOON from my bookshelf Thursday evening. Friday, I began reading it at lunch…and I read half an hour past the end of my lunch break because I was so wrapped up in the book. I read every spare minute I had this weekend and finished the book during my lunch break today.

What I learned? I loved DOON the second read almost as much as the first. It’s still a fairy tale about best friends, princes, true love, and evil, but I forgot so many details, like Ken and Duncan’s pants exchange (which made me laugh again because I had a similar thing happen to me when I was in England). I forgot about Fergus and Fiona, about the black flowers around the witch’s cottage, about all the references to so many books and musicals, about how well Carey and Lorie describe the attraction between not just Vee and Jamie, but also Ken and Duncan.

Which isn’t to say I forgot all the details. I remembered the end, which—as a writer—gave me a new perspective on the rest of the book. I paid attention as Carey and Lorie dropped hints about what happens to Ken and Vee. I analyzed the way they foreshadowed the journal, Gideon, Ken’s decision about the Centennial, Vee’s visions of Jamie. There’s also all the subplots, the way they weave together and untangle at the end. I made mental notes on how to use some of the same techniques in my own writing.

More than lessons for my own writing and rediscovering the details of the story, rereading DOON has made me want the sequel NOW. I want to know how Carey and Lorie deal with the Ken cliffhanger at the end of the first book.  I want to read more about the witch and the evil that balances out Doon’s existence. I’m hoping when I get home today the ARC will be in my mailbox. I can’t wait to read DESTINED FOR DOON.

This Is Not a Journal Entry

I got my first journal when I was in elementary school. It was about the size of my hands and had a soft cover with pastel hearts all over it. A tiny lock kept the pages from falling open. Though I hid the key like it was buried treasure, a paperclip could have busted the thing. Inside, the lined pages were the colors of bubble gum, cotton candy, and mid-day sunshine. Even though I was only eight or nine at the time, it didn’t take me long to fill the journal’s pages.

I bought another journal after that, then many more. I wrote all the way through high school, spilling my secrets to those pages like they’d never tell (which, of course, they wouldn’t). I also made things up, stories that I pretended really happened to me or just straight up short stories. Not too long ago, I looked back at some of those entries and couldn’t decide if I should have laughed at myself or burned the journals out of embarrassment.

In college, I was too busy for journal writing. I wanted to graduate with two degrees, so when I wasn’t struggling through some organic chem problems, I was deep in a classic novel. I didn’t have time to write secrets, let alone stories (unless they were for one of my writing classes).

The only exception was the semester I lived in Paris. I took a journal with me and filled the pages, writing down everything I wanted to remember: the sight of the palm trees and a Ferris wheel in Nice, the smell of the Dublin street where someone stole my passport, the feel of the Mont-Saint-Michel’s wet sand between my toes, the taste of soupe à l’oignon from a café near the Seine. I kept track of my favorite Parisian bookstores, how many times I visited the Louvre, and where to find the best pain au chocolat. I wrote between the lines, but also filled the margins:

 

After Paris and college, I didn’t journal again…until last fall when I began this blog. Of course, a blog isn’t a journal—there are no deep secrets here—but I’m pretty honest (or so people have told me). I’ve explained what it’s like to lose a contest (here), see a writer friend succeed when I don’t (here), and get the best rejection email from an agent (sounds like an oxymoron, but here).

But there are some things I don’t share, things that I could share if this were a journal. I keep most everyone I mention here anonymous, except for contest hosts and a few others. Also to keep things anonymous, I write blog posts about big things when they happen, but I don’t publish them for weeks.

Sometimes, those are LONG weeks. One of the tough parts about not blogging big things is when I need advice (which, granted, a journal wouldn’t give anyway). I think other writers could help if I blogged about the issue, but it’s something that I really shouldn’t share, at least not yet. For those questions, I turn to my critique partners. They either have more experience than me or have read something I haven’t. I’ve never met them—that’s a hard thing to do when they live in Kansas, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas and I’m in Cincinnati—but I trust them like I’d trust a journal. They won’t share my secrets. I don’t share theirs.

Still, there are days where I miss writing in a journal. I don’t really have time for that—not with writing here, writing elsewhere, working, reading, revising, querying, CPing, and fitting in friends and family—but the next best thing is this blog. I like sharing the not-so-secret things. And I’m going to keep sharing them.

Sci-Fi & SALVAGE

I grew up on shows like Star Trek, SeaQuest DSV, and Earth 2, along with movies like Apollo 13 and Contact. More recently, I became a fan of the new Battlestar Galactica, Fringe, and Joss Whedon’s Firefly (because who doesn’t love cowboys in space???). These are just a few, but enough to prove that I’m a sci-fi girl. When sci-fi’s done well, I love it.

I have a harder time finding sci-fi books I love. I liked Ender’s Game, but have never felt compelled to run around recommending it. I’m a huge fan of Stephen King’s The Stand, Under the Dome, and 11/22/63, but I feel like those are pretty unique.  Justin Cronin’s The Passage reminds me a lot of The Stand, but then there’s the vampire element that sends it over to fantasy.

In YA, things get rougher. Many YA sci-fi are actually dystopia, which is okay, but not what I love about sci-fi. I want sci-fi that isn’t about the problems with society and one strong character that’s destined to change that world. I want sci-fi that’s about something else, where the world is what it is and the story takes place within that world. I also don’t want sci-fi so heavy on world-building that the story’s buried in there somewhere. There are a few YA books that fit my tough criteria. I love Marissa Meyer’s CINDER and the sequels, Rick Yancey’s THE 5TH WAVE, Melissa Landers ALIENATED, and Kasie West’s PIVOT POINT.

I’m always on the lookout for some new sci-fi book, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll find it. Clearly, I’m picky. When my husband forwarded me an email for a 15% off coupon for Barnes & Noble, I took it to the store knowing that I might see something I wanted that day. After all, I have a lot of books on my to-read shelf.

But when I rounded the corner to the last row of YA books, I spotted one that I had to pick up (because yes, I judge books by their covers). The top left of the cover was shrouded in darkness, but the darkness gave way to the blue and white of a planet. Below the planet, an ocean. And below the ocean, stretching across the bottom of the cover, sand…and a dark-haired girl in a white dress lying motionless, her skirt melding with the waves. SALVAGE by Alexandra Duncan.

I picked up the book, read the inside cover, and knew I wanted to take it home. Now, I love it. It’s everything I want from sci-fi and from YA.

SALVAGE is about a girl in love with a boy she can’t have. The girl lives on a ship that travels between planets, worlds she’s never allowed to see. She’s supposed to work with the livestock, sew and dye clothes, make food for the ship’s crew. But none of that stops her from dreaming. She teaches herself math and how to fix things and wanders the ship at night when she can look at the stars alone.

It’s not just the story that I love—it’s also the language.  Alexandra Duncan uses phrases like right so, half a turn, raveled right, so girl, and they mean to bury you with the stars, all of which help build this ship’s world and stick in my mind so bad (no, good) that I find myself wanting to talk this way.

It doesn’t matter that I have all these other books I want to read. I wish I had more SALVAGE, more of that world and that story. I wish I could write like that and pull in readers like this book pulled me in. It’s YA sci-fi at its best and I love it. If you like YA or sci-fi, you should check it out, see if the cover and the first few paragraphs grab you like they grabbed me.

My Writing Process Bloghop

I’ve been tagged by Amy Giuffrida to join in this fun bloghop. You can check out Amy’s My Writing Process here.

As for me, here are my answers to the bloghop questions:

1. What am I working on?

I’m a multitasker who’s determined to get published, so I’m querying one manuscript and revising another.

WORLD’S EDGE is the MS I’m querying. It’s YA sci-fi about a girl named Hazel who is trapped on the fringe of two parallel worlds. In one, there’s her life, her friends, her boyfriend; in the other, there’s a mysterious guy that needs her help. To complicate things, Hazel’s pretty sure her multi-verse vision is a genetic curse she got from her mother. WORLD’S EDGE has some horror elements (or so my CPs claim) and some romance (because, you know, young adult).

THE BUTTERFLY GHOST is the MS I’m revising. It’s YA…something. At this point, I’m waiting on my CPs to help me figure that something out. I’m also on the verge of writing a blog post asking for help from my readers. I’m gonna go with YA thriller for now, but like the title, that could change at any moment. THE BUTTERFLY GHOST is about this girl named Emma who’s has a huge crush on her classmate Alex, who is way out of her league. The day after Alex is killed in an accident, she spots him at school. He’s a ghost…and she’s apparently the only one that can see him. He asks her to help him figure out what happened to him and why. It doesn’t take them long to realize Alex isn’t really a ghost, that something else is going on…and that someone else is stalking Emma to try to get to Alex.

2. How does my work differ from others in its genre?

Umm…this is one of those questions that every agent wants to know and no writer really seems to know how to answer. For WORLD’S EDGE, I’ll say that for as many YA novels as I’ve read, very few sci-fi ones have a contemporary setting and deal with parallel worlds. For THE BUTTERFLY GHOST, I’m not even sure of the genre yet, but if I’m going to go with thriller, I’ll say it has—dare I say it?—a sci-fi twist. Think Paul Blackwell’s UNDERCURRENT…only not.

3. Why do I write what I do?
 

I LOVE YA. My favorite TV shows, my favorite books, they’re all YA. I think it’s because I love first loves and awkward romances, which you don’t really get in Adult books. I also love how every day seems like THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY EVER. I miss when life was like that. Now, most of my days blend together and things are relatively calm.

I don’t just write YA—I take the contemporary world and throw a twist at it. Most of the time, the twist is sci-fi in some fashion, which I blame on my significant science background. I grew up watching and reading science and science fiction. In school, I always excelled in my writing, reading, AND science classes. I like to think I look at the world a bit differently than most people. Though that probably isn’t true in real life, I try to make it real in my fiction.

4. How does my writing process work?

It takes me a really long time to take my initial concept and develop the details of the story. I don’t outline, instead using my ninety minute commute to and from work to hash things out in my head. Once I have a concept I love, I can’t let go of it until I’ve figured out the rest. Then, I put it on paper…or, you know, computer. I start at the beginning and write through to the end. If in the middle of the story I find some new plot point or character, I go back and fix the previous pages before moving on. Every day when I sit down to write more, I always read what I’ve written the day before.

Who’s next?

I’m tagging Sean Grigsby, who writes about werewolves, pirates, and firefighters. I’ll let him tell you all about that.

Freshman at Junior/Senior Prom

It’s amazing what can happen when you love a book.

Back in January, I bought Carey Corp and Lorie Langdon’s DOON and wrote a blog post about how much I loved it. A few weeks later, Lorie asked me to join the street team promoting the next book in the series. Of course I said yes. Not long after that, Carey invited me to see Brigadoon and chat with her after. Again, of course I said yes.

While Carey and I talked, she mentioned Lori Foster’s Reader & Author Get Together, a conference in West Chester, OH the first full weekend of June. When I originally moved to Cincinnati, I lived in West Chester. I was familiar with the area, but I’d never heard of the conference. Carey said that although the event was sold out, there was a signing event on Saturday that was open to the public. I told her I’d be there.

But I’d forgotten that I’d bought tickets to the Reds game for my parents that day. Not only were my parents coming from out of state, but the game was at the exact same time as the signing. I sent a message to Carey, saying I wouldn’t be able to make it…

…and she invited me to join her and other published authors to see The Fault in Our Stars on Friday, the day before the signing. Yes, me, a girl who’s querying (and querying and querying) but has never been published, asked to go to a movie with PUBLISHED AUTHORS. It felt like I was a high school freshman girl being asked to go to junior/senior prom—I’d be so far out of my league, with people way more popular, way cooler than me, and they’d all know each other but I’d only know one of them. Of course I said yes, but still.

It turned out there were five of us at the movie. Including me and Carey, there were two other women—book bloggers—from the DOON street team and Melissa Landers, author of ALIENATED, an awesome YA sci-fi book that—like DOON—I found signed at a local bookstore. At first, I kept quiet while they talked about Lori Foster’s and all the other published authors they knew there. At first, it was like any other time I’d met new people…except for the whole published books thing. I listened, absorbing all I could, until the movie started.

Sometime during the movie, as I sat with two published authors, I received two query rejection emails. When the movie was over, as everyone gathered their tissues and wiped at their smeared makeup, I mentioned my two rejections. Carey and Melissa were sympathetic, understanding, and encouraging. They’d been there. They knew what it was like. Melissa even mentioned how she always did something she called revenge querying—for every rejection she received, she sent out two more queries. She and Carey said it’s a numbers game. Basically, keep going, no matter what, and someday you’ll get an agent.

I’d like to believe that, but there’s no guarantee that the longer I query the closer I get to an agent. I told Melissa and Carey that they were like Augustus in The Fault in Our Stars, I was more like Hazel Grace. Hazel Grace is a realist, knowing that her cancer will eventually kill her, while Augustus is the optimist, the energy, all about life and possibilities. That’s not to say I’m giving up. I’m not. But I know that sometimes the impossible can masquerade as the improbable.

No matter. I didn’t let the rejections get to me. We left the theatre and stood outside in the sun, the five of us chatting about the movie and other YA books. I felt more on even ground then, no longer a freshman among upperclassman, because I read A LOT. Even better, we were talking about these books from the POV of writers, a perspective I’ve never been able to share with my reader friends. It made me realize that I’m not alone out here. There are other authors—Carey and Melissa included—who have been where I am and have made it through to the other side. Freshmen grow up and become juniors and seniors. In the meantime, I can keep querying, keep reading—because look where one amazing book has gotten me—and keep making connections with other readers and writers, published or otherwise.