One of the reasons for our Writers Retreat (other than sitting in a hot tub and drinking rum and cokes — well Rum and Caffeine-free diet pepsi) was to develop pitches for the World Fantasy Convention in November. When someone asks me ‘what’s your book about?’ I’d better be able to answer in about 10-15 seconds.
Curse of the Black Swan (formerly entitled Nathaniel) was always my most marketable book (the Nameless is better written…but I don’t know if I could find it a home). But I never had a pitch. It was tough to explain. It was this troubleshooter who does ‘stuff’.
But with help from Bev and Eileen, I finally developed the pitch. From this one line high concept, I can ‘accordian’ out to 20 minutes (in theory).
The problem was always that this novel wasn’t about the plot…it was about the character. So there wasn’t that ‘catch’ that my other books had. This one was about a quirky character, who is running from a past…living from job to job, until a woman he thought dead walked back into his life.
So here it is:
Nathaniels a troubleshooter taking jobs others cant handle. Then he has to solve the biggest problem of all. Her name was Jane and he was in a world of trouble.
Mmmmm….it was the lime, Eileen. It was the lime.
How exciting does that feel?
Is it Relief?
It sounds interesting enough to me. Even ends on a nice hook.
The cool thing about your pitch is it even has that noir feel to it.
Glad we could help.
And thanks for your help with my “lack o pitch” that actually turned into something pretty darned good.
It was a good retreat, all in all, wasn’t it? I think it was the lime, myself, but maybe there was a bit more to it than that.