The Elevator Pitch Part III a

In The Elevator Pitch Part I I had a stab at writing an elevator pitch.

In that post I wound up with this:

An amnesiac, on the run from the Police, searches for clues to his past whilst hunted by a powerful religious cult.

It was missing some key elements so in The Elevator Pitch Part II I added those key elements and revised it a little.

Eventually I settled on this:

Hunted across the galaxy, by a powerful religious cult, an amnesiac searches for clues to his past and tries to remember the knowledge of a prototype weapon that has the power to enslave billions.

I resisted the urge to tinker with it and just left it as it was so that, when the time comes for the final version, I will hopefully have a fresh perspective on it.

Then Boris came up with some great suggestions for the pitch in the comments section.

Minor niggle: I think the first comma is superfluous.

Yes. It reads so much better without it.

Tries to remember knowledge... sounds klunky, at least to me. Can you even remember knowledge? And since he is trying to remember it, he already has knowledge of it, doesn't he?

Yes, the protagonist has some knowledge in that he knows something about it, but he doesn't have any useful knowledge other than this prototype exists, but remember knowledge sounds very clunky.

Boris suggests the following:

Hunted across the galaxy by a powerful religious cult, an amnesiac searches for clues to his past and tries to remember how to build a prototype weapon that has the power to enslave billions.

This excellent, but (ah there's always a but) the protagonist is not going to build this weapon he must destroy it. So why isn't that in there?

Boris then asks several questions about what will happen which, as he pointed out meant it worked! Yay!

Although... will he enslave billions with it to save himself from the cult? If not, how will it help him then?

Always leave 'em wanted more - part IV coming soon.