The Elevator Pitch Part I

Or as I might call it The Lift Pitch but as that doesn't quite have the same ring to it so I think I'll stick with elevator.

What's all the fuss? Well, you're at a writing conference and it just so happens that you're sharing an elevator with your dream agent/editor. You have one floor before they depart and they casually ask (as their wont to do) 'so, what's your book about?'

What is it about? How can you possibly condense your novel into a sentence? I mean, query letters are hard enough right? Oh, wait I haven't done one of those yet but I hear they're really, really hard OK?

Some writers like to do this sort of thing near the end of the writing process and other like to use it as a focal point and do it right at the very start. Me, I'm a bit dumb about things like this - I've just done mine now and I'm in the middle of the writing process (not quite half way through yet).

Why now? Well, I've now got a very good idea about where my book is going (finally) and some of the smaller elements of my book are going to be quite a bit bigger than I had originally envisaged. Aaaand, Randy Ingermanson has just run a competition for his readers to do a Star Wars–One Sentence Summary. The results are here.

So what is my story about?

Well, here's one I did earlier (it's a bit rubbish but I'm feeling brave today). Written quite some time ago (nearly 8 months ago in fact - wow I need to finish this book) under the title of One Sentence Story Arc.

Aydan searches for his identity and clues to who he is, but has a second chance to shape his future.

Yeah I know it really is pants so after reading Randy's recent posts I decided to rewrite it.

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

Hmmm.

It's not ready yet and as you can see there's no hint of any Sci Fi elements at all but that's easily remidied by something like:

An amnesiac, chased across the galaxy by the Police, searches for clues to his past whilst hunted by a powerful religious cult.

This is probably something that I could tweak forever and a day but it's time to set myself a deadline so I will finish it tonight and I will post the final sentence here tomorrow.

Season's Greetings

To one and all.

I hope everyone has a happy time and remains fit and well.

If you are celebrating then have fun!

Wrapping the Candy Bar

Did I say I could wrap up this scene in another thousand words?

Why did I have to bring another four baddies into the fray?

I am being particularly evil to my hero at the moment. :-)

The First Kill

Yay! My protagonist got his first kill in the candy bar scene. In fact, he's now had two kills (about bloody time too) and that really cool idea I had last night is about to enter stage left.

I can see this mammoth (at least for me) scene wrapping up in about a thousand words or so.

By and large it is the longest scene in the book, but I need to resist the urge (as ever) to go back and look at this part of the novel's structure.

It's quite possible this scene can be condensed and the chapter breaks juggled around a bit so it isn't spread over the current 3 chapters but I really need to look at things like that at the end during revision time.

Still at it!

I'm still writing that Candy Bar Scene. Although I haven't spent nearly as much time as I would have liked on it, it is starting to come together. The scene has now managed to span 3 chapters and I think I can feel a fourth coming on.

One thing is for certain, the way my story is going it is not going to survive in its current format. This scene is way to big and there is nothing else that comes close. So, I either beef up my ending a bit or I'll have to take the ideas I have for the two sequels and sling them in here and then lop off the first third of the book.

There's going to be some serious juggling going on but for now I will continue to write it as it is. Who knows, something beefy may come up. This scene has already taken on a life of its own and there are other dogfights to come - just none at the end where they may be needed.

My original intention was for the dogfight to take place in space, which it did, but my protagonist had this crazy idea that his ship would fare better against, the dozen or so ships, in the atmosphere of planet.

Did it fare better? Hell no! When things are really bad they just gotta get worse.

Then again, maybe this scene will be heavily pared down once the novel is finished and it is edited for large-scale structure.

Well, I'm hoping tonight that my protagonist will at least get his first kill...

You're probably thinking it is crazy to have this scene sprawling 3 chapters and the hero still hasn't shot another ship down. In his defense, he did have to contend (unarmed) with a very nasty autonomous killing machine, which managed to get aboard undetected in the previous scene (yes, there was one but it was so long ago I forget) and all the while the ship was plunging into the planet's atmosphere and four enemy ships are...

I'll leave it there I've just had an amazing idea.

Gotta go!

Revision Revision Revision. . .

Some pearls of wisdom from Holly Lisle:



If you're interested in reading more advice on revision from Holly then check out:

• How to Revise A Novel
• One-Pass Manuscript Revision: From First Draft to Last in One Cycle
• Revising Vincalis

Queries

Over on Author's Echo Adam asks what's the Point of Writing Queries? Time and time again this crop's up on agent blogs and as Adam points out it's part of the job.

Lucky, for me, I'm nowhere near ready to start the query process, but for those of you who are but are finding it difficult check out Janet Reid's query shark.