Hi everyone! Today we have a pitch for Get Your Pitch On. Please feel free to critique in the comments.
Name: Lindsey Frydman
Email: LindseyMFrydman@gmail.com
Country of residence: US
Title: UNCOVERED
Genre: YA Sci-Fi Romance
Word-count: 62,000
Pitch: When Hallie meets Colton, a guy with more frightening secrets than being an alien, she finds herself hunted by the Megaera. This deranged alien mafia group says she’s a Hamartia, a half human race who isn’t allowed to exist because they’re a threat. The Megaera thinks she could be an asset. Hallie must decide whom to trust if she wants to avoid being a prisoner or worse—dead.
Hi Lindsey! Happy to have you here on my blog and in the contest! UNCOVERED sounds like a very cool concept. Deranged alien mafia? Whoa. I'd love to see how that played out!
What I'd love to see in this pitch is even MORE of what makes this story unique. "Half human race who isn't allowed to exist..." is a good specific sentence, and as I mentioned, "deranged alien mafia" sounds awesome.
But then we have some sentences that, to me, sound a little too general. "More frightening secrets," "an asset," "must decide who to trust"--I feel like I could fit those sentences into pitches for quite a lot of books. To make this pitch even stronger, I would hone in more on the details we'll only find in THIS book. What exactly do the Megaera want with Hallie? Who is she deciding to trust or not? Colton? I'd love to see him come up again, since the genre is listed as Sci-Fi Romance.
And my other question would be: does Hallie have a 'positive goal?' Avoiding something certainly sounds important in this case, but is she working toward anything at the same time? Positive goals (working toward something) are generally more active, and therefore more interesting in a pitch than negative goals (avoiding something).
I know how hard it is to get details in such a short pitch, but it's also the place you need them the most! The more you can pack the limited space you do have with specifics rather than generalities, the faster a reader will snatch it up!
Best of luck!!
Agree with me? Don't agree with me? Let us know in constructive critique in the comments! And once you're done here, you can hop around to all the other participating blogs (see the other blogs here) and leave feedback there, too!
For each critique you leave in the comments, you get an entry into the drawing to win one of eight 10-page critiques from our contest host Sharon Johnston and workshop hosts Larissa Hardesty, Stephanie Diaz, Catherine Scully, Jodie Andrefski, Paula Sangare, Talynn and Kaitlin Adams, and Sarah Nicolas with three query critiques. Please use the exact same name for all of your critiques.
This is an interesting premise, but it leaves me with a lot of questions. What I need out of a pitch is 1)who is your hero? 2) what does she want? 3)what stands in the way? I know it's hard to weave in all the details about the world you've built, but we really need to know these three things. :) I'm also not getting a clear idea what role Colton plays here...a romantic interest perhaps? It's not clear.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a unique idea!
ReplyDeleteI would agree that some more specifics would strengthen your pitch. I also think adding some of these details as well as your protagonist's reactions to all of this will make your author voice stand out.
Sounds very creative, good luck to you Lindsey =)