Friday, April 1, 2011

In Which I Share My Twitter Pitch

I've been working on creating a Twitter Pitch for a while now. It just seemed natural to enter Shelley Watters Twitter Pitch Contest.

I think query letters and things like Twitter pitches (or elevator pitches) are probably easier if you have short story skills. Sadly, I do not have short story skills, so here's what I have:

A snarky female troll discovers that part of her job description as "tooth fairy" is to stop a monster before it kills children in her care. Will the other tooth fairies lower themselves to working with a troll, even to save children?

Oops, too long. How about:

A snarky female troll discovers that part of her job description as "tooth fairy" is to stop a monster before it kills children in her care.


Revision:

Thanks to everyone that commented! I've made a few changes to the pitch:

Version 2.0

Title: "Any Fae May Apply"
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Word Count: 95,000

A snarky teen troll finds part of her job as Tooth Fairy is to stop a monster from killing kids. Even if other fae won't work with her kind.

25 comments:

  1. I like this one the best: "A snarky female troll discovers that part of her job description as "tooth fairy" is to stop a monster before it kills children in her care." Although, I feel the word snarky has been overused lately. How long is this story?

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  2. I liked it. I liked "snarky" and feel like it put me in the mind of the character a bit and I like the eminent danger. Obviously this is going to be a book where A LOT happens.
    I'm in the contest too!

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  3. @Kristen J good point! Yes, snarky is over used, but for a Twitter pitch, I think it captures sarcastic and funny in fewer characters, so I'm willing to sacrifice cliche for character length.

    It's 95,000 words. I made a new pitch to cover those details. :) Thank you for your comment!

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  4. @Libby
    Thanks for the feedback :) I just commented on your pitch. Good luck!

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  5. Hi Suzi! First I don't think we have to worry about word count or genre in those few spaces!! So don't pull any more hair out!

    "A snarky female troll discovers that part of her job description as "tooth fairy" is to stop a monster before it kills children in her care." - So I thought you could buy some space by removing the "female" since you refer to "her" later anyway. I think it's pretty darn perfect otherwise! Good job!

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  6. @Bethany Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that? Thank you :)

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  7. I'm with Bethany! We don't need to put word count or anything in the pitch itself. I love the idea of your story and I'd totally read on!

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  8. I like the first one without the 'ya uf' better :) It's a great pitch, and I love that a troll is a tooth fairy.

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  9. THis is a great pitch!!

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  10. I love it. Leave off the genre (I don't think that's required this time around) and go with the spelled-out version. It's fantastic :-D

    Best of luck!

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  11. Thanks for participating! I really it as-is. And you don't need to include the genre/wc in the pitch. When you post on the 3rd, you'll put the Title, genre and word count at the top of your entry.

    Great job and good luck with the contest!

    Shelley

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  12. I tooth fairy troll, I'm hooked! Good luck.

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  13. Oops! Missed the 'like' in the I really like it as-is. Ugh. Need more coffee. LOL

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  14. Love it, and we'd all be toast if we had to include word count and genre in our pitches!

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  15. I like it a lot! I don't have much to add that hasn't already been said, but I'd definitely read on.

    And thank you for stopping by my blog, as well.

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  16. A snarky female troll discovers that part of her job description as "tooth fairy" is to stop a monster before it kills children in her care.

    This is a great story idea! I agree with the earlier commenters, drop the "female" part. I'd drop out a few other extraneous words, maybe streamline. Then if you want/need to add a few more characters, you have some flexibility:

    "A snarky troll discovers part of her job as 'tooth fairy' is to stop a monster from killing the children in her care." (that leaves 20 characters left over!)

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  17. Your story sounds like so much fun! Just a suggestion, but if you take out words like 'that' and 'description' you can fit in more info, as well as her name. My two cents (and exactly 140 characters):

    Part of snarky troll XXXXXXXXXX's job as Tooth Fairy is to stop a monster from killing kids. But will the other Fairies work with a troll?

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  18. Love it! And one of my favorite adjectives is snarky. It fits and provides a clear picture of the character. Keep it. :)

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  19. What can I possibly add? Great pitch, all above commenters have hit what I would have said.

    Can't wait to read this when it gets published! :)

    Thank you for your comment on my pitch. Good luck!

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  20. I dig the concept! Tooth Fairy aka the Kiddie Protector. Very nice. I prefer the pitch without the "YA UF". Great job.

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  21. Great pitch! I like the one without the genre - for most contests I have seen you don't need to include it in the actual 140 length pitch. If you want to imply genre, you could say "a snarky teen troll" since we know from the "her" later that it is a female.

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  22. I really loved this. Leave in the snarky (I think most trolls are anyways) Great job Would like to read this book. :-)

    Thank you for the crit on my blog very helpful - I went back and did a 2nd attempt If you have a chance take a 2nd look and let me know what you think.

    Awesome job Suzie! :-)

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  23. I'm hooked already! Just a thought FWIW... maybe include her name and at least a suggestion of age? I assume she's young if she's the protagonist of a YA novel. "Snarky" is okay. How about something like:
    (Name), a snarky teenage troll, learns that her job as tooth fairy requires her to stop a monster before it kills the children in her care.

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  24. I like it without the YA UF as well. Otherwise- perfect!

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  25. I like it! You've done a great job at putting in the important parts of a pitch. My only suggestion is that I think you can get away with just saying she (I wish I knew her name!) learns a monster is killing kids. It definitely sounds like a good read!

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Thank you for posting a comment! I know that sounds a little needy, and maybe it is. I mean, I don't need comment validation to know that I exist, right? But I like to know that someone else (maybe you?) has read what I wrote and felt moved enough to reply. So, thank you.