4 replies to this topic

[AshemDragon]

I may or may not actually pitch for pitmad today (I'm not sure my book is actually polished enough) but I have a couple queries drafted nonetheless:

 

• An empathetic outcast from a race of psychopaths who feed on humans' life force, Nero is fed up with his people's needlessly brutal treatment of humans and decides to betray his blood and switch sides.

 

• After being haplessly adopted into the most violent group of his already psychopathic race, Nero witnesses them commit brutality against humans so bad it gives him the courage to fight against his own blood.

 

(this one's actually too long for me to fit hashtags into the tweet, but I thought it was good anyways?)

• Having compassion in a society of psychopaths, Nero has suffered at the hands of his fellow syiks, but his torment is nothing compared to how they treat their human prey. His sympathy eventually proves to be useful – to the humans he decides to aid in a war against his own kind.

 

 

I figure that even if I don't end up pitching today, it'll probably be nice to have some queries ready and edited for the next pitmad event!

(PS: just wanna make a quick note that in the second query where I say he's "haplessly adopted" the idea I'm trying to get across is that he's totally unqualified and was chosen p much at random.)

 

 

[cmmg]

I may or may not actually pitch for pitmad today (I'm not sure my book is actually polished enough) but I have a couple queries drafted nonetheless:

 

• An empathetic outcast from a race of psychopaths who feed on humans' life force (This is way too much going on at once. "empathetic outcast?" doesn't really mean much either.), Nero is fed up with his people's needlessly brutal (The sentence should be simple, and you don't need both adjectives here) treatment of humans and decides to betray his blood and switch sides (I thought you said he was an outcast not a traitor? Those are different. Also, if he betrays his blood, that implies he's switching sides so you don't need the last bit.).

 

• After being haplessly adopted into the most violent group of his already psychopathic race, Nero witnesses them commit brutality against humans so bad it gives him the courage to fight against his own blood. (This is too vague and everything could be communicated by "disgusted by their treatment of humans, Nero betrays his own race." and what you have is many words for no new information.)

 

(this one's actually too long for me to fit hashtags into the tweet, but I thought it was good anyways?)

• Having compassion in a society of psychopaths, Nero has suffered at the hands of his fellow syiks, but his torment is nothing compared to how they treat their human prey. His sympathy eventually proves to be useful – to the humans he decides to aid in a war against his own kind. (I like the first sentence but the second sentence doesn't do anything for me)

 

 

I figure that even if I don't end up pitching today, it'll probably be nice to have some queries ready and edited for the next pitmad event!

(PS: just wanna make a quick note that in the second query where I say he's "haplessly adopted" the idea I'm trying to get across is that he's totally unqualified and was chosen p much at random.)

I think the biggest thing here is I don't get any stakes for Nero and there's a lot of words to basically say the same things. syiks are evil. Nero betrays them. But at what cost? What are the stakes? I think the last works best because it's the most specific and concrete, but the second half really goes back to being vague.

[AshemDragon]

Okay, what if I...

 

• Part of a race of psychopaths that feed on humans' life force, Nero is a second class citizen due to his empathy. That empathy eventually leaves him fed up with the syiks' brutality towards humans, inspiring him to go from outcast to traitor as he secretly attempts to lead the humans in a war against his own blood.

 

• After being haplessly adopted into the most violent group of his already psychopathic race, Nero finds himself unable to tolerate their brutality towards humans, and risks what little status they've given him to turn traitor and fight for the humans' – and his own – survival.

 

• Syiks are a people who hunt humans and live off their life force, and they're all psychopaths who revel in the violence – except Nero, an outcast whose compassion allows him to see the humans' side of thing, and even take that side when he decides to potentially lower himself to their status by leading them in a war against his own kind. 

...I typed all of these out then realized that what happened is you said they were "too many words" so I made them more words. And now all three of them are too long. *sigh*

Anyways I tried to add some talk about the stakes, but there really is just a lot of information I feel is too important to leave out of the hook? I really need to mention that:

Nero is an outcast/syiks are also mean to Nero himself

Syiks are not supposed to have empathy, and they survive by killing humans and taking their life force

Nero, being a syik, is also subject to having to kill humans (just fyi: technically they can kill any animal, but animals vs humans is like living off of cardboard and a daily vitamin vs eating every meal at whatever restaurant you want) for his own survival. So like. "Betraying his blood" means not only betraying other syiks, but also betraying himself and what he is at his core?

Nero relates to or at least pities the humans and that's why he takes their side

 

I'd also like to mention that,

Nero recently gained a little bit of status by being "adopted" into that group, and is now risking gaining their personal hatred (as opposed to a general, "oh yeah, we don't like that guy" type of dislike) if they find out he sided with humans

Nero's mostly upset with how the syiks are needlessly brutal with humans, instead of trying to find the most humane way of killing them or mixing animals into their diet so they don't have to kill humans as often

But those things are probably better to save for an actual query rather than just the hook, if I end up mentioning them at all?

 

I'm being very verbose rn but I guess my point is that I'm having trouble figuring out either what things I'm able to leave out in order to keep this short, or how to word it so I can fit all that into a smaller word count.

[cmmg]

Okay, what if I...

 

• Part of a race of psychopaths that feed on humans' life force (This needs to communicated in less words), Nero is a second class citizen due to his empathy. (You already have enough in that one sentence for a whole pitch, that's the level of info per pitch) That empathy eventually leaves him fed up with the syiks' brutality towards humans, inspires him to go from outcast to traitor as he secretly attempts to leads the humans in a war against his own blood. (Literally, less info. You're also not saying more by giving more words.)

 

• After being haplessly adopted (how can one be "haplessly adopted") into the most violent group of his already psychopathic race, Nero finds himself unable to tolerate their brutality towards humans, and risks what little status they've given him to turn traitor and fight for the humans' – and his own – survival. ( I'd say this is the closest you get to a proper pitch in terms of connected and information. You have 1)evil race 2)won't take it 3)fight but also with a little extra flavour)

 

• Syiks are a people who hunt humans, and live off their life force, and they're all psychopaths who revel in the violence – except Nero, an outcast whose compassion allows him to see the humans' side of thing, and even take that side when he decides to potentially lower himself to their status (This is not clear what you mean here I only know what this means from reading your thing but it's not adding anything for youe) by leading them in a war against his own kind. 

...I typed all of these out then realized that what happened is you said they were "too many words" so I made them more words. And now all three of them are too long. *sigh*

Anyways I tried to add some talk about the stakes, but there really is just a lot of information I feel is too important to leave out of the hook? I really need to mention that:

Nero is an outcast/syiks are also mean to Nero himself (try to imply if you're dying to say it)

Syiks are not supposed to have empathy, and they survive by killing humans and taking their life force (some of this, but you can't get across all, this is 3 things)

Nero, being a syik, is also subject to having to kill humans (just fyi: technically they can kill any animal, but animals vs humans is like living off of cardboard and a daily vitamin vs eating every meal at whatever restaurant you want) for his own survival. So like. "Betraying his blood" means not only betraying other syiks, but also betraying himself and what he is at his core?

Nero relates to or at least pities the humans and that's why he takes their side

 

I'd also like to mention that,

Nero recently gained a little bit of status by being "adopted" into that group, and is now risking gaining their personal hatred (as opposed to a general, "oh yeah, we don't like that guy" type of dislike) if they find out he sided with humans

Nero's mostly upset with how the syiks are needlessly brutal with humans, instead of trying to find the most humane way of killing them or mixing animals into their diet so they don't have to kill humans as often

But those things are probably better to save for an actual query rather than just the hook, if I end up mentioning them at all?

 

I'm being very verbose rn but I guess my point is that I'm having trouble figuring out either what things I'm able to leave out in order to keep this short, or how to word it so I can fit all that into a smaller word count.

 

You don't need that. In a pitch you get to communicate two maybe three things. "disgusted by their treatment of humans, Nero betrays his own race"  conveys two things and is basically the same as everything above more or less. I'm sorry, but you don't need to mention anything about Nero being an outcast, or them hating him personally if the point is he betrays them. That's too complicated and also overshadowed by the war against them. I do feel your pain about wanting to across the uniqueness, there's two issues you have.

 

1) leave out everything except the one detail that people need for it to make sense. In this case a) "Nero is a different race" communicated by "betrays his own race" or anything  like that b) Nero betrays them. I guess. If that's your plot pivotal thing, than that's it. Those are essential. The other things you should imply instead of explain. Get them across without just straigth up telling the reader for instance "what little status he has left" implies he was pretty low status but doesn't explicitly mention the status thing. Good. Explaining the minutiae isn't helping, because I don't understand enough to care or to understand it. Saying "he has to lower his status" means nothing to be having not read the book and thus, not comprehending what the status means and what the consequences of that are.

 

2) You're second problem is making it sound unique. Instead of highlight how evil they are or how status works or how X and Y, focus on the unique aspects and center them.

 

Here's an example I made up "Nero is the only siyk that can feel empathy," communicates so much in teeny tiny words. It communicates 1) new races of people who don't feel empathy (and are probably bad) except Nero who doesn't fit in. It also emphasizes the unique of it. You could have it "Nero is the only siyk who can feel empathy. And he's the only pro-human that can defeat the siyks and win human's their freedom/stop humans from being slaughtered/whatever. Only problem: he still needs to eat them to live." communicates the essentials of Nero's position to the siyks, him leading the rebels (sort of) and even his internal conflict. Boom. Maybe this makes no sense, but you keep trying to explain everything and you need to imply. We don't need everything about the siyk, just enough to make them interesting. We don't need to know everything about why Nero wants to save the humans, just enough to create conflict.

 

The above needs more contentedness, but that's the bare bones of it. Then you have to make that interesting.

[bookgirl_kt]

I found number two the best one. A couple reasons: 1. It has more voice. "Haplessly adopted" is great. 2. The personal stakes for Nero are higher, as well as what he's giving up. 3. There's less world-building than the others. I'm not sure if a twitter pitch has enough room for information on his empathy ability; this shorter pitch worked much better for me. 

 

I think you could incorporate the elements I liked into your other pitches. Here's an example: starting with "Syiks are a people who hunt humans and live off their life force, and they're all psychopaths who revel in the violence – except Nero, an outcast whose compassion allows him to see the humans' side of thing, and even take that side when he decides to potentially lower himself to their status by leading them in a war against his own kind." --> "Nero is a hapless empath belonging to an alien race which hunts humans. He risks becoming the next prey to lead humanity in a war against his own kind."

 

Hope I've helped! A link to my hook is below.