Tag: elevator pitch

Petrified

I’m going to this writers’ conference this weekend, and I’m petrified.

I shouldn’t be. I have been to many professional conferences, presented my work in front of other professionals in my field, taught 25 years of classes — but I’m petrified of going to this conference.

I can count the reasons:

  • Because now I have to admit I’m a writer
  • Because I don’t know how I come off in person
  • Because I’m going to be around real published writers, of which I’m not one
  • Because I have handed off ten pages of Prodigies in an editorial review and I don’t know what ELSE I’ll be expected to change.
  • Because I’ll be giving a verbal pitch to real people instead of just online
  • Just because 

I have no choice but to go. This is going to be a learning experience for me. Probably not my big opportunity, but a learning experience. 

Deep breath. 

6000 Words

I’m in the difficult position on figuring out where to put 6000 words back into Voyageurs.

This is harder than it sounds. Or, rather, doing it well is harder than it sounds. More dialogue might be a good thing, but it has to be the right dialogue — developing character or plot without sounding like the words were crowbarred into the text.

Adding words, to me, is harder than editing. I’ve edited my professional papers for years — the real challenge in academic writing is editing a synopsis of the paper to fifty words, which reads something like this:


Researchers hypothesized that subjects would be more likely to buy the pre-owned car than the used car. One hundred and twenty-three students in a convenience sample received either a used car or the pre-owned car catalog entry.  Subjects viewed both cars with equal likelihood of buying.


There’s so much more I could have said about the research this synopsis came from. This, by the way, is the type of writing one has to do for the summary a book in a query letter. You get one, maybe two paragraphs in a query letter (but more than fifty words) to describe your book. If the author wants to participate in #pitmad on Twitter — a big event where authors pitch their books on Twitter — you get one sentence to sell your novel, a statement called an elevator pitch.

Well, back to adding words. I’m really apprehensive about adding words. I did add some descriptions throughout and one whole chapter, which is why I only need 6000 words. That’s the equivalent of two-three chapters, which is what I cut out by advice of my developmental editor. I can understand why those chapters got cut — they were action-packed chapters in a story that had quite enough action. My dev editor is looking for places where I can add stuff, so I may have to patiently wait to see what she has to say.