We’re on the final day of our pitch workshop. Shelley Watters, Cassandra Marshall (Cass will be posting for a couple more days), and I are finished critiquing pitches. Click on my partners-in-crime pics on the sidebar to go to their sites and read their critiques. I only have one critique today. Several who had signed up to participate didn’t send in their entries.
DL Hammons
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Title: Ballad Keeper (Love this title)
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Pitch:
When Lana Kavanaugh’s dad disappears, she hops a plane for Ireland to find the mysterious Blaine O’Sullivan and unravel secrets within her dad’s Irish folklore research–before his life runs out.
Excerpt:
Irish air rushed across my face, dampening skin dry from eighteen years of Jersey’s smog and ten hours flying coach to Dublin. Green and salty, I took a deep breath of it. The clean oxygen flooded my lungs and quenched a thirst for Ireland I didn’t discover until that moment. In the dim neon light from the pub, I fished three yellow Euros out of my pocket and squinted at the indistinct numbers. These better be fifties, I thought as I pressed them into the cab driver’s palm. The scraps of paper resembled Monopoly money more than real cash. They stuck to his clammy skin before crinkling inside his tightening fist.
“This place is it?” I stomped around the green cab to where the driver stood grunting, trying to disengage my over sized bag from the pint-sized trunk. No way in hell was I letting him strand me at the wrong pub. “This is the only Gallagher’s Pub in Kilkenny?”
6 Comments
R.A.Desilets · February 16, 2012 at 10:44 am
Starting with the second paragraph might be better – because that already hooks me into your MC’s attitude.
I agree with Brenda, the first paragraph (really fantastically written) sounds so adult. You can definitely keep some of these details, but try not to keep them in such a condensed, thick paragraph, if that makes sense.
DL Hammons · February 16, 2012 at 10:50 am
Oh WOW…I won!! Get excellent advice, and a gift certificate…can’t beat that with a stick! Thank you, Brenda!
Angela Brown · February 16, 2012 at 11:19 am
So, like before, I read the submission first and must admit that I was taken with the first paragraph of the except. Except, I felt the YA voice in the second paragraph, unless she’s a rather mature YA protagonist. So when it was noted about the YA voice, I could see her point.
I won’t really speak on the pitch because I’m coming to my own realization that me and pitches have some issues we need to work out lol!!
All in all, I’d have to say all the notes mentioned for this one are great and on point.
Sharon Bayliss · February 16, 2012 at 3:22 pm
I like the pitch and the first 100. My only concern is that the pitch makes it sound like a mystery. Where is the fantasy?
Hope Roberson · February 18, 2012 at 12:05 pm
Great concept! I would keep reading 🙂 Good sensory details and I like the voice that comes through in the second paragraph, nicely done!
Erin Kane Spock · February 19, 2012 at 12:36 pm
I’ve been mid-rewrite for my Courtly Scandals query for over a month. Your comments here have been very helpful.
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