We’ve made it to the 8th day of our pitch workshop. Shelley Watters, Cassandra Marshall, and I are critiquing two pitches each per day. Click on my partners-in-crime pics on the sidebar to go to their sites and read their critiques.
Next up is …
Name: Lisa Basso
Title: GRACEFUL DEATH
Genre: YA Paranormal
Word count: 72,000
Another sleepless night will kill fifteen-year-old Grace. Desperate, she tries a new sleep aid. The Grim-freaking-Reaper invades her room with an offer: don Death’s hoodie and become a reaper, or suffer a fate worse than death.
Genre: YA Paranormal
Word count: 72,000
Pitch:
Another sleepless night will kill fifteen-year-old Grace. Desperate, she tries a new sleep aid. The Grim-freaking-Reaper invades her room with an offer: don Death’s hoodie and become a reaper, or suffer a fate worse than death.
B’s notes: I’m liking the voice here. The pitch switches thoughts and confuses me though. Does the Grim Reaper come to her after she uses the new sleeping aid? Does she die? And what fate worse than death will she suffer if she doesn’t don the hoodie? Answer these questions and I’ll give your logline a try.
Excerpt:
Not in the damn hallway. Anywhere but here.
A surge of dizziness claws its way over me. I sway on my feet, watching the Santa Cruz High School crowd thin.
“Whoa.” A chick I recognize from Geometry stops walking toward her next class. She comes one, two, three steps closer. In my warped vision , (I’d put a comma after this introductory clause) the closer she comes, the more her body jerks and jumps. I blink in the hopes she’ll even out. Her lipstick wavers from orange to purple.
“Doing okay there, Grace?” The guy beside her—clasping her fingers—leans in (I had to read this sentence twice – you might want to set commas or emdashes around ‘clasping her fingers’). His eyes remind me of a toad’s, too far apart. But then again, the right side of his face is melting, so who am I to judge?
I whip up enough BS to shoo them away before things get worse, though I have no clue what I’ve said. Eventually they turn the corner. The hallway quiets in its empty state. I suck in air like a drowning person who’s just reached the surface. It doesn’t help. I can’t freaking breathe.
“Whoa.” A chick I recognize from Geometry stops walking toward her next class. She comes one, two, three steps closer. In my warped vision , (I’d put a comma after this introductory clause) the closer she comes, the more her body jerks and jumps. I blink in the hopes she’ll even out. Her lipstick wavers from orange to purple.
“Doing okay there, Grace?” The guy beside her—clasping her fingers—leans in (I had to read this sentence twice – you might want to set commas or emdashes around ‘clasping her fingers’). His eyes remind me of a toad’s, too far apart. But then again, the right side of his face is melting, so who am I to judge?
I whip up enough BS to shoo them away before things get worse, though I have no clue what I’ve said. Eventually they turn the corner. The hallway quiets in its empty state. I suck in air like a drowning person who’s just reached the surface. It doesn’t help. I can’t freaking breathe.
B’s notes: Nice. I like what you’ve done to this. The voice is wonderful. You pulled me and I’m wondering what’s happening to this girl. Great job! I don’t see anything wrong with this excerpt, so I’ll leave it to the commentors to have at it. Loved this!
I hope this helps!
Remember this is subjective and others’ may feel differently. So I’ll now pass it on to the readers to critique. Please leave your comments, and remember the rules of critiquing … be nice, which I’m sure you all will be, but I have to say it … you know.
