The ubiquitous “they” say you’re supposed to have a thirty-second pitch of your novel ready to rattle off at the drop of a hat. After all, you never know when you’ll be stranded inside a subway car, gasping for your last breath with the Group President of Harper Collins, or marooned after a plane crash with Amanda Urban, where you are the only two survivors (yes, I’m convinced these are the only scenarios in which these people would ever talk to me).
After more than two and a half years with this novel, and a year with it finished, I’ve never quite mastered the art of the thirty-second pitch. It’s hard enough to do in the first place, but when I’m dealing with two concurrent plotlines that converge, both dashed with sociopathy and incest - well, the task becomes a little heavier.
So, when people ask me, “What’s your novel about?” I start smiling and laughing. That’s not a good response, I know. Not only do I fumble trying to explain its gist, but then I also have to justify why I’ve laughed and explain the “they say you’re supposed to have a thirty-second pitch ready…” story while my cheeks flush the color of a stop sign.
Over the last year, while still spewing too cumbersome a pitch, I’ve at least gotten a bit better at the spiel, especially after writing my query letter. But now, after the epic restructure from last week (which I am definitively full speed ahead on, and so excited), I’m totally back to the start. The part of the pitch at which I was best is now two-thirds of the way into the story, so it doesn’t belong in the pitch any longer. I feel really strange not knowing how to explain my novel, and now in the throes of a query letter rewrite, have no clue where to start framing the novel and how to write about it.
I need to snuggle back into it until I learn its new structure, and figure out how exactly to explain everything. Man, does it ever end?
(Who am I kidding? I love this.)
M
