World Series Time--First Base
All right . . . I do NOT want to discuss last night. Don't. Beware . . . I have my teeth bared today. Well, as bared as I can ever get. I mean, COME ON, YANKEES! I feel SICK this morning. SICK! BUT . . . that doesn't mean you all can't get to first base.
First base. You've attracted an editor with your pitch, your little tagline, but whether you make it to first base safely . . . well, the first-base ump can call you out at any time.
Today's assignment? Tantalize your fictitious World Series coach with who, precisely, your main character(s) is. Why should I care? Why is this person special? What is his secret? It would help if, a la a synopsis, you did a little SLIDE into first and threw in some voice so I now whether I should care. Oh, and 50 words or less. No plot, folks. This is all about who that character is and why out of the thousands and thousands of manuscripts in the slush pile . . . YOUR character is one people will want to read about.
Thanks to Lurker Monkey and a pep talk, I may be working on one myself.
My pitch:
In 1348, the ward of a Plague Doctor is delirious with fever and covered in purple patches. He is offered a deal by a mysterious figure in the agonizing suffering of the night. For six hundred long years, Adam has been an Angel of Death. Today, for the first time in his strange existence, he has found someone who can see him.
I have two main characters, so I will pull together my first-base character sketch for the other main character.
All right . . . so how many of you will slide into first?
39 comments:
I'm confused. Is the Angel of Death the ward of the Plague Doctor? Or are there two characters in this paragraph. There seem to be two, one a young kid (wards were under age) and two an ancient magical creature. Is the theme of the story to be about why the magical creature wants to be validated (seen) or is it about the ward who wants to live and is willing to trade his soul. I'm assuming that the deal is something along those lines.
A small-town cop teams up with a murder suspect to battle three retired circus clowns who have discovered a fountain of youth fueled by darkness and cockroaches.
Hi Richmond:
He's an assistant to the plague doctor and is offered a release from his suffering if he becomes an angel of death. I'm still playing with the tag line . . . .
E
Jude:
Again . . . going for camp . . . and it sounds interesting.
I hate clowns.
E
Have you read "A Distant Mirror"? (I can't figure out italicizing) It is an incredible book and intellectually challenging. She writes about everything from where the plague came from, how it changed the peasant's power by reducing the knight's power (through death) and so on. I believe she attributed the Catholic Priest celibacy origins to this era. She also talks about Jews being blamed and being forced to wear badges. It's been 15 years so I'm a little vague. I just know it was an incredible read.
Hehe. I was just trying to bundle all your favorite fears.
Richmond:
Haven't . . . but will check it out!
E
Jude:
Yeah . .. you got all of them in one. Had they gone an an airplane, which had a very enclosed space like a cargo hold . . . well, that would be the unholy trifecta.
E
I'm a little confused about what you're asking here. I don't have time to do this right now, so I'll follow along and see what others post until something clicks.
Harvey Stone wants to keep his home. Virginia is forcing him to sell it in order to create its playground for the rich. He plans to fight them with fire. His son wants to move off the mountain and into the capital of country music where his talent will shine.
50 words.
Hi Melanie:
Pick a character and let me know what's special about them. We've just been playing with some residual pitches.
E
Richmond:
I still think about your first page--very beautiful.
Tell me more about Harvey. Age, prideful, noble? (He struck me as noble!).
E
Hmm... (turns out I have time)
Carol Stevens spent her days nurturing her children and caring for her garden, but when her husband is killed while attacking their next-door-neighbor, her idyllic life is flipped off its axis. Now she must find a the strength to protect what's left of her family in a community determined to exile them.
Melanie:
I have to say . . . .
You "know" your book. I really feel like you are in touch with your new idea.
One question I would have . . . you mention the garden and children . . . what was her marriage like?
In a flat out telling:
Harvey is a mix. He's harsh on his boys, favors his tomboy daughter, belligerent when threatened, gentle when he deals with animals.
His secret is the fear that his musical son isn't actually his son. His emotional arc is facing the fact that the move he fought opened a world of opportunity for his children. There is a reason for his belligerence. He has to let go of the past.
Obviously I'm still trying to work things out so everything is vague.
Wow, Richmond . . . but that's awesome. Weave that into a picture and you have something truly compelling!!!! Bravo for you. I love the dichotomy in his parenting--I think that's veyr common, especially for his time.
E
Erica, Carol thought her marriage was perfect. She worked at a garden shop in town, had a garden at the house that the neighbor girl helped with (the one who was attacked) and raised her kids. When the husband dies she feels like an idiot because everything was in his name & she can't believe she was so out of touch with their finances. Then she gets fired, the kids get harassed...
Oh, and her husband -- the attacker -- was editor of the local paper.
Flynn Rose lives in near total isolation, on an island with his dad in the middle of endless mud flats. He's only left the island a handful times. As far as Flynn sees it, his whole life has basically been ruined by his dad's unbreakable rule: thou shalt never leave the island. Ever.
So Flynn has molded himself to the swamp. He explores the flats at night, alone. He has taught himself to hold his breath for long periods, to swim in the dark water unafraid of the large animals that lurk on the bottom, to climb trees and pad across open land silently, and vanish even on open ground.
During the day, he is home-schooled by his father. Flynn spends his days watching his dad, trying to understand why his dad forces them to live like they're under siege, with boxes of ammo hidden all over their island and emergency kits always ready. It makes it worse that Flynn's dad won't answer his many questions—Jack Rose is not the kind of man who explains himself.
When change finally comes to Flynn's life, it comes in the form of flame and loss—and a jet black rock that Flynn finds he alone can't touch.
Ooh Lurker, I really like that.
Melanie:
Good stuff . . . good conflict.
E
Lurker:
REALLY GOOD STUFF.
True crime writer Parker Marks knows that a murder has more than one victim. He believes his brother Jimmy, murdered six years earlier, was the first in a string of killings made by a serial killer. Convincing other people that his straight brother couldn't possibly have been the victim of a gay slasher killing is only one hurdle he must face. Traveling from Texas to Detroit to investigate the latest killing, being followed by a twenty-one-year-old one-night-stand, Parker faces the possibility that his obsession with solving his brother's murder has already claimed at least one other life--his own. Skimming across the surface of life, drinking too much and using casual sex as a way to avoid intimacy, this last killing could be the death of him. Or bring him back to life.
I'm not really sure I like this. It's pretty much a rough draft, but I could work with this.
I'm originally from Philly. We needn't say more, eh? :-)
***
52 words
Evie, a 44-year-old divorced mom raising twins, co-exists in a small town with her ex, his young wife (formerly his mistress) and their baby. When the ex dies, Evie reconfigures her family to include the widow and baby. Evie struggles to set aside the past, but it keeps creeping into the present.
Mark:
The one thing that rings false to me is the "sex to avoid intimacy." I somehow think in his voice or worl, he would use some other phrasing. I don't know . . . . it's too female. (Playing into stereotypes here, but . . .)
E
Amy:
No, we needn't say anything more at this juncture in time. ;-)
I am still left with cruiosity about EVIE. I understand her dilemma, but what makes her tick, who is she? Why should I root for her beyond her circumstances. In the draft I saw bits of, I loved her observations when she sat Shiva. Those sentences told me more than this, in some ways.
E
Here's what I have for my next book, seeing as Escapade has been shelved for a month or two.
Dress sewing girl of spirit Pearl Humphrey will do just about anything to not end up working in her mother's dress shop for the rest of her life. And she'd rather not recieve gifts like her three perfect, bubbly, blond sisters who all gained the gift of charm and good manners on their sixtenth birthdays.
And that's about all I have so far.
Evie just wanted a normal life for her and her kids. It was hard not to feel different when she got divorced in her tiny married suburb – but that was nothing compared to having her ex’s widow and baby living in her basement.
Evie decided a normal life was over-rated -- until she realized that normal could be whatever they needed it to be.
Mark: Have you read Michael Connelly's The Poet?
JT:
I love the name Pearl (and I missed ya! Where you been?).
So . . . tell me more.
E
Some grist for the mill. 41 words.
Fifteen year-old Chad Carson just wants to be treated like a normal person but has been in Special Education for behavior problems since third grade and has lived his entire life with his alcoholic mother and her series of abusive boyfriends.
Paul:
Like it . . . I'd love to know what "normal" looks like to him. I.e., what's his struggle? Does he have issues of self-control, etc.? Has he been falsely labeled? Does he have a learning disability?
He sounds like a character a lot of yeens could reallt relate to.
Amy, can you put the last part of your last post at the end of your previous post:
Evie, a 44-year-old divorced mom raising twins, co-exists in a small town with her ex, his young wife (formerly his mistress) and their baby. When the ex dies, Evie reconfigures her family to include the widow and baby and decided a normal life was over-rated -- until she realized that normal could be whatever they needed it to be.
Or something to that effect. This whole time I keep wondering why she takes this woman in, and by showing she doesn't care what "normal" is, that explains it more.
I really like this. :)
Jude,
Yes. Creepy.
Your book reminded me of it, Mark, with the crime writer looking for his brother's killer...
Fostered by a priest and trained by a godless soldier, Trinidad learned the brutal art of balancing faith and war in a walled parish launching a crusade against the godless. But when an an old Wiccan friend claims he's started the Apocalypse, Trinidad is torn between finding forgiveness in martyrdom and saving people he never swore to protect.
The Halls of Hades have been getting to me lately, along with a ton of computer and friend issues. I've missed being here.
Back to the new project. I'm planning on making it a detective book that's very light on the detective side first. Pearl is a combination of Nacy Drew, Kiki, and Pipi Longstocking. Plus, I'm giveing this world a steampunk twist.
Escapade is in need of mega huge rewrites. I'll start back on it in a couple of months.
Starbucks:
There is such a sureness to that description. Awesome.
JT:
I LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE (!!!!!!!) Kiki!
E
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