The Curious Lives of Teenagers: First Love

 

Today the subjects (sophomore students) are talking about the first time they felt butterflies in the stomach back before butterflies in the stomach was a cliche for them. :)

• Fall in love. Get rejected. Rinse and repeat.

• First love= awkwardly fidgeting while trying to catch their eyes across a classroom.

• Parking lot behind the movie theater.

• I met my first love last year. It was the happiest thing that ever happened to me.

• Someone in this class. J

• What is love? (Hayden don’t hurt me…don’t hurt me…no more)

• Grace Jones

• The first time I asked out a girl was in math class…by note…in a conversation she started…in freshman year.

• Ms. Andrews.

• I just wish he loved me back!

• I was holding my first love’s hand, running through the playground happily…until she fell face first on the metal stairs and bled profusely from her mouth and nose. Love is crippling?

• Love is forever…

• You know, most people view “let’s be friends” as a positive thing to tell someone. From experience I can say it has its bad sides.

• I walked into Encinitas Barber shop and the rest is history.

• I do love you back, Jack!

Lessons From the Pitch Madness Slush

Last week, I had the privilege of assisting two hosts of Pitch Madness with their slush reading. (If you're not familiar with Pitch Madness, it's a blog-hosted contest where writers compete to get requests from agents to read their material. Find more information about this year's contest here.)

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you probably know I'm a big fan of online writing contests. In fact, that's how I got my agent! I've entered quite a few of them over the past few years, but this was the first time I got to see the process from the other side.

Holy crap is it different.

First, let me say that the writers who run these writing contests are saints. I had no idea how much time and energy went into making sure people followed the submission guidelines, following up on missing information, poring over agent wishlists, and reading hundreds of pitches. I was honestly shocked at how much work these hosts are doing, just out of the goodness of their hearts and desire to see other writers succeed.

Without further ado, here are the two main things I learned from reading through hundreds of entries.

1. Short pitches are really, really difficult.
The pitch required for this contest could only be 35 words, maximum. I saw so many entries that tried to cram too much information into this short format, only to end up with a confusing, convoluted pitch. There were more than a few entries that honestly made no sense at all.

Lesson to be learned here: if you're writing a short pitch, keep it as simple as possible. Don't try to mention subplots, minor characters, or overall themes. A tried-and-true approach is this general format: When INCITING INCIDENT happens to MAIN CHARACTER, he/she must OVERCOME CONFLICT by COMPLETING QUEST. (Paraphrased from former literary agent Nathan Bransford--check out his blog for tons of other great query/writing tips.)

2. The first line of your manuscript should be great. It should also set the tone for the rest of the book.
There were lots of pitches that sounded like one type of book (serious high fantasy, for example), but the first line would be something flippant that sounded like it belonged in a women's fiction book.

The first line of your manuscript should be worked over until it's perfect. I had heard that some agents quit reading if they didn't like the first sentence, and I found myself doing the same thing a few times. If that sentence has clunky writing, mechanics errors, or is confusing, you're running the risk that your reader will stop right there.

Conversely, there were some stellar first sentences that made me take a second look at entries where the pitch wasn't as good. My favorites were witty, or infused so much of the main character's voice into just one sentence that I was compelled to keep reading.


For a far more comprehensive wrap-up from another Pitch Madness slush reader, check out LL McKinney's post on the Cue My Muse blog. She delves into the most common errors she saw in both the pitches and the first 250 words and includes some excellent tips.

Public Service Announcement: MAKE IT EASY ON READERS

We are a society that loves instant gratification. The easier you make something, the more likely someone is to do it.  Which is why it is so, so important for you to make things as easy on potential readers as you possibly can.

Some of you heard me lament on this several months ago in my post about building a call to action into your marketing and social media efforts.  I'm not one for beating people over the head with an idea, but I've seen quite a few posts of late that make me feel the message is worth another visit.

Specifically, I wanted to focus on why every book promotion needs to have a link to buy your book and/or add it to Goodreads.

This one feels obvious, but you would be surprised at the number of book promotions I've seen as of late that did not include a single link to buy the author's book or add the author's book to Goodreads.

Make sure that every cover reveal, every interview, and every mention of your book includes links to  Amazon, B&N, and any other places your book is sold. If it's not yet available for sale, then include a link to add it to Goodreads and/or easy ways for the potential readers to learn when the book is available. In fact you should include a Goodreads link regardless - readers might want to add it to their queue before committing.

If someone else has done the write up, help them help you by reaching out and asking them to add the links. I promise they won't mind, because someday they may need to send a similar email.

If you regularly host book promotions on your blog for new releases and cover reveals, do the writer a solid and ask for the info if they don't provide it. It will make a huge difference in their promotional success.

Any post/blurb/write up about your book is a critical moment for gaining potential readers - if you've been lucky enough to get there attention, then you need to do everything in your power to close the sale.  Don't assume that they will remember the title, your name, or that they will even take in upon themselves to type the info into their preferred book vendor after they've read about it.  Make it easy for them.

Happy writing!

Writer's Resource: Twitter Pitch Contests

You probably know that Twitter can be an excellent resource for writers (if not, this earlier post might change your mind).

But did you know that you can regularly find pitch contests on Twitter, where agents and/or editors peruse a certain hashtag at a certain time to find material they'd like to request?

One of the big Twitter pitch contests, the one affiliated with the blog contest Pitch Madness, is coming up next week on March 25th. If you're interested in participating, the details are on the contest organizer Brenda Drake's blog here (scroll down to find the section about the Twitter contest).

I've personally participated in three Twitter pitch contests, and I received several agent and editor requests to see my partial or full manuscript. Even better, I connected with like-minded writers when they complimented my pitch, or when I saw one that looked similar to mine and complimented theirs. I got a great critique partner that way!

Of course, a Twitter contest means that the entries have to be formatted so they're under the 140-character limit for a tweet. If the very idea has you screaming in terror, this post might be helpful: Writing a Short Pitch.

Twitter contests are often associated with blog contests like Pitch Madness. Follow writers like Brenda Drake (@brendadrake) or read threads like this one on the Absolute Write forums to find more!

Characterization Questionnaire Template: Bachelor/ Bachelorette Edition

Confession: I may (or may not) have filled out a Bachelor application for one of my friends in the past...possibly without his permission. In doing so, I might have learned that through answering the questions a strong sense of who a person is romantically comes across in the answers. 

Soooo....if you're feeling a bit of post-Bachelor depression and missing all the Juan-puns of the past few months (Juanuary, anyone???), and are looking to up the romance in your novel, feel free to run your characters through one of these little applications (the first few pages you'll need to skip or shrink down to YA, though, as they probably have not been married with children yet :) ). 

Here is a link to the actual application

And here are a some additional questions I'm going to add for you to answer from the perspective of your character:

1. Do you like Pina Coladas (virgin or not)?

2. Thoughts on getting lost in the rain?

3. When you daydream about a perfect first kiss where is it? 

4. During said kiss, what would you be thinking about?

5. Have you ever lied and told someone you loved him/her when you didn't?

6. Most romantic movie of all time?

7. Describe your parents' relationship. Do you want to be with someone like your mom/dad?

8. That secret thing you're sure he/she will dump you for if he/she finds out?

9. When was the first time you realized you liked someone? Grade? Why?

10. Thing a guy/girl could do to lose your love faster than you can say you "love pina coladas and getting lost in the rain"?