Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Successful Pitches - Mistress of Deceit

Mistress of Deceit - coming in 2015 from Eternal Press.

Winning Pitch

Ambrosia Severn is a gifted but insecure young doctor who has fast-tracked to recognition and academic prestige. She takes a beach-vacation in upstate California and while beach-combing, she sees a naked man walk out of the surf. She had left her cell phone at the villa up on the cliff overlooking the beach, and the only weapon she has is her new metal-detector for treasure hunting. Running is definitely an option but the orthopedic surgeon in her knows that the best collection of limbs and musculature she’s ever come across would outrun her in seconds. She settles for standing still, hoping that she might talk her way out of the situation.

A few hours later, across the dinner table she’s not only facing Niven, the stranger who walked out of the surf naked but a horrendous decision. Niven has just asked her to choose between giving up her life’s work – her achievements, place in the medical research community, her father and her identity – or die.

He is a descendant of Quen star-lords stranded on Earth thousands of years ago. He must protect the beautiful but temperamental young doctor and find out who wants to kill her. His mission directive is simple. Nothing else is because unknown to him the one who wants to kill Amy is Niven’s betrothed. And while some women turn into dragons when they see their fiancĂ© escorting a gorgeous and sexy young woman, Niven’s fiancĂ© really is a dragon.


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The above brief synopsis took nearly a year to write - it is a synthesis of many, many synopses and pitches that eventually all ended up in front of me and I went pick-and-choosing sentences - literally - from each to put together what you see above. 

Write a pitch for your novel once a day - or at least once a week - and then after you have about five-six of them, put them on paper, put them on the table in front of you and hi-light what you think is effective in each of them. Then string together those sentences or ideas. You will have to re-position within your frame for clarity and effectiveness, but in the end you will end up with a solid pitch.

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