I’ve been working on my pitch again, refining it to use some of what I learned during the pitch-slapping altercation, er, opportunity, from a while back with the one of the Canaries.
She recently guested here, in case you missed it: Entering the Coal Mine.
If you’ve been working on your pitch, I’d love it if you’d share yours in the comment section today.
I’ll be around the house cleaning until I leave to procure food, hay and propane. Seems like I just did that last weekend, and I did, but it’s one of those recurring things. This weekend I have my son and his friend to help with the heavier propane tank.
Here’s my pitch so far. It’s a little longish, but I have trimmed a lot already:
SYMBIOSIS – The Last Tree-Feeder
Kali thinks she’s human but Jesse knows she’s not. He kidnaps her to save her life, but disguises and hides her right under the nose of his father, the god Neti who wants to kill her.
When she’s forced to participate in a ritual sacrifice, her true nature quickens. She is mortified when she realizes what her heritage means. The Feuer Tree needs the life energy of willing sacrifices and as the last Feuer, only Kali can feed the tree.
If she refuses, all life on earth will die as sacrifice at the altar of her values.
Once she is found out by Neti she won’t have to choose if he catches up with her. A dying Feuer tree means he can continue becoming a more powerful god. A healthy tree restores the balance of energy to the earth and he doesn’t intend to allow that to happen.
I think what it also needs is a ‘comp title’. According to Jungle Red Writers, a comp title gives the agent or editor or reader an idea of what kind of existing book it is like. This is a problem for me because I haven’t read anything like mine yet and it’s hard to find time to read to the extent I’ll need to read to find one. Do you have any ideas?
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Added at 1617 after considering feedback:
Okay, so I’ve gone to a bullet point system to find the kernels of the story:
- The title of my novel is SYMBIOSIS-The Last Tree-feeder
- Kali’s not human but thinks she is.
- Neti is searching for her so he can kill her.
- Jesse, Neti’s son, kidnaps her to save her life.
- She’s forced to participate in a sacrifice.
- She awakens to her true nature as Feuer.
- Feuers tend the Feuer tree.
- The Feuer tree maintains the balance of life energy on earth.
- The Feuer tree requires life energy of willing human sacrifices to live.
- Kali doesn’t want to be the tree-feeder but she’s the only one who can.
- If she doesn’t feed the tree, it’ll die.
- If the tree dies, all humans will die.
But there’s this about the Feuer tree that I’d like to include somehow:
The Feuer Tree is the key to maintaining the balance of energy between earth’s realms. It has traditionally been the role of Feuers to tend the tree and conduct the rituals and ceremonies that keep the humans and Feuers conscious of the delicate and necessary relationships they’ve developed between each other since the beginning of time.
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Okay, it’s 1903 and I’m back at it for the final pass tonight. Aside from a small change in the title, here’s what I derived from my bullet points:
The Feuer Tree needs human sacrifices to maintain the balance of energy between earth’s realms. It is the role of Feuers to tend the Tree, but the old god Neti has killed all but one who was hidden. He’s going to kill her when he finds her. Kali doesn’t know it yet, but she’s the last Feuer.
She thinks she’s human but Neti’s son knows she’s not. He kidnaps her and plans to use her to bring an end to his father’s reign by returning her to the Tree. She must come to terms with who she is and decide if she will do what it takes to restore balance and save the earth.
The title of my book is SYMBIOSIS.
