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Source: Writing About Writing Facebook page.

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Kitsune no yomeiri (fox wedding procession) characters, made from leaves by @kusabanaasobi. I love that kind of art & craft, OP published a book about it if you too wanna try this ;)

Title is あたらしい草花あそび (=modern flower activities), ISBN 978-4635580403

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How to pitch your novel in under a minute

One of those things every author needs to learn to do at some point or other is give what’s called an “elevator pitch.” This pitch is so named, because should you be in an elevator with someone you’d like to read your book, there wouldn’t be any time for a ten-minute synopsis. You would need to pitch your idea to them in a matter of seconds, catching their interest while you still had them trapped in a small space, forced to hear you out.  

Most elevator pitches aren’t actually given in elevators. They’re given at networking events, in bookstores, to friends and family, and basically whenever anybody asks “so what is your book about?” Usually the person you’re speaking to won’t be waiting for the doors to open so they can escape, but the ability to quickly spark someone’s interest in your story is invaluable.

Your “elevator pitch” should easily answer the explicit question: “so what is your book about?” and the implicit question: “and why should I want to read it?” 

A good elevator pitch has two elements: the one-sentence description and a few comparable titles. These should work together to tell interested parties exactly what they need to know in as little time as possible.

The One-Sentence Description

The goal of the one-sentence description is to lay out a clear premise that’s able to pique a perspective reader’s interest. Which is actually two goals. You need a clear, simple premise that more or less describes your entire book. And you need to make that simple premise engaging. 

Some advice on crafting your sentence:

Start by identifying your protagonist

Follow only one story thread

Limit it to 25 words max

Focus on the protagonist’s central conflict

Now this sentence probably isn’t going to describe your book to a T. It shouldn’t describe your book to a T. But your book should have some central idea that you can distill all of the intricacies of the plot down to. 

To be engaging, your sentence must (1) show what is specific/original about your premise and (2) contain an inherent question. This means that your sentence can’t be “an 11-year-old boy tries to save the world.” While this may describe your general story, it describes it far too generally. This can be any of hundreds of books. How does he try to save the world? Which world is he trying to save? Who or what is he trying to save it from? 

“An 11-year-old boy tries to save the world from his brother’s evil goldfish,” only answers one of these questions, but it’s a much more engaging sentence. It draws out what is probably the most interesting, original element of this hypothetical book’s premise to draw a potential reader in. 

As for the inherent question, this will come from your central conflict. Usually this is: ‘does this person succeed?’ Sometimes it’s: ‘do they get together?’ It may be: ‘but is he really the murderer?’ If a reader can’t ask a question at the sentence’s end, your summary hasn’t properly engaged them (and you haven’t properly identified the central conflict.) 

Examples:

A boy wizard begins training and must battle for his life with the Dark Lord who murdered his parents. (Source)

A young English nurse searches for the way back home after time-traveling from 1945 to 1743 Scotland. (Source)

A young man learns that destroying his magic ring is the key to saving his world from the Dark Lord. (Source)

Multiple One Sentence Descriptions

Sometimes you don’t have to pitch THE high concept idea of your novel. Sometimes you’ll want to tailor your pitch to a particular reader. 

War and Peace is a slow-burn love story between Natasha and Pierre. War and Peace is about the effect of the Napoleonic wars on Russian high society. War and Peace is about the search for a life of meaning and purpose set in 18th c. Russia.

A war historian won’t like War and Peace for the same reasons as a reader interested in romance, and a reader interested in romance won’t like War and Peace for the same reasons as a philosopher, but they will all like the same book.

When pitching, it’s important to pitch your story to a specific audience. Draw out certain elements of a story according to certain reader’s tastes (if you know them). Have a few one-sentence descriptions that emphasise different elements of your story for every type of reader you come across. 

When pitching your book in 25 words, you’ll need to aim the arrow straight at the heart.

The Comparisons

The dreaded “X Meets Y” pitch. Once you’ve neatly summarised your story, it’s time to compare it to something. You don’t necessarily need to follow the “X meets Y” format to a T, but you do need to mention a few comparable titles.

Your comparisons can be a short-hand for style, tone, and all the sorts of things that can’t possibly be described in a sentence, no matter how long. They also serve to show your book’s potential place in the market, suggesting the sort of readers who might be interested in your book. This means you’ll typically want to use comps that are in the same age range and genre. Try to pick books that aren’t the most popular books in their genre, but that the person you’re pitching to should be familiar with.  

Some formats you can use instead of “X Meets Y”:

In the vein of X and Y

Would appeal to fans of X and Y

Like X but [concept]

The Combination

Combining your one sentence description and your comp titles will give you your completed elevator pitch. 

The elevator pitch for my WIP is: 

A girl inherits a book of spells and tries to fix the problems of her small town with its magic. [TITLE] will appeal to fans of Studio Ghibli’s Kiki’s Delivery Service and Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. 

If I keep these two sentences in my back pocket, I have everything I need to grab a likely reader’s attention. 

Even if they’re only going from Floor 1 to Floor 2. 

Sources: 

The Art of Writing Copy

PubCrawl Podcast “X Meets Y” Pitches

How to Pitch Your Novel

Twitter Pitching Like a Pro

Nail Your Pitch

One Sentence Summary Clinic

Writing a One Sentence Summary

One Simple Way to Sharpen Your Pitch

Pitch Tips

On Good and Bad Book Pitches

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List of Elemental Abilities

Air/Wind

Aerokinesis -manipulate the air, wind, and gas.

Aeroportation - teleport using air/wind currents.

Air Mimicry - transform into a cloud of gas, fog, or mist.

Atmokinesis - manipulate the weather by mixing water, fire, earth, air, and lightning/electricity.

Deoxygenation - suck up all the oxygen from a place.

Lung Adaptation - breath anywhere

Wind Generation - create blasts of air.

Divine Winds Manipulation - create and control heavenly winds.

Dark Wind Manipulation - create and control eerie winds.

Earth

Geokinesis - control, manipulate, and reshape the earth at will.

Atmokinesis - control and manipulate the weather by mixing water, fire, earth, air, and lightning/electricity.

Crystallokinesis - manipulate minerals and crystals.

Ferrokinesis… manipulate metal at will.

Fraxikinesis - manipulate burnt matter.

Geo-Thermokinesis - manipulate, control, and create lava, magma and volcanoes.

Golem Creation - make golems out of inanimate materials like rocks, wood, plants, magma, etc.

Granulation… can turn things into sand.

Halokinesis - control and manipulate salt.

Hyalokinesis - control and manipulate glass.

Koniokinesis - manipulate and control dust particles.

Plassikinesis - manipulate and control all forms of plastic.

Psammokinesis - can control and manipulate sand.

Terrakinesis - control, manipulate and alter/reshape the surrounding terrain and landscape at will.

Terraportation - teleport via the earth and earth-based materials.

Sacred Earth Manipulation - Create, manipulate, control, reshape divine earth minerals.

Black Earth Manipulation - Create, manipulate and control tainted and evil earth minerals.

Fire

Pyrokinesis - create, control and manipulate fire, flame and heat.

Atmokinesis - control and manipulate the weather by mixing water, fire, earth, air, and lightning/electricity.

Fire Breath - breathe out flames.

Geo-Thermokinesis - manipulate lava, magma and volcanoes.

Heliokinesis - manipulate and control the sun and sunlight.

Hell-Fire Manipulation - Generate and control flames of hell.

Holy Fire Manipulation - Generate and control flames of Heaven.

Inflammation - burn things.

Melting - heat molecules to melt things.

Plasmakinesis - can control plasma.

Pyrotechnics - create fireworks.

Self-Detonation - explode self and reform.

Thermokinesis - create, control and manipulate heat.

Water

Hydrokinesis - manipulate and control liquid water and mold it into any desired shape or form.

Aquatic Adaptation - adapted to underwater living.

Aquatic Respiration - breathe underwater.

Atmokinesis- control and manipulate the various aspects of the weather by mixing water, fire, earth, air, and lightning/electricity.

Dehydration - absorb water.

Hydroportation - teleport across short or long distances through liquid water.

Water Mimicry - turn into liquid water.

Holy Water Manipulation - create, manipulate and control graceful waters.

Dark Water Manipulation - create, manipulate and control evil and dangerous waters.

Darkness

Umbrakinesis - can manipulate and control darkness or shadows.

Animated Shadow - Animate one’s shadow.

Light Absorption - block out light in an area.

Night Vision - see in the dark.

Sacred Darkness - create holy darkness.

Shadow Camouflage - be unseen in shadows.

Shadow Mimicry - become a shadow.

Umbrageous Teleportation - teleport via the shadows and darkness.

Electricity/Lightning

Quintessence Force -Can generate whitish-blue lightning that also contains pure life energy.

Electrokinesis - control, generate or absorb electric fields and shoot lightning bolts.

Activation & Deactivation - turn stuff on and off.

Positron Manipulation - control positrons, the antimatter counterpart to electrons.

Electrical Absorption - absorb electricity.

Electric Mimicry -transform entire body into a lightning-like being of pure electrical energy

Electrical Transportation - teleport with lightning.

Divine Lightning Manipulation - create and control the brightest lightning.

Black Lightning Manipulation - create and control the darkest lightning.

Energy

Dynamokinesis - manipulate existing energy.

Energy Blast - create blasts of energy.

Energy Emission - release energy.

Quintessence Force - create and manipulate unique form of electrical and life energy.

Mana Manipulation

Chi Manipulation

Electricity Manipulation

Energy Manipulation

Ice

Cryokinesis - control ice, snow and other forms of frozen water.

Freeze Breath - freeze things in solid ice.

Freezing - lower the temperature in kinetic atoms to freezing temperatures.

Frigokinesis - control snow either as precipitation or already on the ground.

Ice Beam - shoot beams of freezing energy.

Ice Generation

Light

Dark Light Manipulation - create the darkest light in existence.

White Light Manipulation- create sacred light from the divine.

Photokinesis - create and manipulate pure light.

Force-Field Generation - create protective shields of solid photons.

Invisibility - be unseen.

Laser Emission - bend light wavelengths to create lasers.

Light Absorption -absorb the light around you.

Light Generation - emit blinding light or glow in the dark.

Light Mimicry - take on the traits of light.

Photoportation - Teleport by using photons.

Projective Invisibility - turn other things invisible.

Evil Banish - Rid and banish all spirits of evil and black magic.

Light Manipulation

Weather

Atmokinesis - manipulate the various aspects of the weather by using water, fire, earth, air, and lightning/electricity.

Atmokinetic Resistance - immunity to all weather-based abilities and effects.

Atmokinetic Sensing - sense the future weather patterns.

Other

Aether Manipulation

Cosmic Manipulation

Gravity Manipulation

Nether Manipulation

Space-Time Manipulation

From Superpower Wikia. See their complete list of superpowers HERE.

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How to Return to your Manuscript

Every writer knows what it’s like to set a manuscript down for an evening and just… not pick it up again.

Usually when this happens, we have every intention of returning to it the next day, but for some reason or another, we don’t. 

One day turns into a week. Which turns into a month. Maybe two. 

The longer the manuscript’s been set aside, the harder it becomes to pick up again. It turns into this dark, hulking presence lurking at the edge of your consciousness, like something in a horror movie, eating away at that piece of your identity labeled “writer.” 

The reasons for not picking it up may change, but there’s always one.

You may not know where to start again, or doubt that your abilities are up to the standard its plot or characters require. You may not know where to find the time to write anymore. You may have even sat down to write just a few minutes ago, and ended up here on Tumblr instead, unable to bring yourself to open the manuscript file. 

If you’re reading this post and feel personally attacked…

Don’t fret. 

I have a writing exercise for you. 

Set aside ten minutes of your day to look at your manuscript. 

I recommend reading the last scene you completed, but this is your manuscript and your time. You can look at the first page. Or that one scene in the middle that you actually kind of like. Just don’t look at a blank page. Blank pages are scary and this is all about eliminating writing anxiety. 

Personally, I make this the last thing I do in the day, so I go to sleep with my manuscript in my head. Sometimes it helps to let my unconscious mind have a go at sorting through what I’ve read. However, I think it’s helpful to do this before any long period of time when you can let your mind wander. You may find writing more helpful before work/school or during lunch. Before a commute. Whatever works best for you. 

But don’t write and don’t look for more than ten minutes. 

You’re not allowed to change a single thing in the document. Not a comma. Not a misspelled word. 

When the ten minutes are up, simply close the document and go on with your day/night. 

There will probably be some things that you do want to change in the manuscript. They may be very simple, sentence-level fixes, but they may be as big as an idea for continuing the scene or the start of the next chapter. Let those thoughts sit with you, instead of all of the manuscript doubt and anxiety that were sitting with you before.

And yes, keeping your time down to ten minutes is important. You want a focus on a bite-sized portion of the manuscript. If you read too much, you’ll give yourself too much to consider for the next day, you’ll find too much to change, and you’ll run the risk of making your work as anxiety-inducing as ever. 

The next day, sit down with your document for another ten minutes. 

Allow yourself to make the changes you didn’t make the first day, or ones you’ve come up with since. This may mean adding a few commas and removing a few ‘that’s. This may mean continuing with the scene. Ten minutes is the perfect amount of time to set down a good paragraph. Try that. 

Again, force yourself to stop after ten minutes, even if you’re on a roll now. The stopping means that you have to keep all of those changes that you’re excited to make inside your head. It means that your thoughts about your manuscript are good and productive. It’ll keep you looking forward to your next writing session. Key advice: at the end of every writing session, always leave an edit in your head. It’ll be that small, tangible thing you can start with in your next session. 

Rinse, repeat, and develop a routine. 

Sit down for at least ten minutes every day. Make it a routine. Once the manuscript is open, do whatever feels comfortable to you: whether that means reading a chapter, editing something old, or writing something new. 

If you’re coming up with edits and scenes that simply require more than ten minutes, start amping up your writing time. Write for an hour. Write for two or three. 

Have a super busy day and know you can’t write for an hour? Those ten minutes are still fine. They’re still enough. Never feel like having spent three hours writing yesterday means you have to spend three hours writing today. Never feel like a failure for not spending X hours a day writing. That will only lead to not writing at all. 

What if you get stuck again? Go back to a shorter writing time, go back to reading and not writing. Reduce the pressure you’ve put on yourself and relax your expectations. The most important thing is simply returning to your manuscript every day whether you have something good to set on the page or not. 

Never got un-stuck in the first place? That’s still okay! Keep spending your ten minutes with your manuscript. Write or just read. Keep it in your thoughts. Make it a defined, real, thing instead of that monster lurking in your head. It may take time, but eventually, something will click, and by that point, opening that file and getting started will be a piece of cake.

If you are able to write for an hour or two each day, you may find it useful to continue setting aside ten minutes each evening to read that day’s work–read but not edit–and keep a few edits in your head for the next day’s session. 

By the end of a week, whether you’ve written a hundred new pages or fixed a lot of bad grammar, you’ll at least be in a place where you’re once again thinking about your manuscript in tangible terms, as a thing made up of words and paragraphs instead of anxiety and blank pages. 

Maybe in the end, you’ll decide that you simply need to abandon this story and pick up a new one. If this happens, you’ll be in a great place to start, with a writing routine already in place. 

More likely than not, just spending time with your story will fan up your love for it again. And once more, your manuscript will be the annoying, stubborn, untameable child you adore instead of a lurking horror. 

For more advice on working through writer’s block, check out another post of mine: What to Do When You Can’t Write

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Reminder: 

If you’re trying to develop a regular writing schedule, but find yourself staring at the screen for hours before you manage to type a single word–if you manage to type anything at all–end each writing session at a place where you know exactly what will happen next.

Take the time to figure out where your story’s going, and how it’s going to get there, before you call it quits for the day.

A lot of productivity is based on momentum. It’s easier to keep going than to start from a dead stop. So if you start each day with something easy, a continuation of the previous day’s work, moving forward with your story will become a much less arduous task. You might even LOOK FORWARD to sitting down at your desk and getting to work.

It may be tempting to stop writing at a place where your brain has run out of words and you’ve put everything you’ve got on the page, but eating an entire cake in one sitting sometimes seems pretty tempting too, and it’s just as bad an idea. Stopping where it’s easy to stop makes getting started the next day So. Much. More. Difficult.

Save some of your cake for tomorrow. Future you will appreciate it.

And if you save a particularly delicious scene to write for tomorrow, future you will REALLY appreciate it.

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Ack! Too cute 

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Never give up, fellow writeblr and NaNo enthusiasts :D!

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Gotta be greater than the haters, friends.

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Just saw this video and it is sooo perfect for my current WIP - Project Bloodwood.

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Good Luck Writers!

May your inspiration flourish and words fly onto the page! 

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Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader – not the fact that is is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.

E.L. Doctorow (via writingdotcoffee)

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INKTOBER DAY 14: Overgrown | YOKAI: Gashadokuro

Here is yet another vengeful yokai to satiate the need for a spooky and creepy read this Inktober day! 

It is said that when many people have died, either from war or famine, and their bodies are left to rot without proper funeral rites, the drive for vengeance will cause their bones will knit together to form an overgrown skeletal giant known as a Gashadokuro.

While a Gashadokuro does not necessarily need food or drink, it will satiate its hatred for humans by roaming the roads at night and biting the heads off of its victims. his giant cannot be warded off or killed, and the only way it will "die” is for it to run out of malignant energy, which drives its existence.

Lucky for us, it is said that these yokai is a rare sighting nowadays.

Reference: Matt Meyer | The Mask of Reason