Bait and Pitch Workshop: Query Pitches

QUERY PITCHES

Note: If you’re here looking for fishing tips, you’ve come to the wrong end of the blogosphere.

Okay, this week we are working on QUERY pitches. That means you are giving us your best pitch paragraph on a single manuscript and we will give you our communal feedback. Read the full list of rules with all their glorious explanations here. 

The Rules

Bait and Pitch is open to ALL fiction categories. 

This is open to manuscripts of any status. 

One pitch per week as a comment to THIS post. 
Bring a writer friend. The more the better for all involved!

You post, you crit. 

You edit, you critique again.

If you revise, post it as a REPLY to your original pitch. 

Critiques must include AT LEAST one piece of positive feedback. 

Don’t be an asshole. 

If you cross the line, *I* will critique your pitch in a similar manner. K? *grinz*

Formatting Your Pitch

NAME: The Jackal  (bonus points if you get this late 90s/early 00’s TV reference)

CATEGORY/GENRE: YA/Fantasy

TITLE: WHERE ARE THOSE WILD THINGS, ANYWAY?

PITCH: This is where you will write the pitch paragraph from your query. NOT the whole query. Please limit it to no more than four sentences. Really, if you go beyond that, your pitch paragraph is too long. No, really; and don’t be getting all crazy with the semicolons to fit in extra sentences—you know who you are.

Cheers!

  

The Wicked Pitch of the East (aka Dannie)

Bait And Pitch Workshop: Query Pitches!

Please read and adhere to all the instructions below so I don't have to be a meanie. Thanks! :) ~The Management

If you are here to prep for #PitchWars, welcome! (Also, if you're not, you're welcome, too!) But please do not refer mentors to this blog to view your Pitch. If they decide to stop by, fantastic! But they are not required to at all. Thanks!




QUERY PITCHES

Note: If you’re here looking for fishing tips, you’ve come to the wrong end of the blogosphere.

Okay, this week we are working on QUERY pitches. That means you are giving us your best pitch paragraph on a single manuscript and we will give you our communal feedback. Read the full list of rules with all their glorious explanations here. 

The Rules

Bait and Pitch is open to ALL fiction categories. 

This is open to manuscripts of any status. 

One pitch per week as a comment to THIS post. 
Bring a writer friend. The more the better for all involved!

You post, you crit. 

You edit, you critique again.

If you revise, post it as a REPLY to your original pitch. 

Critiques must include AT LEAST one piece of positive feedback. 

Don’t be an asshole. 

If you cross the line, *I* will critique your pitch in a similar manner. K? *grinz*

Formatting Your Pitch

NAME: The Jackal  (bonus points if you get this late 90s/early 00’s TV reference)

CATEGORY/GENRE: YA/Fantasy

TITLE: WHERE ARE THOSE WILD THINGS, ANYWAY?

PITCH: This is where you will write the pitch paragraph from your query. NOT the whole query. Please limit it to no more than four sentences. Really, if you go beyond that, your pitch paragraph is too long. No, really; and don’t be getting all crazy with the semicolons to fit in extra sentences—you know who you are.

Cheers!

  

The Wicked Pitch of the East (aka Dannie)

Bait and Pitch: Query Pitch Workshop

****We've officially broken blogger!****
If you scroll down to the very bottom of the comments it gives you the option to load more. That loads the most recent comments, regardless of which query they're in response to. Since this is getting complicated, PLEASE DO NOT POST ANY MORE QUERIES THIS WEEK OR ANY REVISIONS OF ALREADY EXISTING QUERIES--comments on existing queries are fine, but remember you may need to go to the bottom and click "load more". There will be a new post next Thursday for additional people to get feedback. It will open at 12AM EST on 8/7/14. Thanks for all the excellent participation this week!


QUERY PITCHES

Note: If you’re here looking for fishing tips, you’ve come to the wrong end of the blogosphere.

Okay, this week we are working on QUERY pitches. That means you are giving us your best pitch paragraph on a single manuscript and we will give you our communal feedback. Read the full list of rules with all their glorious explanations here. 

The Rules

Bait and Pitch is open to ALL fiction categories. 

This is open to manuscripts of any status. 

One pitch per week as a comment to THIS post. 
Bring a writer friend. The more the better for all involved!

You post, you crit. 

You edit, you critique again.

If you revise, post it as a REPLY to your original pitch. 

Critiques must include AT LEAST one piece of positive feedback. 

Don’t be an asshole. 

If you cross the line, *I* will critique your pitch in a similar manner. K? *grinz*

Formatting Your Pitch

NAME: The Jackal  (bonus points if you get this late 90s/early 00’s TV reference)

CATEGORY/GENRE: YA/Fantasy

TITLE: WHERE ARE THOSE WILD THINGS, ANYWAY?

PITCH: This is where you will write the pitch paragraph from your query. NOT the whole query. Please limit it to no more than four sentences. Really, if you go beyond that, your pitch paragraph is too long. No, really; and don’t be getting all crazy with the semicolons to fit in extra sentences—you know who you are.

Cheers!

  

The Wicked Pitch of the East (aka Dannie)

Bait and Pitch Week 8: Query Pitches

QUERY PITCHES

Note: If you’re here looking for fishing tips, you’ve come to the wrong end of the blogosphere.

Okay, this week we are working on QUERY pitches. That means you are giving us your best pitch paragraph on a single manuscript and we will give you our communal feedback. Read the full list of rules with all their glorious explanations here. 

The Rules

Bait and Pitch is open to ALL fiction categories. 

This is open to manuscripts of any status. 

One pitch per week as a comment to THIS post. 
Bring a writer friend. The more the better for all involved!

You post, you crit. 

You edit, you critique again.

If you revise, post it as a REPLY to your original pitch. 

Critiques must include AT LEAST one piece of positive feedback. 

Don’t be an asshole. 

If you cross the line, *I* will critique your pitch in a similar manner. K? *grinz*

Formatting Your Pitch

NAME: The Jackal  (bonus points if you get this late 90s/early 00’s TV reference)

CATEGORY/GENRE: YA/Fantasy

TITLE: WHERE ARE THOSE WILD THINGS, ANYWAY?

PITCH: This is where you will write the pitch paragraph from your query. NOT the whole query. Please limit it to no more than four sentences. Really, if you go beyond that, your pitch paragraph is too long. No, really; and don’t be getting all crazy with the semicolons to fit in extra sentences—you know who you are.

Cheers!

  

The Wicked Pitch of the East (aka Dannie)

Bait and Pitch Week 7: Contest Pitches!

Note: If you’re here looking for fishing tips, you’ve come to the wrong end of the blogosphere.

Okay, this week we are working on CONTEST pitches. That means you are giving us your best 35-word pitch on a single manuscript and we will give you our communal feedback. Read the full list of rules with all their glorious explanations here. 

The Rules

Bait and Pitch is open to ALL fiction categories AND, by popular demand, memoir. 

This is open to manuscripts of any status. 
Post your pitch using the format below as a comment on this blog post.

One pitch per week. 

You post, you crit. 
You invite a friend to participate! 

You revise and want more feedback, you critique somebody new.

If you revise, post it as a REPLY to your original pitch. 

Critiques must include AT LEAST one piece of positive feedback. Purely negative or power-trippy critiques will be deleted. 

Don’t be an asshole. 

If you cross the line, *I* will critique your pitch in a similar manner. K? *grinz*

Formatting Your Pitch

NAME: The Wicked Pitch of the East

CATEGORY/GENRE: MG/Fantasy

TITLE: WHAT'S NEW, BUTTERFARTS?

PITCH: This is where you will write your 35 words (and only 35 words). 

Cheers!

The Wicked Pitch of the East (aka Dannie)

Bait and Pitch Thursdays Week 2: Query Pitch!

THIS WEEK WE ARE WORKING ON QUERY PITCHES

Note: If you’re here looking for fishing tips, you’ve come to the wrong end of the blogosphere.

Thanks to everyone who came out last week and participated in the very first Bait and Pitch Workshop! There was some AWESOME progress made thanks to everyone’s hard work. And appreciate all the positivity and encouragement you guys showed. It’s really important to me that everyone feels like this is a safe place to share their word babies and work hard.

Okay, this week we are working on QUERY pitches. That means you are giving us your best pitch paragraph on a single manuscript and we will give you our communal feedback. 

Read the full list of rules with all their glorious explanations here. 

Important Lesson From Week One: If we get more than 200 comments (which is AWESOME!) you may find that your comment does not "appear." Scroll down to the very bottom of the page and click "Load More" to see more comments. 

The Rules

Bait and Pitch is open to ALL fiction categories. 

This is open to manuscripts of any status. 

One pitch per week as a comment to THIS post. 

You post, you crit. 

You edit, you critique again.

If you revise, post it as a REPLY to your original pitch. 

Critiques must include AT LEAST one piece of positive feedback. 

Don’t be an asshole. Don't tell people what YOU think their pitch should look like. Rather, tell them what works or does not work for you. 

If you cross the line, *I* will critique your pitch in a similar manner. K? *grinz*

Formatting Your Pitch

NAME: The Jackal  (bonus points if you get this late 90s/early 00’s TV reference)

CATEGORY/GENRE: YA/Fantasy

TITLE: WHERE ARE THOSE WILD THINGS, ANYWAY?

PITCH: This is where you will write the pitch paragraph from your query. Please limit it to no more than four sentences. Really, if you go beyond that, your pitch paragraph is too long. No, really; and don’t be getting all crazy with the semicolons to fit in extra sentences—you know who you are.

Cheers!

Dannie

Bait and Pitch: A Workshop

Note: If you’re here looking for fishing tips, you’ve come to the wrong end of the blogosphere.

Bait and Pitch is a Thursday feature on the blog where we workshop pitches until they are bloody…erm…brilliant…Bloody brilliant!

Here’s how this works...

Every Thursday, I open my blog up for people to post their pitches for critique/feedback. We’ll alternate between Contest Pitches (35 words), Query Pitches (no more than 4 sentences like you would put in your query), and the dreaded Twitter Pitches (140 characters ONLY!)

You post your pitch, you give feedback on other writers’ pitches. And we all grow and learn together. Sounds good, right?

Well, here come “The Rules” to ruin all your fun.

The Rules

Bait and Pitch is open to ALL categories. PB, Kid Lit (early reader, chapter books, etc), MG, YA, NA and Adult. By request we are also including Memoir but please be sure this is clear in your commenting! ALL genres—yes, this will include erotica until you guys make me regret it! ;P (If there’s a strong request for nonfiction we will add you guys, too, comment on THIS post if you write nonfiction or memoir and you’re interested.)

This is open to manuscripts of any status. Shiny and ready to query, drowning in beta reader hell, or just an idea, you do not have to have a finished manuscript to participate. This isn’t a contest. It’s just practice.

One pitch per week. If you have multiple manuscripts in the works, you gotta pick one.

You post, you crit. Critique as a reply to someone else's pitch. At least one critique per pitch you post, though the more crits, the merrier! If you post without critiquing, you can’t play again. Sorry.

You edit, you critique again—Want to make changes based on people’s feedback? Cool. You gotta critique somebody else when you revise.

If you revise, post it as a REPLY to your original pitch. This should not require additional explanation.

Critiques must include AT LEAST one piece of positive feedback. Every writer has strengths.

Don’t be an asshole. This, too, should not require additional explanation. But I’ll give it anyway. Your opinion is just that, and you’re just one writer, who likely does not know everything or you wouldn’t be looking for pitch feedback, eh? Remember this is practice. It's okay to suck here. It's not okay to be sucky.

If you cross the line, *I* will critique your pitch in a similar manner. K? *grinz*

Sharing is caring. Tell other people and invite them to participate. I’ll keep this thing going as long as there’s interest, but I’m not doing this for blog hits. So let’s make like a writing community and commune. Or something.

If you guys play well with others and share and care, I’ll see if I can’t get some community “celebrities” to stop by and offer their insights.

Formatting Your Pitch

NAME: The Wicked Pitch of the East

(Whatever you wish for people to call you here. It can pretty much be anything other than Dannie Morin...or Danny Moron. I know you people.) 

CATEGORY/GENRE: YA/Sparkly-Vampire-Free Paranormal

If you put magical realism and it's not magical realism, I will let Sharon Johnston cut you.

TITLE: WHERE ARE THOSE WILD THINGS, ANYWAY?

PITCH: This is where you will write your 35 glorious--or not so glorious--words for people to critique. (Or 140 characters, or 4 sentences depending on the type of pitch. You'll have this info at the top of the weekly post.)

Okay, those are the rules for now. Sound good? Questions? Feedback? Hit me up below in comments!

Each week the post will go live at 12AM EST for you to comment with your pitch. You can subscribe to the blog or book mark this page. I'll update as soon as I can. And we'll keep the party going each week as long as there is interest. 

Cheers!

The Wicked Pitch of the East (aka Dannie)

The Schedule

April 24th    Contest Pitches

May 1st       Query Pitches

May 8th       Twitter Pitches

May 15th     Contest Pitches

May 22nd    Query Pitches

May 29th     Twitter Pitches
June 5th    Contest Pitches
August 14th      Query Pitches

Trick or Treat with Agents is coming soon!!!

Guess what?

Trick or Treat with Agents is happening again this year! I seriously can't wait to see what costumes our agents pick to hide behind.

And if you have know idea what the heck I'm talking about...Trick or Treat with Agents is a Halloween themed pitch contest I came up with last year. It was seriously so much fun that Kimberly P. Chase wrangled Brenda Drake and I into doing it again this year. 

If you've been following this blog for a while, you know I have my own success story from this contest---See my How I Got My Agent tab at the top of the blog. We'll each pick 13 pitches (39 total) to host on our blogs.The costumed agents will then stop by and leave candy or chocolate treats aka partial/full manuscript requests between October 28-31st. And on Halloween their identities will be revealed. Sounds fun, right? 

All of the details on how to participate are lined out below. To make things as stress free as possible there will be a 12 hour window to email your pitches in. Plenty of time! And if you're unsure of how to answer Questions 1 and 2 you can always look at our picks from last year for an example.

Contest is open to MG,YA, NA, and Adult. (No Erotica or Memoirs)

Be sure to follow us on Twitter for live updates, and of course, our blogs. We'll also have a blog post soon introducing our costumed agents and what they are looking for....

Thursdays Children: Inspired by...Rejection?

Thursday's children is a blog meme where writers blog about what inspires them. Click here to find out more and join us!

I know what you're thinking. Dannie has truly and fantastically fallen off the deep end. She's been in the slush for too long, her eyes are bleeding from queries, and well...

There are lots of things to be inspired by, but...rejection? How on earth can having your word babies chewed up and spit out possibly inspire you to keep writing?

Well, a lot of ways. 

Any day of the week and twice on Sunday, a rejection is better than a no-response. We all know that we are not supposed to follow up on queries without good reason, right? Particularly if the agent says on their website that they only respond to queries they're interested in. Which is a perfectly understandable policy in the internet age. Unless you're a writer whose situation becomes a little...grey. Like say you get an offer of representation. Do you assume you're in the "crap I'll never give the time of day" pile? Certainty is always preferable for me. At the end of the day, I just want to know where I stand.

You know you have found an agent who is not the right agent for your manuscript. Even if the agent on paper looks like THE AGENT for your manuscript, or if you cannot imagine a better person to champion your words, if they don't feel the same way, they're not the right agent for your book. Getting a rejection helps you cross that person off the list, let go of the pipe dream (though letting go can involve a lot of crying and wine), and move on. One step closer to finding the agent who really IS right for your manuscript and making your dream come true.

Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, they're right to reject you. We are too close to our words to ever look at them objectively. This is a lesson I learned the hard way with my first and second attempts at publication. The second one, in particular, was tough because that book was (and still is) the book of my heart. But ya know what? Those agents that rejected my word baby were totally and completely right. It wasn't ready. It didn't have a strong enough hook. And the voice? The voice sucked rocks. I kind of pride myself on writing good voice, but I was too close to this particular mss to understand that it was beyond the blandest shade of vanilla. I needed other people--professionals, not just lay folks because I'm too stubborn for that ish--to tell me my writing on that particular project blew goats. That was the only way I was ever going to move on from that book. And I'm glad I did. I may come back to it someday though...But that's a different blog post for a different week. 

Occasionally, a rejection can make you laugh. I woke my husband up the other night laughing at a rejection email that came to my phone...which I keep  bedside because I am a glutton for punishment. 

Hold up, Dannie, did you just say you laughed at a rejection?

Uh-huh. It came from an agent for whom I have the utmost respect and who did me the honor of reading my full mss on a super crunched timeline and with enthusiasm. Not only did the rejection give me concrete, personalized feedback I could take home with me to improve my manuscript, it also included this parting line...

I hope you sell the hell out of it and prove me wrong.

I hope I do, too. 

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. This is true in writing as in life. Writing and publishing are gut-wrenching endeavors. And rightly so. I think it's amazeballs to be able to put your ideas out there and have other people read and respond to your work. Writing is a right. Publishing is a privilege. 

Still, it's painful when that response is negative. It's hard not to take it personally. Especially when it's a form rejection that doesn't offer any hints on how to make it better. But the nice part about the form is it leaves the manner of making it better up to you. A personalized rejection can be good feedback, but it can also be misleading. It's hard when it's personalized to remember that agents are human, too, and that their opinions are just that--their opinions. You may get another agent who loves something the rejecting agent hated about your book. At the end of the day we have to get the hell up, brush ourselves off, and keep writing. Take a little time to lick your wounds, but then remember that you're still here. You still have words. And you'll do what you can to make your manuscript stronger for the next agent comes along. Because if you're not willing to do that, you gotta question why you're in this business to begin with.

So suck it up, buttercup. Learn what you can from rejection and then delete it. You've got writing to do.

What inspiration have you been able to take from rejection?

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