Pitch Workshop: Toni's 68k YA Paranormal

Pitch Workshop: Toni's 68k YA Paranormal

Welcome to the Pitch Workshop with Brenda Drake, Shelley Watters, and me!

Here's how we're going to play: 

Until February 18th, each of us will be posting pitches/150 word excerpts from the brave participants to our blogs. We will provide a critique, and then all of you, if you would like, can also critique the entry in the comments.

My rules if you are going to critique: Be nice. Provide constructive criticism. Don't just say, "this sucks" or "this isn't working for me." Instead, say what exactly isn't working and offer a suggestion to help make it work. Any mean comments will be deleted. You know how it feels to receive critiques, so play fair.  One of the best things we can do to help our own writing is to critique the work of others. It helps us to look at our own work with a critical eye.

If you have time, don't forget to head over to Brenda's and Shelley's blogs to see/comment on their critiques as well. 

Remember, this event is in preparation for our big pitch event coming up in march, so even if you didn't make it into the workshop, read the posts, critique, play along, and it can help you for the upcoming epic event!

So, onto the entries! My comments are in [blue].

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Name: Toni Picker
Title: Bounty
Genre: YA paranormal romance
Word count: 68,000

Pitch: Rinn Grace is forced to take over her family’s bounty hunting business after her father disappears.[I love this first sentence, what a great hook!] She soon questions what makes an angel fallen when new kid Urie Larch becomes her next assignment. [What do fallen angels have to do with bounty hunting? There seems to be a disconnect between the two sentences. You can remove the last names of the characters to give yourself two extra words, too.]

Excerpt:

On the night of my seventh birthday, I watched my dad drain a man of all his blood. At least I thought it was a man. Hidden under a desk, in the locked study I was never supposed to set foot inside, Dad pulled a silver dagger from the man's chest before the man collapsed onto the floor. A pungent, sulfur-scented liquid pooled around his body. The skin sunk in, each passing moment sucked another ounce of life out of the man, condensing the cadaverous bones, until it was completely dry. Then the body disappeared. [Be aware of how many times you use the phrase 'the man' in this paragraph.]

As I descend the stairs tonight, my father whispers, “Wow.” He’s leaving the study just in time to see me before the dance, slipping the long skeleton key into his pocket. Years have passed but that memory still haunts me. The heel of my right shoe nearly catches on the step but I recover my balance, grabbing the railing for support. 

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Okay commenters! Your turn! Remember, the critiquing rules: be nice, provide constructive criticism.