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All About Twitter Pitches

Query Mastery had a Bonus Session last night with Sharon Grace Pelletier @sharongracepjs, literary agent at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.

I’ve participated in Pitmad a month or so ago and out of my three pitches, received one like from a small publishing firm. I’m still waiting to hear back from them though I’m not confident about getting a manuscript request. This is not me displaying false humility. After sending out the 10 pages of manuscript required, I joined a contest to get feedback on the first 2 chapters. Had the manuscripts been printed out and returned to me, I would have seen a sea of red. On the flip side, the feedback were constructive and helped me revamp major areas of my novel and why I went in search of another editor. Good ones and affordable editors are so hard to find.

Now, on to last night. Four things stood out to me from Sharon’s critique of the sample twitter pitches she did for the Query Mastery members.

Paraphrasing her words, and adding my own explanations for myself, effective twitter pitches:

1. must convey a clear picture of the characters in the story. Who are they? What do they look like or what are their defining qualities? From what I gathered, names of the character unless they’re well-known gods and goddesses for fantasy novels, are irrelevant. Instead, character descriptions like, “A 13-year-old deaf girl finds herself an orphan and the head of a multi-billion dollar conglomerate targeted by competitors, gov’t regulators, and militant activists” or something. I just made that up but that could be a good plot.

2. must include the setting if it’s essential to the story. If the story is set in a Roman arena, mention it. Likewise, if the setting is a random suburb, don’t include. In the Fantasy genre, this would have to be done creatively, I think since the setting could be in an unknown realm.

3. must evoke a sense of stakes. As in, what would be the consequence of certain actions? What is the conflict? What are the obstacles? This would be the turning point of the story. The tweet is not a synopsis.

4. must use powerful descriptors that match the tone of the story. You only have 140 characters to convince an agent that your manuscript is worth checking out. As such, you need to select verbs that convey what kind of novel you’re selling. For example, Sharon used the following word to compare and contrast: Yanked - has more energy, conveys conflict and tension VS Drawn - is more evocative, thoughtful and lyrical VS Lured - which has a sinister undertone.

I have a love-hate relationship with twitter because it’s hard to condense my thoughts in 140 characters; on the other hand, it forces me to distill my thoughts into 140 characters. It’s similar to elevator pitches, if I think about it.