PITCH PERFECT? Do you have your ABNA pitch ready?

 

This year, ABNA has changed.

There will be five categories:

General Fiction
Mystery/Thriller
Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror
Romance
Young Adult.

One finalist will be named from each of these five categories. Penguin is out. The grand prize winner now gets published by Amazon Publishing and this includes a $50,000 advance! Wow!

And the rest of the finalists ALSO get a publishing contract with Amazon (and a $15,000 advance). ABNA has really stepped up their game this year.

Your first hurdle will be your  300 word PITCH.  Get this wrong, and there goes the ball game!

I. START OFF WITH YOUR BEST SHOT -

     Make it short and riveting, evoking the spirit and mood of your story.

II. TARGET THE HEART -

     Whether your tale is horror, literary fiction, or in-between, your words must reach out to touch the
     heart of the judge. 
Think universal hurts and longings.

III. THINK MOVIE PREVIEW -

     Make the judge want to read more, to wonder what happens next.

IV. REMEMBER THEY ARE LOOKING FOR A REASON TO REJECT  ...

     and get to the hundred more pitches on their hard drive before night's end.  Do not give them
     an easy reason to reject.

V. REMEMBER THEY ARE HOPING TO FIND A REASON TO BELIEVE -

     Believe that there are good writers still out there, that there are fresh stories waiting to be found,
     and that they have just found one.

Here is my 300 word pitch for THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH:

How do you live a life you no longer need?

If you are 13 year old Victor Standish, you live it with cold laughter and sharp wits.

His mother, who is the blood and bone of his life, treats him like a yo-yo. 

She abandons him on harsh city streets, only to reclaim him months later to dump him in yet another city states away.  Her sole explanation is the back of her hand across Victor’s mouth.

New Orleans is the seventh city and looks to be the last.  The haunted French Quarter is deadlier than anything Victor’s ever encountered.  He smiles.  Finally the fear and loneliness will end.

And they do … just not in the way he expected.

An old derelict feels beautiful once more in Victor’s eyes.  A disillusioned jazz club owner finds something worth living, worth dying for.  An undead priest learns to laugh again.  A gypsy nun finds a new son to fill the void left by her long dead boy.

And one dark midnight in a cursed cemetery, Victor finds love.  It is the old story:

Boy meets ghoul.  Boy loses heart to ghoul.  Ghoul wants not just his heart but the rest of his body … until the ghoul, Alice Wentworth, realizes she sees a kindred lost soul in Victor. 

She can always find flesh to feed her body, but will she ever find another boy who sees in her more than just a monster?

Their love breaks the chain of reason … which matters not at all to Victor since life never made sense to him anyway.

What matters is that somehow their love threatens the plots of the various feuding supernatural clans in New Orleans.  And as Hurricane Katrina nears, it seems their only hope is the love that dooms them.

***
So which of the five categories do you think I should enter?  Did I put my prose where my mouth is?