Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Elevator Pitches

Today’s RTW question from YA Highway: You're re-reading one of your favs when someone asks the dreaded question: "What's that book about?" Give us your best off-the-cuff blurb of any book, any genre, and have your readers try to guess the title in the comments!

Sometimes it is SO difficult to summarize a book in one sentence. Can you imagine Suzanne Collin’s elevator pitch for The Hunger Games: “A group of kids fight to the death in gladiatorial-like combat while the privileged watch the battles on TV.” That doesn’t make the series sound too appealing—but, luckily, an agent and an editor and millions of readers gave it a chance and found out that the writing and the characters are so fantastic the unusual setting isn’t a turnoff.

My try at some elevator pitches for favorite books? Here’s a selection for some Harper books that I’ve worked(ish) on:


“A girl discovers she has the power to fight evil demonic reapers; luckily she has a hot guardian to help her out.”

“A teen questions her progressive lifestyle and decides to attend public school so she can ‘fit in’”

“For an average high school boy a few seemingly harmless decisions lead to horrific consequences.”

“In the future society is divided into factions—except for one girl who doesn’t quite fit.”


Any guesses to what these books are? I’ll post the answers in the comments tomorrow. J

7 comments:

  1. I know the last one, which I love... but I don't know any of the others.

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  2. Got the last one but man... having trouble with the rest, though I know I SHOULD know the first one for sure. Ack!

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  3. I think we all know the last one :)

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  4. Got Divergent also, but the first one sounds like about a dozen books I've seen/read recently. I guess that's why it's important to include what makes your book unique in the pitch.

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  5. Oooo - I think I know them all, but I feel like it wouldn't be fair if I guessed :-)

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  6. I guess my pitches were a bit too cryptic...but I wanted to keep them all to one sentence. You should check out:

    1. ANGELFIRE by Courtney Allison Moulton. The sequel, WINGS OF THE WICKED, comes out in Feb.

    2. PINK by Lili Wilkinson. A great story that covers LGBT issues.

    3. YOU by Charles Benoit. Written in unique 2nd person.

    4. DIVERGENT by Veronica Roth. Sounds like you've all read this. Good! Have you heard what the title is for the next book? Check out Veronia's blog: http://veronicarothbooks.blogspot.com/2011/06/d2-title.html

    Happy reading!

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