Israel Falls Pitch:

[Cli-Fi]

Ok, but that doesn't come over in the pitch. If you're pitching this to agents, many of which are women, you don't want them to think it's a rapey novel, do you. Look at other ways to word things, perhaps.

OK, @Mouse, @The Big Peat, @Ihe, @Hoverdasher, @HareBrain, and @Dan Jones's suggestions have been considered and I made some changes to the pitch. It's about 110 words now, longer than the 50 or so it was before. I hope it's not too long for a pitch and I hope you all get to see the changes:


After the mysterious death of his business partner Johnny McIntyre, infamous time traveler, Henry Wilson, rises to prominence through engagement in illegal soul trade. Falling in love with Johnny’s Ex-Fiancé prevents a cosmic war between dueling families through marriage and for one Millennium he and his family are adored and get wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Nothing ever lasts though, even the thrill of time travel. Will the advent of a new technology threaten to undermine the family’s long reign of power? The Wilson Dynasty has an impossible decision to make; what history they are willing to change in order to stop it. With some family members still at each other’s throats things could get messy.

 

[Hoverdasher]

OK, @Mouse, @The Big Peat, @Ihe, @Hoverdasher, @HareBrain, and @Dan Jones's suggestions have been considered and I made some changes to the pitch. It's about 110 words now, longer than the 50 or so it was before. I hope it's not too long for a pitch and I hope you all get to see the changes:


After the mysterious death of his business partner Johnny McIntyre, infamous time traveler, Henry Wilson, rises to prominence through engagement in illegal soul trade. Falling in love with Johnny’s Ex-Fiancé prevents a cosmic war between dueling families through marriage and for one Millennium he and his family are adored and get wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Nothing ever lasts though, even the thrill of time travel. Will the advent of a new technology threaten to undermine the family’s long reign of power? The Wilson Dynasty has an impossible decision to make; what history they are willing to change in order to stop it. With some family members still at each other’s throats things could get messy.

OMG! You rock! If I held a publishing house, I'd want your novel--on my chief editor's desk, immediately. This pitch won me over.

 

[Cli-Fi]

OMG! You rock! If I held a publishing house, I'd want your novel--on my chief editor's desk, immediately. This pitch won me over.

Why thank you! If only you did.

 

[Ihe]

Alright, I see the intention, but the unnecessary length has diluted the overall impact of the pitch for my taste, and some parts are slightly confusing to me. Everything that was said could be condensed, and the written quality of this pitch might be a bit worse than the first one. It feels rushed (?).

As it always is with me, I'll be too thorough, but these are just suggestions. Take what you need, dump the rest.

Johnny McIntyre, infamous time traveler, Henry Wilson

Traveller. No comma after it (comma overload!), or you risk confusing the reader as it could read like the modifying phrase is actually describing Johnny.

through engagement in illegal soul trade.

Clunky, distancing, and bloating what should otherwise be a very straightforward sentence. "Rises to prominence in /thanks to the illegal soul trade" or something along those lines would be better IMO.

Falling in love with Johnny’s Ex-Fiancé prevents a cosmic war between dueling families through marriage

So falling in love doesn't actually prevent the cosmic war--marriage does--so this becomes a somewhat confusing sentence. I would keep it simple. The romantic aspect doesn't even need to be mentioned. If you just left it at marriage, you'd also be adding intrigue as to the actual relationship!

he and his family are adored and get wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.

"Adored" feels off when talking about public opinion, specially on such a scale (everybody?). It feels very sensationalist-magazineish, and undermines the seriousness of the tone IMO. "Get wealthy"--there must be a better way of saying this. It feels almost childish, the way it is said.

decision to make; what history they are willing to change in order to stop it.

Use colon instead of semi-colon. For more clarity I wouldn't use "history". Maybe timeline? But I will admit, this whole sentence is giving me a headache! I can't put my finger on it. Maybe it's that when one talks about decisions, you usually don't make the options open-ended. It's usually binary. Open-ended decisions would not be written as you have done (with a second half that somehow feels like a statement refusing to be the question it was meant to be, to boot ). Maybe it should be split into two? Or you could make the whole sentence a question, something like: "The Wilson Dynasty must now answer an impossible question: what history/timeline needs changing in order to stop it?".

still at each other’s throats things could get messy.

Comma after throat.

 

[HareBrain]

Traveller.

Actually, traveler is the correct spelling in American English.

Good point about the comma, though. For my money you should take out the commas both before and after Henry Wilson.

After the mysterious death of his business partner Johnny McIntyre, infamous time traveler, Henry Wilson, rises to prominence

The commas before and after his name make it a parenthetic clause (i.e. as though you were using parentheses) but would would only do that if you needed to explain what came before. This doesn't work:

After the mysterious death of his business partner Johnny McIntyre, infamous time traveler (Henry Wilson) rises to prominence

But it actually does if you say an or the infamous time traveler:

After the mysterious death of his business partner Johnny McIntyre, the infamous time traveler (Henry Wilson) rises to prominence

But you haven't, so it reads much smoother if you leave both commas out. Remember that a comma denotes a pause in speech. If you can't feel a pause when you read it aloud, don't put a comma there. Of course there are many cases where it's OK to put one in or leave one out, but IMO your first sentence isn't one of those, and reads better like this:

After the mysterious death of his business partner Johnny McIntyre, infamous time traveler Henry Wilson rises to prominence

 

[The Big Peat]

Is that a good thing? I'm working both angles. How he rises to power is one part of the book and what happens when the new technology threatens his life in the future is another part of the book. It time jumps every three chapters or so.

Mostly not. For me, interest is trumped by confusion. I don't have to be sure I know what I'm being sold, but if questions of "Wait, what actually is this" spring to mind when reading the pitch, I'm putting it down.

I'm afraid to say that I would still be confused about which part was back story and which part was the actual story. I think you need to explicitly state that this is a story covering all of Henry Wilson's life and times.

I also find some of your word choice a bit confusing, as in they seem to indicate different genres. Example: "rises to prominence through engagement in illegal soul trade" - that has an old time feel to it; it makes me think of Jane Austen novels. "things could get messy." - that sounds like a Lahndan gangster movie. As a result, the pitch feels a bit dissonant to me, particularly at the end.

Maybe this is a British thing that wouldn't exist for an American agent though and you should ignore me.

 

[Cli-Fi]

Mostly not. For me, interest is trumped by confusion. I don't have to be sure I know what I'm being sold, but if questions of "Wait, what actually is this" spring to mind when reading the pitch, I'm putting it down.

I'm afraid to say that I would still be confused about which part was back story and which part was the actual story. I think you need to explicitly state that this is a story covering all of Henry Wilson's life and times.

I also find some of your word choice a bit confusing, as in they seem to indicate different genres. Example: "rises to prominence through engagement in illegal soul trade" - that has an old time feel to it; it makes me think of Jane Austen novels. "things could get messy." - that sounds like a Lahndan gangster movie. As a result, the pitch feels a bit dissonant to me, particularly at the end.

Maybe this is a British thing that wouldn't exist for an American agent though and you should ignore me.

Wait you brits have different grammar rules too????

 

[Mouse]

It solves the issue I had. I'd just tweak it slightly like below. I'm squiffy with the sentence I've made pink, but not able to offer any helpful suggestions. A pitch has to get an agent's interest - it doesn't need to be perfect. I've had my best response from pitches I've barely thought about. ('Illegal soul trade' is your catch, but I stumble a little when I get to it as I keep wanting to shove a 'the' in there).

After the mysterious death of his business partner Johnny McIntyre, infamous time traveler Henry Wilson rises to prominence through engagement in illegal soul trade. Falling in love with Johnny’s Ex-Fiancé prevents a cosmic war between dueling families and for one Millennium he and his family are adored and wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Nothing ever lasts though, even the thrill of time travel. Will the advent of a new technology threaten to undermine the family’s long reign of power? The Wilson Dynasty has an impossible decision to make; what history they are willing to change in order to stop it. With some family members still at each other’s throats things could get messy.

 

[Cli-Fi]

It solves the issue I had. I'd just tweak it slightly like below. I'm squiffy with the sentence I've made pink, but not able to offer any helpful suggestions. A pitch has to get an agent's interest - it doesn't need to be perfect. I've had my best response from pitches I've barely thought about. ('Illegal soul trade' is your catch, but I stumble a little when I get to it as I keep wanting to shove a 'the' in there).

After the mysterious death of his business partner Johnny McIntyre, infamous time traveler Henry Wilson rises to prominence through engagement in illegal soul trade. Falling in love with Johnny’s Ex-Fiancé prevents a cosmic war between dueling families and for one Millennium he and his family are adored and wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Nothing ever lasts though, even the thrill of time travel. Will the advent of a new technology threaten to undermine the family’s long reign of power? The Wilson Dynasty has an impossible decision to make; what history they are willing to change in order to stop it. With some family members still at each other’s throats things could get messy.

You know I had trouble with that too. IDK if I used history right, since it's not really history that the politicians or the rich and famous care about. I mean in the story there are people who love history and trade and market those timelines, but what really ups the drama are their own personal lives and everybody is obsessed with their own timelines/bloodlines. They are always "bettering themselves," which is a nice way of saying altering time for the best possible outcome. Obviously no one predicts what this new technology is until it arrives so they have to figure out what went wrong, if anything.

So maybe something like this: The Wilson Dynasty have an impossible task ahead of them; how to determine what in their perfect timelines went awry that they didn't see it coming, and what should they do to stop it, but with some family members still at each other’s throats things could get messy

 

[The Big Peat]

Not grammar rules (although there probably are different grammar rules too). More word usage suggests certain things.