Girl|Alien Pitch

Here’s the pitch I used for Girl|Alien at the 2012 PNWA Conference. Out of 12 agents and editors pitched, I got 5 direct requests and 3 requests to “send to this person in my office” which makes 8 out of 12. For the 4 “noes” it was usually that they didn’t represent YA SF or as one put it, “aliens” (even though the “Alien” in the title is a misnomer—Grett’s more of a highly evolved/genetically-engineered human). I don’t feel any rejections were from the pitch or story, it was mostly that it was hard to tell which YA agents sold YA SF so I pitched them all.

We had 3 minutes to pitch our stories, so that gave us about 60 seconds to give the pitch. (Note this is not a query letter and should not be read as such). Here it is:

Hi, I’m Andrew (or some relevant comment if she reads my tag). I’ve written a Young Adult Science Fiction novel called Girl Alien (did not say Girl-bar-Alien :). It’s complete at 95,000 words.

Grett just wants to be a normal, human teenager, to hang with her friends, and to play on the Slapball team at her new school. But there’s this voice in her head that tells her to do things like run into burning buildings and to not “kill” (yes, I did air quotes)—even though she’s part of a warrior clan.

She comes across a boy—the first of her kind she’s ever met—and when they kiss, her powers explode. She gets super strength, she can change her appearance (I wave my hand in front of my face), and her hair grows long and starts doing things on its own. (more waving). The problem is that her alien side has also come alive, and now wants her to enslave her friends and take over the city.

When the rest of the aliens finally arrive, Grett must make a choice: either take her rightful place at their side as eventually conquerors of the planet, or convince her alien side to help defend her human friends from the attack.

I got a variety of questions after that, many about what the world is like, what the society is like, who the main characters are, what age is this for, concerns about the word count, and then the dreaded “what book is this like” and the best I could come up with on the spot was Percy Jackson, although this is totally not anything like that except that the main character has extraordinary powers.

And now here’s the exciting calling card I made for Girl | Alien: (I redacted my phone when I made the image to put up here, not a typo).

Back:

First Page Contest

This is my submission to Victoria Marini’s First Page Contest hosted by Shelly Waters!
Email: andrew.rosenberg at writerunner dot com
Title: Teen Alien
Genre: YA SF
Word Count: 55,000

Will return all critiques! (Make sure you leave a link in your comment)

Revised Submission (Thanks for the input!)

They say before you draw your last breath, your life hits replay.

They never said it could happen after.

Grett Hawk’s eyes stared up at the pale blue sky. Her heart and lungs lay still. A sharp rock spur impaled her belly, her jaw hung to one side, and her knees and elbows bent at impossible angles.

Two mule boys argued above her body, screaming in girlish voices. One grabbed her broken hand and yanked. Her shoulder separated in a sick, painless snap. The other seized her shattered wrist, grinding the cracked bones. They hauled her out of the ravine, over the jagged, blood-smeared rocks that had blendered her body.

Grett could neither move, blink, nor speak, only stare at the solar trees that crowned the ridge top. On Gwanda, trees were dead things, floral simulations. Grett was as dead as those machines, but by some miracle, thoughts still coursed through her head.

Is this what death is like? Grett wondered. She felt night-sky calm, disinterested in the assault that had just claimed her life.

Uninvited holovid-like images impinged her mind, of whips lashing the mules boys while a white-haired girl laughed at their torment. What do they know of suffering? she had thought. Grett’s mother and sister were dead, killed in action by the enemy. Someone had to pay. Someone had to suffer as much as Grett. Why not the dirty mules? They had overturned her mother's shrine with their frivolous play.

If her guts could clench they would.

Original Submission:
They say before you draw your last breath, your life hits replay.

They never said it could happen after.

Grett Hawk’s eyes stared up at the pale blue sky. Her heart and lungs lay still. Ribs jabbed through her side, dislocated jawbones and broken teeth dripped blood down her throat, and guts oozed out of the gash in her belly.

Two mule boys argued above her body, screaming in their girlish voices. One grabbed her broken hand and yanked, separating her shoulder in a sick snap. The other seized her shattered wrist, grinding the cracked bones. They hauled her out of the ravine, over the jagged, blood-smeared rocks that had blendered her body.

Grett could neither move, blink, nor speak, only stare at the solar trees that crowned the ridge top. Like all plants on Gwanda, trees were dead things, machines designed to simulate real trees. Unlike her, they did not have thoughts still running through their heads.

Is this what death is like? Grett wondered. She felt night-sky calm, disinterested in the assault that had just claimed her life.

A vision intruded into her mind’s eye, an image of whips lashing the mule boys until their backs bled. She had laughed at their cries. What did they know of suffering? Her mother and sister were dead, killed in action by the enemy. Someone had to pay. Someone had to hurt as much as Grett. Why not the dirty mules?

Unease electrified as her life replayed across her mind’s canvas.

Getting to Know Your MC Blogfest: Grett Hawk

Elizabeth Mueller is hosting the “Getting to Know Your MC” Blogfest, inspired by Jeannie Campbell’s 3 questions. Check out all the other entries! The point is to get to know your Main Character at a deeper level.

Today, we’re going to interview my newest MC Grett Hawk from the Alien Teen/Girl World YA SF Series I’m working on (yeah I don’t really have a title yet).

 

Hi, this Grett. Thank you so much for your interest in my story, by Andrew has asked that we take it down for now since it’s pretty revealing, and he wants to keep you in suspense. I promise there will be more from me at a future date!

ENTRY REDACTED

Plotting Vs. Pantsing

Okay. For my last few NaNoWriMo novels (Steam Palace, Dead Air) and my screenplay, I’ve been a plotter. Meaning, I’ve plotted out most of the major scenes and turning points of the story. Plotting is a process by which you can create a roadmap for your story so you don’t spend time exploring dead ends or trying to ram a character into a situation that “needs” to happen. I’m a firm believer in plotting as a way to do a lot of the structural work of the story before you sit down and write it. It’s particularly effective for Nano or Script Frenzy since whatever work you do beforehand is that much less you need to do as you’re writing.

So I have a confession to make. For Girl World, I… pantsed it! *cringe* Don’t hit me!

Okay, in fairness, it’s not like I sat down on Day One and wrote a novel from scratch. I’ve had the concept in my head since December. I’ve written a few thousand words of backstory, written from the 1st person POV of the main character. In fact, I didn’t start out to write a novel at all.

That’s the thing. It just happened. I would write a scene, figuring I could stop, but suddenly the next scene would come to me just like that. It’s like a mythical Muse sat on my shoulder directing my thoughts, telling me the story in my head. I knew in the back of my mind that there would be an Ordeal. I knew there would be a Climactic scene at the end. I had about four ideas of where the story would go, but it went in its own direction.

And frankly, I think it’s the best story (first-draft) I’ve written, way better than last year’s NaNoWriMo (Dead Air).

I think part of it is becoming crucially aware of elements of story-telling such as Story Structure, Conflict, and Characterization. My characters have deep, desperate needs, fears, and desires. They are faced with impossible choices. And it doesn’t hurt that this is essentially a superhero story. Grett discovers she has secret powers…powers that can hurt the ones she loves if used improperly. So there’s the eternal temptation to use your superpowers to your advantage.Which is why my main character must have a firm moral grounding. It’s a classic YA theme.

So now what? How do I feel about the whole plotting vs. pantsing debate? Pretty mixed. I think it helped that I planned this story to be short. There’s only one POV. There are very few subthreads. Maybe this is the way to go in the future. We’ll see. There have been some stories that I’ve pantsed (The Immortals) that stalled because I didn’t know where the story should go. 

I guess the lesson here is just do what feels right.

So I Wrote Another Novel…In a Week…

The hell with NaNoWriMo. Who needs 30 days when it only takes 10 or so?

Yes, I’ve spent the last few days furiously writing a new story. Yeah, I was kind of planning to write this particular story for NaNo, but I’m taking a writing class and I thought it would be fun to bring in some new material instead of rehashing Steam Palace all the time. So I wrote a chapter a couple weeks ago. Then I had another opportunity to share and I started writing another chapter, and the concept hooked me so much that I literally could not stop writing it.

Some of you might remember this post about my “Girl World” concept:
Every New Beginning

Go ahead, re-read it. I’ll wait. Done? That’s the story I wrote. One female main character. Three female main supporting characters. About 10 more named female characters. One boy. One evil man. And a head of alien hair. 45K words (yeah, a little short for NaNo, but tons of space for revisions!)

Here’s the three-sentence “teaser” I came up for it:

When human/alien hybrid Grett Hawk has a bad hair day, her hair tries to strangle her and murder her classmates. It’s already infected her best friend with alien DNA behind her back. Grett must learn to master her alien side before it wrecks her family and invites a destructive alien invasion force into their city.

Yeah, I know. Where’s the “Girl World” part of it?

Let’s try a longer version.

After a devastating fire destroys her school, Grett Hawk, an ordinary warrior girl, must transfer to a exclusive academy full of stuck-up city princesses and scientific wizardesses. She’s intimidated until she discovers a secret—she can control the color, length, and texture of her own hair…and her hair responds to her thoughts. Her new wizardess friend Brin uncovers the truth: Grett is far from ordinary. She is an alien/human hybrid living in a city of humans, with the ability to alter any part of her body at will. But sometimes, her alien side takes over and acts without Grett’s conscious knowledge, such as injecting Brin with alien DNA…or trying to slice Brin’s head off when she gets too close to learning Grett’s true nature. Together, they seek to find out who Grett is and why she has been sent here, and why there is a boy in town with the same abilities as Grett, a boy whose kisses ignite the fire in Grett’s semi-alien heart.

GIRL WORLD is a 45,000 word YA Science Fiction novel set in a far futuristic world where males are nearly extinct.

Okay, I don’t love that. Well, I still have a few revisions to go before I need to worry about a query letter. BTW that picture is how I imagine Brin and Grett…at least before Grett’s hair goes crazy.