Season 2 Episode 6

Literary Agents Respond to Your Elevator Pitches

In this episode, TRF agents Jennifer Chevais, Tasneem Motala, Natalie Kimber, Kathryn Willms, and moderator Sam Hiyate respond to your audio pitches, focusing on what we like and what could be improved. The pitches we review are: GOOD GIRL GONE by Larissa Benfey, UNTITLED by S.A. Baker, OUR NEVERLAND by Zenobia Crow, Fletcher's Bird by Danielle Zell, NOM DE PLUME by Lisa Marie Potter and Amanda Nelson and OF RUST AND STARDUST by Catherine Kraus.  

To listen (and please review/rate us!): Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, iHeartRadio.

Here’s a transcript of responses to the first pitch. Enjoy and see you again soon!

Sam Hiyate (00:06):

Hi everyone, I'm Sam Hiyate and welcome to our show. For our last episode of the season, we thought we'd do something a little special. So for a couple of weeks now, we've put out a call for 60-second book pitches via audio. The response was fantastic. So we then selected six of those pitches, and on this episode, we're going to listen to them together with you. And four Rights Factory agents are going to give their opinion on what works in the pitches and what could be improved.

Sam Hiyate (00:38):

Hello everybody. I'm going to introduce our panel of agents. First up, we have Natalie Kimber.

Natalie Kimber (00:45):

Hey everybody.

Sam Hiyate (00:46):

Uh, next up is Tasneem Motala.

Tasneem Motala (00:48):

Hello.

Sam Hiyate (00:49):

Kathryn Willms.

Kathryn Willms (00:50):

Hello.

Sam Hiyate (00:51):

and Jennifer Chevais.

Jennifer Chevais (00:53):

Hello.

Sam Hiyate (00:55):

Okay. So, well, here's a question. What do you guys think is one key element that every pitch needs. I'll start with Natalie.

Natalie Kimber (01:04):

An awesome hook. Even if you take a compelling line from the manuscript, a short, punchy voicey, awesome hook, to start us off.

Sam Hiyate (01:15):

Great. Jennifer?

Jennifer Chevais (01:17):

Clear stakes. What's happening. Why does it matter?

Sam Hiyate (01:21):

We've got a hook, we've got clear stakes -- Tasneem?

Tasneem Motala (01:26):

Stakes are great. I agree. But I also feel like there's a difference between stakes in a plot and character stakes. If I can care about the character, I'm already in.

Sam Hiyate (01:36):

Awesome. I'm gonna throw mine in, which is: I want to know why I should care about the characters. So I want to know, is this somebody that I should like, or is this like an anti-hero character, somebody that I should dislike? And I like, one of the reasons why I'm in this business is because I like to see people who have good values succeed against everything. And I always tell people that the meta-villain of every story is always the same thing, and that is despair. So there's got to be an element of hope. There's gotta be somebody that you like, and then you've gotta ultimately fight the villain of despair in every story. Kathryn, I saved you for the end because I figured you'd have an answer to this.

Kathryn Willms (02:20):

Yeah, f or me, it's conflict. I think that -- it's such a screenwriting thing, but that's what screenplays -- good screenplays -- really get right is that central conflict. What is it that stands between the main character and their goal and, who, and if you have that piece, then you have the stakes and you have a way for a character to progress. And you have a story.

Sam Hiyate (02:45):

Great. Okay. So first up we have Larissa Benfey. Let's hear her pitch.

Larissa Benfey (02:55):

It takes a special kind of ineptitude to stumble into a kidnapping, but then to become an impromptu target yourself? Now that's just bad luck. For 15 year-old Lucy Warren, her abduction is just the tip of the iceberg or rather the rabbit hole into Wonderland. That is, if by Wonderland, you mean the criminal underworld of Boston led by a killer kingpin who'd put the Queen of Hearts to shame, and complete with a white rabbit who might just win Lucy's heart. Unfortunately for Lucy, there's no climbing out of the rabbit hole. There's no going back to her old life because that kingpin terrorizing the streets of Boston -- he's Lucy's new stepbrother, Ethan Burke. When a dangerous rival from Ethan's past resurfaces hell bent on hurting Ethan, Lucy discovers she may be the only person capable of saving her stepbrother, but the question becomes, does she want to? Good Girl Gone is a 90,000 word YA crossover, which at its core is a story about family. Lucy eventually realizes that family isn't the people you share blood ties with, but the people you'd shed blood for.

Sam Hiyate (03:56):

All right. So I feel like this is a YA project, but it's not entirely clear.

Jennifer Chevais (04:01):

I really liked the fact that she dove right into the character stakes really quickly and that there was a cross sort of mix with like a fairytale and bringing it it into the underworld. Which is, I mean, Wonderland is not actually that great of a place. And this was a really interesting cross for me.

Tasneem Motala (04:30):

Yes, same here. I really liked the fact that it got into the protagonist stakes, really quickly and right away. And I don't know, I'm always a sucker for gang stories, criminal syndicates, underground stuff. So that was really interesting to me. I think that it's important, about the character stakes though, because I find that so many pitches I get, in my Query Manager tend to completely miss them and it's super easy to get invested and want to read the sample if I know what the stakes are. First, the one thing that I didn't really understand is the kidnapping at the start -- she witnesses one -- and then gets kidnapped, but then her brother is the crime Lord. So I was wondering how that ties in. I feel like that's just a question that needs to be like a bit more clarified for me, but everything else about this was amazing.

Sam Hiyate (05:20):

Terrific. Jennifer, was there anything you thought could be improved?

Jennifer Chevais (05:23):

I thought that the hook was a little confusing, like Tasneem, I wasn't sure exactly if she was the one that had been kidnapped at the beginning and then was abducted again by a rival crime lord. I had to listen to it a few times to catch exactly what was going on.

Sam Hiyate (05:42):

What did you guys think of the title? I kind of like the title, though. Good Girl Gone. It's kind of like a play on Gone Girl.

Tasneem Motala (05:49):

Yeah. That's what I thought too, actually. Just in terms of the title alone. I think it's interesting too, because it's Good Girl Gone and she has a new stepbrother who's a literal crime lord. So it's like, how did that happen? How did she go from good to like basically in the middle of all of this. That was really cool.

Natalie Kimber (06:07):

Hey guys, it's Nat and I was going to jump in here because even though I look at mostly adult stuff, I do like YA from time to time, and this is a YA crossover. And first, I do like that the hook came right up front and it was interesting. Although I kind of agree with Tasneem and Jen that it doesn't tie in enough, or be explained enough, but it does kind of hit you right away. Other than that, I feel like Larissa covered a lot of ground here. She covered the word count. She covered the plot, she covered her main character, the title, which is great and does exactly what it should for the book. And I love that you have a character who starts off good. She gets into this situation where there's an obvious antagonist, her stepbrother, and then there ends up being other people who come around and make her revisit what she thinks is good and evil. And, you know, that's sort of, my enemy's enemy is my friend idea, where she might end up having a better relationship with her stepbrother towards the end. And finding out where her true alliances are or where her true sense of morality is. So that sounds like some themes that I would definitely want to read into. And this is something I would definitely want to see.