When pitching one's story to the powers that be, the ability to communicate its premise (quickly!) is essential. Agents and editors are inundated with would-be bestsellers, so when auditioning to these jaded scouts, you don't have a lot of time. You need to highlight the ways your book is unique, but at the same time, you need to convince them it will appeal to an existing market. It's exactly as schizophrenic as it sounds.
Aspiring to be an author is a terrible idea! Too late, better judgment overridden.
My natural mode of operation was to daydream until seemingly-random 'wouldn't that be cool?!' action sequences married themselves to some ideal or moral - one which I think the world would be better for, if more people embraced it - and then start crafting that mixture into a story.
Thus, The Agnostic Crusade was born. That was fun, but the only hope it has left is to be reincarnated as a superior species. Its career is dead! Learn and move on.
Winkle² has some good ideas, knows what it's supposed to be, and has received a whole lot of honing. So much so that we're exhausted with it. We have a better idea of the finish line, but we've come so far and it still feels so far away! Best we take a breather.
Arbiter isn't so far into the process yet. I know enough to say it's a fantasy project in which magic is approached scientifically. But that's not all I want to be different about it; even if it was, I'd sure as hell need a better way of saying it. Let me give you an example.
Death Note is a famous manga/anime (yep. Japan!). It's a thriller about a killer who possesses the ultimate weapon: a notebook that kills any person whose name is written in it. Much more specific, yeah? I personally (and mistakenly) hated it when I first heard the premise, but there's no denying: you understand why it would make a compelling story. I personally thought there was no way any killer with a brain could lose with such a weapon. Turns out, I was naive. The entire series is on the razor's edge!
I'm still working on what makes Arbiter unique - both in terms of coming up with something unique and expressing what's already unique in words. In the meantime, you can help! What stories 'had you at x' (where x is the summary, the description on the back of the book, or the 'hook')? And while I know we've only discussed magic, beasties, and fancy death animations so far, but is there anything about it you can say sets it apart from other fantasy?
Probably not yet, but we'll get there! I guess this is a challenge to myself: work towards a coherent premise!
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