Hello and welcome to this week’s discussion thread, a place where you can virtually chat with fellow authors about a given topic.
Following on from our most recent newsletter, which references this tweet, we’re curious to know:
Can you pitch your book as a letter to an agony aunt?
The cited tweet encourages authors to pitch their novel in a couple of lines from the perspective of one of the main characters, summing up the central conflict in a humourous way. Here’s an example from a classic story:
I [28M] am not very good at talking to people and apparently come across as rude. I'm interested in this woman [20F] but when I tried to propose to her, apparently I was horrible about her family and made it impossible for her to accept. Is it rude to tell someone their family is poor and embarrassing?
Dear A Aunt, During the high season I come home late evenings exhausted, my wife ask the same question every day, "How Was Work"? I always answer with a blank expression, "The Same, All Good". Just to keep the peace, buying some unwind time, maybe I'm a bit codependent. I lead a Lifeguard/Water Rescue (SAR) team, of power girls and rescue cowboys, all tuned up professionals. (I love them all), some days it’s like herding a pack of rowdy dogs. It's a world of changing weather, fast boats, helicopters, police, illegal migrants, high tech Comm's and we deliver a few babies in it all more than several times a season and now we have some rich international gangsters hang'n out, suspects, responsible for dead #ö/%x!, washing up on the beach. Plus we have climate change risk = (ain’t that a bitch)*. Pardon me, we actually have a saying in the biz, "We rescue them all; the good, the bad, the stupid and the intoxicated ugly". My question(s).... Do I keep it as is, i.e. with the same answer every day? Come home, same answer with a bouquet of flowers? Or do I roust my wife out of bed pre-dawn, suit her up, and take her to work with me....for like a week?, so she understands what that same answer, blank expression, means every day?… RSVP, Lifeguard Captain
I speak funny and people laugh at me. At school, other students take my things and push me to the ground. They throw paper balls at me and don't want to become friends. Sometimes I wish I was never born at all. Maybe then everything will be better.
I [23f] escaped my narcissist mother and crappy bf's for a new life and have become close to a new friend [31f] but she says she has romantic feelings for me. I do like her but I know I'm a hot mess still, so I told her I wanted to stay friends and now she's moving away. AITA?
I've been haunted ever since I was a little girl, at night time I think I'm going crazy, my mother says I've married the wrong man, I'll never pull off a career, like something's always wrong with me, and now that she's suicidal and calling me to do this and do that, I'm starting to realize this has been going on all my life! Yikes! Like maybe she's actually the crazy one and I've been tied up in her web for too long?!
I tell ya I left everything! I quit my job, left my stuff and drove half way across the country. It was terrible. All for an old flame. When I got there I found out she's crazy. It was worst than that!
The old woman asks, "what can be worse than that?"
My best friend told me that, to achieve his destiny of finding the Holy Grail, he must die. And he’s being so stubborn about it. I can’t bear it! I think I love him; he’s the only person who seems to be the same as me. But he won’t give up his destiny. Is there anything I can do to save his life?
This amazing girl who stole my heart (and that of my friend the village mayor) went abroad for a year on a dream job and came back a completely changed person, haunted by events in 18th century Spain, but won't say what happened just keeps demanding we both take extreme risks to prove our love for her. Neither of us can stop complying with her wishes as even though both our lives are falling apart, life has become such outrageous fun! I'm losing control completely!
I've had a ground-breaking scientific breakthrough which, however, threatens to get out of hand. I concocted a substance which, when imbibed, concentrates all the undesirable aspects of your personality into a quite separate character. Which of course means you can be sweetness and light: the person you want to be. But, fantastic though it sounds, this other aspect of my nature seems to be taking control. I'm worried he might do something dreadful...
Dear A Aunt, During the high season I come home late evenings exhausted, my wife ask the same question every day, "How Was Work"? I always answer with a blank expression, "The Same, All Good". Just to keep the peace, buying some unwind time, maybe I'm a bit codependent. I lead a Lifeguard/Water Rescue (SAR) team, of power girls and rescue cowboys, all tuned up professionals. (I love them all), some days it’s like herding a pack of rowdy dogs. It's a world of changing weather, fast boats, helicopters, police, illegal migrants, high tech Comm's and we deliver a few babies in it all more than several times a season and now we have some rich international gangsters hang'n out, suspects, responsible for dead #ö/%x!, washing up on the beach. Plus we have climate change risk = (ain’t that a bitch)*. Pardon me, we actually have a saying in the biz, "We rescue them all; the good, the bad, the stupid and the intoxicated ugly". My question(s).... Do I keep it as is, i.e. with the same answer every day? Come home, same answer with a bouquet of flowers? Or do I roust my wife out of bed pre-dawn, suit her up, and take her to work with me....for like a week?, so she understands what that same answer, blank expression, means every day?… RSVP, Lifeguard Captain
P.s. I love my wife......
I speak funny and people laugh at me. At school, other students take my things and push me to the ground. They throw paper balls at me and don't want to become friends. Sometimes I wish I was never born at all. Maybe then everything will be better.
I [23f] escaped my narcissist mother and crappy bf's for a new life and have become close to a new friend [31f] but she says she has romantic feelings for me. I do like her but I know I'm a hot mess still, so I told her I wanted to stay friends and now she's moving away. AITA?
I've been haunted ever since I was a little girl, at night time I think I'm going crazy, my mother says I've married the wrong man, I'll never pull off a career, like something's always wrong with me, and now that she's suicidal and calling me to do this and do that, I'm starting to realize this has been going on all my life! Yikes! Like maybe she's actually the crazy one and I've been tied up in her web for too long?!
I tell ya I left everything! I quit my job, left my stuff and drove half way across the country. It was terrible. All for an old flame. When I got there I found out she's crazy. It was worst than that!
The old woman asks, "what can be worse than that?"
Yeah. I found her dead.
I like it. It looks a good way to get across the spirit of the book and encourages you to be brief. Has anyone tried it and is it successful?
My best friend told me that, to achieve his destiny of finding the Holy Grail, he must die. And he’s being so stubborn about it. I can’t bear it! I think I love him; he’s the only person who seems to be the same as me. But he won’t give up his destiny. Is there anything I can do to save his life?
This amazing girl who stole my heart (and that of my friend the village mayor) went abroad for a year on a dream job and came back a completely changed person, haunted by events in 18th century Spain, but won't say what happened just keeps demanding we both take extreme risks to prove our love for her. Neither of us can stop complying with her wishes as even though both our lives are falling apart, life has become such outrageous fun! I'm losing control completely!
I've had a ground-breaking scientific breakthrough which, however, threatens to get out of hand. I concocted a substance which, when imbibed, concentrates all the undesirable aspects of your personality into a quite separate character. Which of course means you can be sweetness and light: the person you want to be. But, fantastic though it sounds, this other aspect of my nature seems to be taking control. I'm worried he might do something dreadful...