Sarah J. Carlson

Contemporary Young Adult Author

9:27 am - November 19, 2014 -

Non-writers just don’t understand: The joys of constructing a twitter pitch

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eafukWriter friends, have you ever participated in a twitter pitch contest? I’ve done a few now. I have to say, coming up with a pitch in 140 characters or less took longer than writing a query or a synopsis. How do you capture the essence of your entire novel in a tweet, especially if you’re a bit crazy like me and like writing dual POV with subplots? Thankfully, I met some awesome writers who helped me craft mine. On the plus side, I now have an arsenal of pitches, and creating them did help me focus my query letter.

Here are a few of my favorites for Hooligans in Shining Armour:

Seventeen-year-old Fiona’s dad may be a Northern Ireland terrorist; Danny heads into the Protestant paramilitary military. In this dual POV YA, they fall in love.

Star-crossed lovers Fiona and Danny inspire one another to fight for their futures; divided Belfast threatens to rip them apart.

Fiona’s on the track to being valedictorian. But when she is whisked away to Northern Ireland she gets more. She gets Danny.

17yrold Fiona’s dad may be a Northern Ireland terrorist; Danny heads into the Protestant military. In this dual POV YA, they fall in love.

Wherefore art my Romeo? In divided Belfast, protestant Danny has to climb the ‘Peace Wall’ to Catholic Fiona’s balcony.

Oh, and the best, best thing about participating in twitter pitch/other online writing contests? Making all kinds of writer friends. Since doing my first one in September, I’ve added at least 500 twitter followers, found a new online crit group, numerous CPs for chapters and query letters, etc. Awesome. Writers are awesome. Twitter has proved to be an excellent platform to connect, and contests are a venue to “meet.”

Have you ever done twitter pitching? What’s your favorite tweet about your MS?

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13 thoughts on “Non-writers just don’t understand: The joys of constructing a twitter pitch”

  1. eclecticalli

    I’m looking forward to participating in them once I have a workable novel. But do need to start coming up with better short explanations since “oh, you know girl saves world fantasy story” just isn’t quiet doing it… But anything else I can say is far too long an answer for the coffee shop “what’s your novel about?” question…

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    1. sjoycarlson Post author

      Lol it took days and days to craft mine lol. And help from other writers. It is a daunting task, harder than the query or synopsis almost haha. Yeah, you gotta get at the unique angle. It’s an art really bleh. I feel your pain though, I hate when people ask me what my novels are about. I feel like I just like vomit out waaaay TMI and get that glazed look haha.

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      1. eclecticalli

        It’s especially challenging because at this point I have the bones, scenes and bits and pieces, but the arc of what it’s ABOUT, beyond the action, is still a little fluxy.

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  3. Erica Judd

    Here’s my effort:
    Replete with sex, alcohol, and serial killers, “Lucky Seventh” is fiction for the true crime reader.

    Done with 40 characters to spare. 😛

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      1. Erica Judd

        I had a lot of practise coming up with a short answer that explained but garnered interest when I kept having the same convrsation with different people in my weekly walking group. 😀

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  4. Kelly B.

    I like the Romeo and Juliet one the best. 🙂

    As for me, since I don’t have a novel completed, or even a first draft yet, I haven’t had to create any type of synopsis yet. Sounds challenging though, to fit that into a tweet.

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