Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Entry #26: COPPER UNDERNEATH

Title: COPPER UNDERNEATH

Genre: YA Fantasy

The Pitch:

Fifteen-year-old Ave would do anything for a chance to visit a market, talk to a boy she’s not related to, or take a stroll down the street.

Anything except marry a murderer.

Marcus Marillius needs wealth and respectability to bring his propulsion engines to the masses. Marriage to Ave gives him both, provided he shares the credit for his mechanical marvels.

Marillius is happy to oblige—if his in-laws survive the wedding feast.

Too nervous to eat, Ave dodges the poisoned meal and effects a desperate escape through the sewers. Far below unfamiliar streets, she befriends Vele, a young transwoman who offers her refuge in an inventor’s workshop peopled by runaways. Amidst the ticking gears of the automata she helps craft, Ave fashions a new world for herself—one rife with possibility.

But when Marillius learns Ave is still alive, she can no longer ignore the life she left behind. 

First Sentence:

Avegaria could not eat in the week before her wedding. 

22 comments:

  1. I love Steampunk and this sounds quite intriguing.

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  2. I don't read much fantasy, but this is a really interesting concept. Good luck!

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  3. Sounds like it's worth giving a go if you ask me.

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  4. What I like: The workshop sounds fun and I’m curious about Vele.

    What I would like: It would be nice to see more ‘pow!’ in the stakes.

    Great work!

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    1. Thanks, Eliza! I'll try to work a little more death and destruction in there.

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  5. The workshop sounds great, and I love the sentence about Ave fashioning a new world for herself. Is there a way to say why she can't do any of the things you say in the first sentence she can't do? The obvious implication is that it's a repressive world for women, but it'd be great to say something about what keeps her from doing that stuff (parents, religion, whatever it is).

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    1. Thanks, Jenny! I think I've found a way to communicate her society's repression more succinctly, which has the added advantage of freeing up some words for me to deploy elsewhere.

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  6. Love the steampunk elements, love the post-apocalytpic-ish kind of feel, love the GLBTQ inclusions! Only confusing thing I can see is that I don't think murdering your new wife on your wedding is very respectable, so it kinda cancels out all the good that marrying Ave would have given Marillius. (I'm assuming he's got reasons why he thinks it's a good idea in the actual book, lol.)

    -- Anastasia @ Here There Be Books

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    1. Thanks, Anastasia! Yeah, he pins the crime on someone else (and replaces Ave with a doppelganger to help bolster his claim to her fortune, but that doesn't exactly fit in a pitch like this). I think I've found a way to communicate that in the revised version so it's more obvious why he expects to get away with any of this.

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  7. LOVE the pitch. Some good suggestions for tweaking have been made and I agree with them, but it's pretty awesome even as it is. Compelling, emotionally connected, and with a good sense of the story's heart. Beautifully done! I feel like the first line could be "more" though. It didn't grab me or pull me right into the story. Maybe if you put us directly "in" and showed us the anxiety coiling through her gut like the spring of {insert name of cool steampunk machine}. It doesn't have to be big like that, but something that draws us in a little more perhaps. Other than that, this is brilliant and I'd love to read more. :)

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    1. Thanks, Kimberly! Funny you should mention wanting some sort of technological element to the opening--the second line is, "On the day itself, her head spun and her limbs trembled so violently that her nurse compared her to an engine pushed to the brink."

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  8. I think I have to agree with some comments about the first line - it doesn't really engage me right away, though it does introduce character and place/time to a certain extent, which is great. "Amidst the ticking gears of the automata she helps craft, Ave fashions a new world for herself—one rife with possibility." This just sounds so great! It's definitely the sentence that's going to make me pick up the book.

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    1. Thanks, Lu! This is one of those cases where I wish I could've posted the first paragraph instead of just the first line. I don't want to change it, since I love how it fits into the opening as a whole and establishes Ave's feelings about her impending nuptials, but I can see how it's less impressive when it's the only thing the reader has to go on.

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  9. I love Steampunk and I'm so happy to see one in the contest. The premise is awesome and it sounds like you've got a lot to work with, but the first line of the pitch fell flat for me. I don't know the context of the world this is set in, so I'm not sure if theses are normal fifteen year old problems, or unique to Ave's world (as in family rules versus society rules). I know the pitches have to be short, but I think if you reword the first sentence, you could really pull people into her world. Hope this helps and good luck!

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    1. Thanks, Rebecca! Since the contest went live, I've reworked the pitch's opening to hopefully give the reader a better sense that this is a society with repressive rules for young, unmarried women.

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    2. Wonderful!! I've revised mine too. I'd already voted for yours and can't wait to see it in the next round :)

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  10. I like this concept and the steampunk element. I didn't like that she escapes the poisoned food yet leaves her family behind? Does she know the food is poisoned? If so I would expect her to try to save her family unless of course something else is going on here (her family are horrible people). Perhaps let us a know a little more. I was a bit confused it seems she's against the marriage but then in the third paragraph the marriage is go if he shares credit? Are her parents arranging this marriage?

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    1. Thanks for your feedback, Rena! It's an arranged marriage, and her parents are already dead by the time she realizes the feast is poisoned. I'll try to work something to that effect into my revised pitch.

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  11. The first two lines of your pitch caught my attention! I wonder if the first one would have even more oomph if you switch the order to market, stroll, boy.

    You have some great suggestions here already. I had the same questions about the poisoned food and her family.

    To have even more intrigue at the end of the pitch, maybe take out the last sentence and right after we find out she has a life rife with possibility, say something like: Ave must make sure that Marillius doesn't discover that she's alive...or she could lose everything.

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