Title: Beautiful Medusa
Genre: YA Fantasy
Original Pitch: Transformed into the legendary Medusa for refusing Poseidon’s advances, sixteen-year-old Alessia must escape from Perseus and decide whether or not the exiled god who claims to love her is merely using her to destroy Zeus.
Pitch Feedback: The pitch had us up until the bit about the exiled god, then it started to read like a completely different story. We have no idea who that is, which renders everything that follows irrelevant. Plus, why does she have to decide anything about the god? What consequences will this decision bring about? Why does she have to pay attention to the god in the first place, when her focus was on escaping Perseus? If she doesn't love him back, the god's claims are moot. And is she not interested in breaking the spell and becoming herself again?
New Pitch: Transformed into the legendary Medusa for refusing Poseidon’s advances. Hunted by Perseus for her head. Sixteen-year-old Alessia’s only hope for salvation might lie with a treacherous god and the infamous Echidna, mother of monsters.
Query: In a land wasted and wrung dry, where happiness is as rare as any jewel, sixteen-year-old Alessia considers herself blessed to be a Priestess of Athena. But when the girl’s extraordinary beauty draws the unwanted attention of Poseidon, her life becomes a nightmare. Cursed for defying an immortal and cast out of her home, the gods transform Alessia into the legendary Medusa and condemn her to live life as a monster.
Snakes for hair. A gaze that can turn a man to stone. Razor sharp talons at the end of each finger. All Alessia wants is to hide herself away from the world before she hurts someone, or worse. Yet to the kings of ancient Greece, Alessia's petrifying gaze makes her a weapon to be won at any cost. With the kings offering unimaginable riches to anyone who can bring them the head of the Medusa, the scared girl soon finds herself hunted by the all too clever hero Perseus and many others.
Struggling to hold onto both her life and her humanity, Alessia flees westward and finds the impossible: Sanctuary and a chance at love with a fallen god preparing to wage war on Olympus. But are his feelings sincere or is he merely using her? And when the war comes, will Alessia, the once loyal priestess, exact revenge on the gods who turned her into Medusa?
Based on the legend according to Ovid's Metamorphoses, Beautiful Medusa is a YA Fantasy complete at 94,000 words. Though the story can stand alone, there is potential for a sequel.
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All feedback is welcome! Hopefully my new pitch is better than the first.
I agree with the feedback on your original pitch. Plus, "deciding" is never a very compelling verb to use when describing the conflict of the story.
ReplyDeleteThe second pitch is much better, although you need to avoid the fragment sentence. You can do it this way:
Transformed into the legendary Medusa for refusing Poseidon’s advances and hunted by Perseus for her head, Alessia’s only hope for salvation might lie with a treacherous god and the infamous Echidna, mother of monsters.
PS, I deleted her age. Do you really need that in the pitch?
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