Sunday, March 2, 2014

Entry #17: TWIST OF FATE

Title: Twist of Fate 

Genre: NA time travel romance

Word Count: 81,000

Pitch: 
Twenty-two-year-old goddess Pandia’s shaking in her Jimmy Choo’s.
When the NYC socialite travels through time to attend a party, she meets Julius Caesar, and convinces him to abandon politics for gardening. Her father, Zeus, summons her to present-day Olympus after he discovers her meddling eliminated the month of July. To teach her to respect fate, he strips her power and sentences her to a stint of mortality in ancient Pompeii.
                                    
Pandia intends to do her time, leave destinies untouched, and be home before the next sale at Saks Fifth Avenue. Instead, she’s mistaken for a prostitute and arrested for inciting a riot. Forced to serve as masseuse in Pompeii’s Gladiator School, she’s assigned to Caladus, a gladiator whose washboard abs test her vow to remain uninvolved.
To escape Pompeii, Pandia must prove she respects mortals’ fates. But she’s falling for Caladus, and her time’s running out. Mt. Vesuvius is rumbling.
First 250 Words
Pacing outside the Great Hall, I yanked down my red top with trembling fingers, and wondered what I’d done to piss my father off this time.
We’d discussed my Marco incident last week.
I nibbled my lip and smoothed my hair. Maybe Napoleon and that silly war?
This couldn’t be about Christopher, because it wasn’t exactly my fault Chris turned those ships around and returned to Spain.
Four guards dressed in starched military uniforms flanked the entrance. One nodded, opened the door, and gestured for me to proceed. 
I swallowed the wad of fear lodged in my throat and swept into the Hall. 
My father, Zeus, sat with my stepmother in gilded Ikea chairs at the end of the receiving room, matching scowls on their tanned faces. Hera’s eyes met mine across the expanse, and a smirk lifted her lips. She nudged Father’s arm. He grimaced and loosened the collar of his Armani shirt. 
Sunlight filtered through the stained glass windows, spilling rainbows across the marble tiles. As I walked through the aisle leading to the receiving area, the click-click-click of my high heels echoed in the stillness surrounding me. Normally, gods dressed in designer clothing mingled in the alcoves between the pillars, gossiping as they waited to speak with my father.  
My steps faltered. The fact that it was just me, Father, and Hera, didn’t bode well. With considerable will, I resisted the urge to flee to my penthouse in Manhattan. Not that hiding would do much good. Father could teleport me to the Hall in seconds.

5 comments:

  1. Oh, gosh. Laughter. Much uninhibited laughter. This sounds incredible. On that note, I don't love the first line of your pitch. I got kind of hung up on it and almost didn't continue reading. Glad I did, though!

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  2. So much fun!!! You remind me of Tawna Fenske with your humor. <3 I think your pitch is only halfway there but your writing, from what I can see, is really good. But I kept having to reread the first pitch paragraph to try to figure out the MC. Is she a real goddess or just a shoe wearing diva? Is she a mortal behaving like a goddess who goes back in time? Is she a real old time goddess visiting the future? Or the past? Is Julius in the past or present? Wearing a suit or a toga? The tone of the second paragraph made things clearer and gave me a tip off to your voice and humor. But I think you have to be really, really clear and concise while using your voice in this pitch. It will take a little wrangling but I think the benefits will be great. Looking forward to seeing what you do with this.

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  3. I can really appreciate both the hints at the humor and the juxtaposition of modern colloquialisms and ancient Greek gods. However, this feels very rough to me and I think the biggest struggle for you is going to be making Pandia likable. A spoiled party girl with no sense of responsibility is inherently unlikable, so what does she have that will make us love her? Is she actively trying to IMPROVE history through her meddling? Trying mankind against her father's will? We need something, because right now I'd just want to flip through the naughty bits and not read the rest.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for your comments, Judges #4 & Three!

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