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2016 Pitch Wars Wish List

Posted By: Stacey Trombley on 8:48 AM

                                
    


What’s better than one mentor? Easy, two. And what’s better than two mentors? Two red headed mentors! That’s right, for the first time in Pitchwars history, Stacey Trombley & Rebecca Sky have teamed up, and are looking for the third member of Team Gingersnaps (no baking required).

Wondering if you’re the men (or woman) to our tee, the gin to our ger?

Here’s what we’re looking for:

We want your Fantasy, & we want your Contemporary, & we want it to be…
UNIQUE!
DARK!
VOICE-ALICIOUS! (yes, this is a thing)

Unique: We love big concepts, new ideas. Something we haven’t seen before, or if we have seen it, show us a new take. Basically send us something that excites us.

Dark: We love antiheros, conflicted characters, deep angst. Show us the wounded, the broken, the redeemable! But please don’t depress us, we need to know there’s hope under all that dark.
Stacey’s favorite YA contemporary: The Hate List by Jennifer Brown.
Rebecca’s favorite YA Fantasy: The Grisha series by Leigh Bardugo.

Voice-alicious: We want voice, emotions, we want to connect with your hero from the first page. We’ll be looking at style, tone, atmosphere. We want to feel compassion, empathy, comradery, as we read your work.

Stacey’s favorite YA author’s voice: Jennifer Neilson (The False Prince)
Rebecca’s favorite YA author’s voice: Laini Taylor (Lips Touch Three Times)

Bonus points for diversity! We would LOOOOOVE an #Ownvoices book!


 Here’s what we don’t want: We don’t want tired clichés, forced writing, purple prose!
Here’s what we have to offer:
Rebecca is a writer, keynote speaker, presenter, social media chat host, and in her spare time she serializes stories online.

Stacey is a published author, a young mom, a book coach, and she’s got another book on the way with Entangled Publishing.

 We love to help talented writers make it to the next step! When we pick you, we BELIEVE in you. You’ll get coaches and friends…and less exciting, you’ll get a whole lot of homework. So be prepared to WORK, because we can guarantee we will be working hard for you.


Are you a unique voice? Do you have a strong hook? Are you willing to roll up your sleeves and get to work? If so, we want you!

Not sold yet? Here’s the real reason you should pick us.

 If you’re looking for a mentor(s) who will help you through this contest and then disappear from your life forever, we’re not your girls. We’re pouring our blood, sweat and tears into your MS, (okay not blood, why do people say that? It’s creepy!), and we want to see it through to the end. The End for us is whatever your dream is—landing an agent, a publishing deal, media rights sales! There’s a ton of creative ways to share your work nowadays, and we’re all about getting your work out there. We’re no agent, those are invaluable! But sometimes it's nice to have a writer friend, or two, in your corner.

Common issues we’ll be looking to strengthen if you’re our mentee:
-Plot/structure issues/holes
-Hooking the reader from the start
-Pacing
-Natural Dialog
-Character development (We’re both incredibly character driven--foxhounds on the hunt for character development holes. We will find those suckers!)
-Voice
-Building conflict and making the most of every plot twist
-We'll point out some basic writing problems like crutch words and showing versus telling and places that just need work in general (we all have lazy spots we just miss during edits)

 Looking for the scavenger letter? Head on over to Rebecca Sky’s website www.RebeccaSky.com you’ll find it there (look on the News/Events page)!
Some of Stacey’s favorite writers:
Jennifer Brown (Hate List), Abigail Haas (Dangerous Girls), Jennifer Neilson (False Prince), Kristin Cashore (Gracling), Maggie Stiefvater (Scorpio Races) Kiersten White (Paranormalcy, Mind Games)

Some of Rebecca’s favorite writers:
Lucy Maud Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables), James Thurber (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), Douglas Adams (The Hitch Hiker’s guide to the Galaxy), Lanani Taylor (Lips Touch Three Times), Erin Morgenstern (The Night Circus), Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere), Suszanne Collins (Hunger Games).


!Check out our books!



And check out the other lovely 2016 YA mentors!




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5 comments:

  1. UnknownJuly 20, 2016 at 6:09 PM

    Hi Stacy and Rebecca! Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to be awesome mentors. I'm still debating on if I should do pitch wars or wait but if I do, it looks like we have similar taste in books.

    I hope this is a wonderful experience for both of you!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stacey TrombleyJuly 20, 2016 at 6:22 PM

    aww thank you for coming by :) Pitch Wars is amazing! If your book is ready, I highly suggest it!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kimberly GabrielJuly 20, 2016 at 7:15 PM

    Ooh, this is exciting. I have a dark YA thriller with plenty of broken characters....and I'm a red head. #justsaying

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownJuly 22, 2016 at 8:07 AM

    Heeeeey!! Love the name of your team! =D
    And thanks again for sending Kerbie's MS to me last year! *hugs*

    ReplyDelete

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