What I Am Reading: Purge

Purge by Sarah Littman

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Sarah Darer Littman's new book Purge is the story of Janie, a girl who is in a hospital for people with eating disorders. Using a combination of group sessions, diary entries, and relationships with other people in the hospital, Sarah opens a window into the all to real world of people with eating issues. A definite "must read" for adults and teens.


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The Twitch

Nice Mommy/Evil Editor, Anglea James, has a great post this week called, "What can Twitter do for your pitch?"

In a nutshell, she recommends practicing your pitch (or twitch) on twitter to take advantage of the 140 character limit. By limiting the number of characters you can use, you have to get rid of the garbage and get down to what really matters.

She says, "But what I’m getting at is that it’s important to be able for authors to refine your book to its purest hook. The conflict, the angst, the info that’s going to make a reader, editor or agent want to pick it up to read, go find an excerpt, request a full or keep reading your query letter."

(One side note: She clearly states that one should never actually send this twitch TO an agent of editor directly. Too tacky.)

So, my twitch: 10yo Zoey would do ANYTHING to save her parent's marriage. But can a carsick mosquito-phobe survive a cross country camping trip?

How'd I do? Would you read it?

Results of Critique

In my last post I wrote about handling critique. Now I have to face reality... My WIP is a quiet story about two sisters who go on a camping trip, not an epic journey across America.

Positives:
* Great dialogue
* Well developed family relationships
* Beautiful setting description
* Interesting supporting characters
* Well-written small moments

Negatives:
* Main character isn't distinct
* It's an adventure story without much adventure

How did this happen?
Well, the story is based on a camping trip I took with my own family in 1982. While I changed some characters, introduced new characters, and changed the motivation behind the trip, I had so much fun researching the real trip that I forced the story line into the setting instead of allowing the story to take its own path. My story map was an actual map made on mapquest.

What to do now?
Take to re-plot, rethink, and get to know my character a bit better. Why is she on this trip?

And then?
And then I can decide if this is a story I need to tell or if the book is just a memory best written for my own family.