For anyone who doesn’t know, Pitch Wars is an incredible event meant to connect authors with prospective mentors, literary agents, and editors. Twice a year they conduct an all out out frenzy called a pitch party with one goal in mind: Get you noticed (and hopefully get you representation).

One whole day. Three pitches. All the opportunity in the world.

The catch?

280 characters…or less.

Now before you roll your eyes and scoff, read that line again. Characters. As in, includes the spaces, punctuation, and your desperate attempts to be grammatically correct. This should also include the required hashtag as well as some distinction of genre and ideally prospective audience. For example: #PitMad #NA #PR #LGBTQ. So really more like 260 characters.

No problem, right? Wrong. All the problems. I envy the exceptional soul capable of winnowing down a full, probably complex story, into 260 characters. Did I mention comparable titles should probably be included? Think Good Omens X Magicians (*hint*hint*wink*wink*). Oh, and don’t forget the hook, tropes, central conflict, and of course why anyone would want to read your story in the first place.

I’ve lost count of all the articles I’ve read breaking down how to craft the perfect Twitter pitch as well as gotten some rather impressive help and feedback from the Inclusive Romance Project. Each new draft though feels like one step forward and two steps back. Actually, told one very patient person helping me refine my pitch “I’m either getting closer or farther away. I can’t tell which.” And that is the truth. Spoiler alert: the answer was farther away. *le sigh*

Despite the difficulty, I endeavor to persevere. So now I’m down to 6 days to develop something with all the parts that can really wow, or more specifically 3 somethings. You’ll see me posting Thursday, June 4th and praying the bait takes. ? And remember, Retweet don’t like.