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Book Pitch; Back from hiatus (briefly) for a story pitch.
Topic Started: Saturday, 9. October 2010, 21:19 (196 Views)
chihuahua0
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Hello, I'm chihuahua0! You may or may not regonize me, but I was on Budding Writers until a few months ago, when fanfiction.net and tvtropes.org hooked me and I got busy on other things.

Oh, and I met both Eion Colfer and Heather Brewer.

So, I was I a big book event today and there was this one tent where you can give a pitch for a book and the people there give comments about it. I decided to give up some time watching Heather Brewer to try it out. So I wrote one write on the spot and signed up at the last minute. When I finished reading it, the people said that it was good for a person my age and it's a great "get boys to read" book. And to write it.

So, here it is, unedited, with misspellings and grammar errors:


Percy Locke is a fifteen year old teen living in the year 2033, where cybortic technology and vigilantes are common place. He has a normal life, with great grades, lots of friends, and a girlfriend.

But when his school is bombed. He loses his best friend and his right arm. The latter is replaced with a cybortic arm that could portoenally cripple or kill him.

Instead, he develops an uqiue power to shoot electric energy with perfect Percision. He uses this power to don a costume and become a techno-vigilante called Percision, arresting criminals who abuse technology.

He has more problems than before. Not only he's not, normal, a mysterious detective is one step behind him, and he has to balance his life living as a high schooler and a vilgilante, but he has to deal with the trajety where he lost his normal life, and the task of having to find the person responsible before an even large disester occurs on a way larger scale.


It's a little bumpy, but it's a good plot. One thing that I left out is the fact that I want to write it in multiple points of views: Third-Person, Present Tense First-Person, and Past Tense First-Person. This will be a hook.

So, basically, it is a young adult superhero sci-fi dramady.

Comments?
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mousely
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Hmm...It sounds like it could be really interesting. Is his school bombed by Nazis? And I'm not exactly sure how you can write in different POVs like that...Unless you're using flashback and such...
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James
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it's all cool
Pudge, to change POV's, you can use those, but you can also change at chapter breaks.

Sounds interesting. Veerryy interesting. Like something my little brother would read, almost. You're right about it being bumpy, but it's a really good start to something.

Will you be writing it and posting here?

And you got to meet Eoin Colfer!? *envyy*
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mousely
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Who's Eoin Colfer?
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James
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it's all cool
Pudge-Pudge
Sunday, 10. October 2010, 03:51
Who's Eoin Colfer?
:OOOOO

Author of Artemis Fowl, Airman, The Wish List, The Supernaturalist, Half-Moon Investigations, Legend of Spud Murphy, Legend of Captain Crow's Teeth, Legend of the Worst Boy in the World...

I have three books of his on my bookcase and a graphic novel of the first Artemis Fowl book.
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mousely
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Oh. I should read some of his/her books?
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James
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His. I reccomend... Artemis Fowl, Opal Deception, Lost Colony, Airman, and Supernaturalist. Wish List is interesting. Vewy interesting. Half-moon is like a Clark-ish type read.

SO BACK TO THE STORY THAT THIS THREAD ISH ABOUT.
I decided to go through and do some proofreading on yours. I put it in a spoiler because I wrote a lot.

Spoiler: click to toggle


When are you going to start writing it out? This sounds EPIC.
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Warrior Poet
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If you lead me, I will go.
don't spend too much time editing your pitch lol. You need that for the story.

I got Airman from the library. Read the first ten pages and was unimpressed. It might have been good, but it instantly seemed like a ripoff of Airborn (which was fantastic) and I would much rather read Starcatchers. You know me and my Disney. I knew I recognized the name.

Don't do present tense unless you have a really good reason for it. It's really hard to do well, and confusing too. It limits the vocabulary you can use, and the poetic devices. Yeah, I don't like things that are in present tense. There are only a few places you can insert this into another point of few - a recording, perhaps?

You know, PI is written in first person. In a character-driven story, revolving around mostly one character, first-person is good. I tend to use third-person for anyone other than the main character, if I have to temporarily switch POV.

My plot-driven (or half-and-half) stores like Atavism, which is sort of planned and Anodyne Sea, which is that project I've been complaining about. This one's mainly plot-driven.

Second person can work very well in breif parts, or if the entire story is a letter to someone, or something like that. It takes planning, but it can be interesting and can allow for flashbacks or random details whenever you like. If you're going to try and insert every point of view, use second person a few times.

I advise you to pick a "main" point of view and use vehicles like letters and recordings, a narrater (who can be a generic narrator or a character) or mind-melds or whatever for the other. An equally good option is to use a certain point of view for each character. For instance, if one of the characters is dead and he's speaking through a recording, that would be good for present tense. If one is writing in a diary, that's automatically first person.

Young adult or "boy book?" Peter and the Starcatchers is a "boy" book (which I LOVE, by the way) and Tracing the Shadows is a "young adult" book. It looks promising. I haven't actually read it yet, lol. Both can be good, but decide on your audience. If your audience is you, the issue is moot haha.

Use sarasm. If it's not a satire, which I don't think it should be, fine. But have at least one sarastic character. This story needs one XD. I think the main character could be a bit like Clark Kent, or Bart Allen? But don't stick to a stereotype. However, the "weird quirk" technique doesn't actually make characters more realistic - I've seen people attempt to making their charactes believable by giving them mental disorders that makes them hate even numbers, or make it so they can only speak by singing. I'd rather have generic. lol. Just a warning there.

The cyborg deal sounds good. Exactly how does the arm threaten to cripple him? And does it have super strength too? Stuff like that. Make this arm awesome.

STAY ORGANIZED.

STAY ORGANIZED.

STAY ORGANIZED! Orginization is important in a scifi or fantasy story where you have to keep track of details, rules of magic or technology, etc. Keep track of that. Soon your characters will start to write themselves.

So why does Percy decide to become a crimefighter anyway?

Also, come up with a better name. Unless you really love it. It is your story. Still, I've read like eight books with the main character whose name is Percy (and I haven't read the Lightning Theif). Unless it's an intentional reference to Persius or Percy the Tank Engine. I don't even know how many characters I've seen named Locke...wasn't midiman's main character named Locke? I forget...

cybernetic, not cybortic?

So you have a lot of hows and whys to answer for. Like how does the arm "mutate," where does he get the costume, and i hope it's not spandex?

I don't hate this story or anything. Actually I really like it. That's why I'm giving you so much advice!

Who bombs the school? I'm pretty sure I've already asked. But I just thought...WHY did they bomb the school? That's really more important than who. Taking this guy down could possibly be the "main event" of this story.

Also, randomly...unless they've got cold fusion down pat, or some kind of regenerating energy source, there's going to be a limit to how much electricity the arm puts out before it shuts down completely. I'm going to assume it doesn't feed on his body, because that much energy output would kill him quickly - unless scientists had injected chloroplasts into human cells. Problem with that is, humans would get fat just by sitting in the sun. Percy could release this energy through his arm, but too bad for the other guys. You can allude to this as a joke, an expierment that went on a few years ago and only succeeded in getting people fat. Maybe they modified the chloroplasts? In that case, everyone would be better, faster, stronger, and slightly green? Or maybe only the rich can have it done? What if the power source was something else?

See...one thing leads to another. Creating a world comes naturally. Creating a culture is hard, though. What's it like? Where'd music go? Describing a "normal" teen life will be tough. You can do it though. I guess I've written enough here XD. Seeya later...
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chihuahua0
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Thanks for the advice! :D

Well, the reason why I got the name Percy is because I like the alias "Percision" and Perci and Percy. Get it? Why I choose Locke? I couldn't think of a better last name so I chose one from another "superhero" novel.

And I want a young adult book. Although the judges think that this might be in the 10-12 range or even the 12-14 range, I'm thinking of the 13-16 range.

The POV: I'm thinking of using a third-person view for defult, and altranate to either the internal thoughts of Percy during the moment to Percy reflecting on the events of the story. I think of Percy as being a combination of "Percy Jackson" (hopefully by the time I publish this, the new generation doesn't know about him) and "Peter Parker" (I think of Percision a little bit like Spider-man. Both are high-schoolers who gain great powers, but my character is more traumatized and complex).

The reason the school is bombed? That would be the biggist question throughout the whole series, and the main motive of Percy. An experiment, perhaps?

And lastly, the cyborg arm. I'm thinking like adding cybernetic technology (hey, I was writing this on the spot) turn epigenes on and off (look them up), and then accelarating the changes. While hair color and skin color might change, more major changes like paralyzation or even self-electricution happens. Instead, for some strange reason, Percy gains the power to shoot energy. Maybe this is due to the arm actually changing his DNA.


Now, I'm done explaining, for now. Unfortuantely, I am busy on another project (a fanfiction project) and I won't write this for awhile. If I lose interest in my current project, I might type this on Budding Writers, hopefully.
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dill101
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chihuahua0
Saturday, 9. October 2010, 21:19
Oh, and I met Eion Colfer
Jealous. :)
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Warrior Poet
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If you lead me, I will go.
percy jackson is a ripoff of perseus anyway. normal kids don't have alliterative names? mutations can only change genes that are already there, and humans have no genes even similar to lightning powers. as for changing his dna, well, adding any more information would make it impossible for the chromosomes to fold, effectively killing him. if it changes his dna, there will have to be some kind of serious side effect. how about making the arm purely mechanical, with a neural interface(?) those already exist
in any case, I smell a NaNoWriMo.
Edited by Warrior Poet, Sunday, 10. October 2010, 17:26.
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James
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chihauhau0
 
And I want a young adult book. Although the judges think that this might be in the 10-12 range or even the 12-14 range, I'm thinking of the 13-16 range.
It sounds like a 9-13 to me. The guys in my class, which would be 13-16, probably wouldn't read a book like that, but if you go a few classes down... those guys would almost definitely read something like this. It sounds like the stuff my younger brother is interested in. :) It really just depends on how far you take the sciencey stuff vs how far you take the superhero stuff vs how far you take the adventurous highschooler stuff.
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mousely
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Paroso
Sunday, 10. October 2010, 18:13
It really just depends on how far you take the sciencey stuff vs how far you take the superhero stuff vs how far you take the adventurous highschooler stuff.
I agree.

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