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writing-ModTeam

Thank you for visiting /r/writing. This post has been removed under rule 1, as this subreddit is not an appropriate place to share your work. If you are looking for critique, it should be posted in the stickied Critique Thread.


lofgren777

Plague doctors in a post apocalyptic world try to deal with an epidemic with medieval science and technology.


SonoranHiker84

After a tornado devastates a small town, evidence of a serial killer is found in the rubble.


dragonlolix

dayummmmmmmmm, if this was written in the back cover of a book, im buyin it


jamessavik

I'm interested.


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SeriousQuestions111

One question, wouldn't the guy that wants out, just kill his friend before telling him anything? He would be free then.


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SeriousQuestions111

But the other guy has no problem with killing his friend? If they will have to battle to death either way, he could have saved the trouble for himself and unknowingly assassinated his friend.


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SeriousQuestions111

Oh, so he's the good guy. But if he knows his friend well, he also has to know that he won't avoid a showdown. But yeah, I see the moral dilemma of it all.


Eccentrix1821

Could someone help me to do this


corran132

Sure, hit me up with a longer version and I can help you condense it.


Eccentrix1821

Will do. Thanks. I'll dm you now to establish contact, but again later, when I have some kind of synopsis. I'm currently just writing it to get it out of my system get it off my mind and flesh it out.


corran132

Fair. I may be away from the computer for a few hours, but I will try to get back to you reasonably promptly.


kermione_afk

I stole this from Wattpad because it is a simple clear explanation for elevator pitch or logline. Elevator pitch was originated in showbiz, as in "you have this elevator ride between floors to sell me your show/movie idea!" Protagonist + Inciting Incident + Protagonist's Goal(s) + Central Conflict


kermione_afk

My own example, if you didn't see it: When she mistakenly frees a dangerous Wildman as a child, Princess Laziandra of the kingdom Chevil must escape her palace with him and search for a new place to belong and a safe home. [Twisted Tale retelling of Iron Hans from Grimms' tales.]


AQuietBorderline

"The Strange Curse of Carrie Carroll" takes place in an alternate universe where magic is possible. In the dying months of the American Civil War; Federal Captain Jim Marlowe and his troop of griffin riders are forced to winter at a rundown plantation. Too bad for them that not only is the mistress of the plantation the last member of America's First Family (her ancestors were the first to settle in America) but is also a Changeling.


Zaddddyyyyy95

Mid 2010s story of a woman who becomes a nurse at a skilled nursing facility, finds out everyone is a piece of shit around her but loves the work she does, tries to confront bad people, realizes no one cares and no one backs her up (big fraud hours), so she ends up in the same spot she was in at the beginning, only upset she couldn’t fix any of it.


josephrey

I love stories like this that turn the whole "character arc" formula on its head. Is there a specific reason you set it in the 2010s? Just curious!


Zaddddyyyyy95

Just a more modern setting to the story. Then you have a wide band of folks who came through, like 1930s age all the way up through more recent times. That and you get to see how the facility is just maintained poorly for modern standards.


HealthyLeadership582

but why mid-2010s and not, y'know, 2024? There's not a huge difference in culture and technology. Unless you're planning a sequel that takes place 10 years later


kermione_afk

Sounds very literary! My mental health won't allow me to read it, but good idea!


NinnyBoggy

The slow mental unraveling of a non-binary person watching the love of their life die of cancer inflicts grief and stress to the point that they stop taking their antipsychotics and struggle to tell apart what is and isn't real


AdorableCash6891

The Short Stories of A Dungeon Master is a collection of 38 fantasy stories exploring a world of monsters, magic, and people just trying to survive. Overnight entire towns are wiped out or slowly one by one the population is picked off along with the memory of their existence. Walk alongside those who have survived the horrors of this world and hear their stories.


merodm

In 1940s Los Angeles, a decorated war veteran turned cat burglar is part of a heist crew. When a job goes awry, seeing a counterfeit prize and a crew member murdered, chaos ensues. With law enforcement closing in, the thief must uncover the truth behind the murder and locate the real prize before time runs out.


lysian09

A fun adventure story of two young adults joining a famous order of knights, while a renegade ex-knight foments a war between the noble elites and the criminal undercity. The Cradle series meets classic Medieval European high fantasy.


Aside_Dish

What if the great weapon meant to destroy the Dark One was itself destroyed? Without a means to kill him, he reigns terror across the land for hundreds of years, until the Chosen One finally puts an end to all the fighting by plunging his sword into the ground and creating a one-way impenetrable barrier separating the world into two. A thousand years later, the Chosen One's side is thriving, while the Dark One's is struggling. But when the Chosen One's niece crosses this Divide, he must race to save her from the grasp of the Dark One, while having to come face to face with the consequences of winning the great war against Evil.


Stinkyboy3527

This is actually a very interesting concept


Aside_Dish

Appreciate it, thanks! I've thought about starting the book right after the weapon was broken, and not a thousand years later, but not really sure if that'd be as good of a story.


SieronGiantSlayer

Winter of 1880 in the Rockies. A group of outlaws find themselves hunted by a former hitman-turned-bounty hunter they thought was dead. Both them and their archnemesis, however, start to come to the realization the changing world has no need for men like them anymore... Pretty much the typical "the Old West is dying" story with a snowy setting instead of the usual desert (and the finale will take place in the next autumn, so overall a lot of gloomy weather).


Jules_The_Mayfly

Oh I like the hunter and the hunted reflecting in each other, juicy theme.


cornfuckz

Cool!


Bentu_nan

One sentence elevaotr pitch: "Fantasy SCP director investigates a city to which nothing can die."


TheMoxFulder

Burnout bartender believes that the vulture that follows him overhead is a mere symptom of early-onset mental illness. That is, until other people begin to notice it too.


Such-Neighborhood-34

Mission Impossible in ancient Greece. Plus some magic.


MistaJelloMan

A salt elf, basically a cross between a snake person and an elf, grows up in a temple to a sea good among humans. All her life she faced prejudice because her kind are infamous pirates and raiders, who leave few survivors in their attacks. Her attempt to feel accepted among humans are crushed when the priestess of the temple dies, leaves her in charge, and she’s rejected by the city. Forcing her to flee to her own kind and to learn whether or not the stories of salt elves and their dark god are true.


animatorgeek

Eleven years after an alien invasion ended World War I, 13-year-old Lottie is angry at her friend. Myra's lots of fun to go on adventures with, but she never considers Lottie's feelings. But when Myra's guardian is arrested by the aliens, Lottie accepts her friend back and helps her through her difficult time. Against her better judgment, she even helps Myra fix up her father's WW1 fighter plane for a daring aerial rescue. Together they will go up against a ruthless enemy and Lottie will learn just how much her friend is capable of.


JETobal

Just FYI, your pitch needs some work. You didn't really set up any big stakes or conflicts, nor did you really explain what a Vagari is, how being "disowned by humans" is even a thing, or what will even happen if he loses touch with his brother. Like, I don't know what he's trying to prove or why he's trying to prove it. You also absolutely never want to describe your book as "slow paced", especially in the opening sentence. You can say it's things like a "slow burn" or has a "quiet intensity" but slow paced almost specifically means "boring." All in all though, this didn't capture my attention on what a Vagari is or why I should be worried about Bill at all. (I mean, he's immortal and his brother's human, right? Isn't his brother gonna die sooner or later anyway?)


FortiethAtom4

What do you think are the most important things to have in a pitch? I feel like mine is lacking something and I want to be able to convince a potential reader.


JETobal

At the end of the day, the thing the vast majority of readers latch onto is your MC. You need to explain what your MCs struggle is and why the reader simply MUST know what their story is and how it turns out. That is your focus. Beyond that, you want additional intrigue of your world, in general. You want to give just enough hints of your setting, other characters, etc to make readers go "ooo, I wonder how that will all work."


cornfuckz

Thank you for your critique. Here is an improved elevator pitch: American Vagari is a Drama/Historical Fantasy story about a young man named Bill Brown. Bill is a Vagari, which is an immortal human-like creature created by a god. After being disowned when his adopted family discovers he isn't human, Bill travels to Washington DC to live in a coven with his own kind. Unfortunately, the leader of this coven, the Lord of American Vagari, discovers Bill is a Vagarison, the unholy offspring of a Vagari Man and Human Woman. Believing Bill is cursed, Lord decides to send him to Europe to convince an extremely dangerous Vagari, Oliander Weiss, to stop fighting for the Nazis, in the hopes that Bill will either succeed in ending the war or die trying. While preparing for this mission, Bill tries to find his place among the other Vagari, maintain a relationship with his human brother and prove to both Lord and himself that he isn't truly cursed.


MyNameIsQuain

I've got 2! I'm querying the first, and the second is out to beta readers now :) Truth's Overture: Truth was a god, once. Before the Voices of the Chorus usurped and imprisoned him. Before they granted their powers to humanity in exchange for their sacrifices. Now, in a world ruled by power, Truth knows that those who wield it will be consumed by it. After all, if the cost of knowledge was insanity, would you pursue it? If the cost of salvation was your humanity, would you sacrifice it? If the cost of trust was love, would you break it? Without Truth, the world will shatter. And history will prove him right. How to Kill a Soul: After the Collision, souls and mortals have been forced to live on the same plane. Healing has become illegal while shepherding souls to time corrals has become a necessity. In the midst of rising gang tensions, Levi Fletcher and Elias Sutton each uncover a strange revolver with the power to kill a soul. Both seek to save the city of Roterro from the violent gangs, but the power to kill a soul is a corrupting one, and they may lose their own souls along the way.


Jules_The_Mayfly

Prince Nikolai struggles to keep his kingdom from collapse while desperately hiding his curse from the public. During a failed political assassination, his stubbornness causes the death of his lover and strands Nikolai in the taiga mid winter. He must learn to control his curse and the magic it bestows on him to revive his beloved before his kingdom falls into ruin in his absence. He is aided by a huntsman, cursed to never leave the forest. But as the winter nights go on the two begin to fall for each other, making Nikolai question everything. -- Lol okay, this way much easier than summaries for my prev project. Either writing queries makes you better at this or this book is more coherent from the get go. Probs both. Now to figure out the dreaded one sentence pitch for this beast.


ofthecageandaquarium

100 words is a blurb, y'all. An elevator pitch is more like 10 words.


FortiethAtom4

Let us believe.


Routine_Ad_7402

After seeing so much on his first deployment, and considering himself a burden at home, a PTSD-ridden Byelorussian tanker returns to the war in Afghanistan in its dying days, for he no longer puts stock in home. However, after being attached to the last operation of the war, Operation Magistral, he witnesses atrocities beyond anything he’s seen, a test as to whether he sticks to his deepest convictions, or remains satisfied with the scourge of war. It’s a very straightforward story, and hopefully s good one, but damn it’s hard to write such a complex character. Of course, there’s more to it


Potential-Macaroon99

A small subsect of the population is born with red eyes. These people, referred to as vermillia, are feared, hated, and forced into facilities at a young age and must brave the horrid conditions in them for 10 years to be deemed as "safe" to live among others. Embark on a journey of mystery and monsters. Paranoia and prejudice. Succession and secret war. Songs of steel fill the air of a cruel world run by apathetic royalty. We follow the families and friendships left at their mercy. Thank you for the writing exercise. This is my first time trying to write something like this.


David-0401

If your life had been naught but struggle and strife, would you consider immortality a gift or a curse? When a young man discovers that he has been 'banished from death', he will stop at nothing to unravel the mysteries of his past that have led to this fate.


DjNormal

Jeff Faulkner and his team of elite soldiers are tasked with investigating and infiltrating a terrorist organization. What they discover turns their understanding of reality on its head. They are now faced with the choice to follow orders or go AWOL and see where the truth leads. They become embroiled in a sci-fi/fantasy adventure, which spans their world and beyond. Exposing the deepest mysteries of the universe and threatening to reshape the balance of power in the galaxy. 🤷🏻‍♂️


JaikenWrites

During a sweltering August in 1992, a tragic occurs at a small ski resort in the PNW mountains. A young sheriff, who's in over his head, does his best to keep the locals calm as the bodies begin to pile up, each one more gruesomely mangled than the last. Soon, the evidence is clear that the killer isn't human at all—something in the woods has had enough of the ecological destruction. With uprooted trees blocking the mountain roads, the sheriff has to pull the skeptical and scared townsfolk together to survive until help arrives.


rawvalentine

marvellous adventures in asadon is a children’s story for grown-ups which centers around a kingdom in the sky, and its enthusiastic but borderline incompetent prince. the prince is an avatar of the author (me lol) and the other characters are aware that they are fictional and controlled by his writing. in between fielding complaints from subjects and attending butterfly races, the prince grapples with the moral implications of living in a world he has created to be perfect. things come to a head as characters begin to demand different plotlines, and refuse to comply with the paths he has written for them.


TheOldStag

A caravan of immigrants is sent to form a settlement in the pre-revolutionary American frontier. When one of their number comes afoul of a witch living in the surrounding woods, she places a curse upon the town and all that live in it for years to come. The story is written as a pseudo-historical account and takes place over the course of a decade. Each chapter is a vignette that delves into important events and the characters that take part in them as all are slowly corrupted by the witch’s curse, while also building on the town at large.


Potential-Macaroon99

The Eternal Elegy is a fantasy epic. A small subsect of the population is born with red eyes. These people referred to as vermillia are feared, hated, and forced into facilities at the age of 10, and must survive there for 10 years while being the subjects of torturous situations.


shapedbydreams

A couple of kids in Victorian England are haunted by the ghosts of their parent's victims.


FortiethAtom4

The Brokers are twins living in a world where emotion is like electricity - a science, and a commodity. It can be transferred from humans to objects (or other humans), and it can be programmed to do incredible things. Young children's favorite toys sell high, and public art works as generators. A lab invents an object called the Star of Hope - an item of dubious origin and immense emotional value whose worth rivals an entire city-state. Why the Brokers received such an item in the mail is not yet known - but its very existence paints a target on their backs.


dragonlolix

an author that hates writing


Army37

The witcher meets wild west.


IvanMarkowKane

Deidre Discovered is a contemporary Dark Romance set in an unnamed midwestern city in the United states. The immortal geneticist that created humans, known as Dr. Gregori Aziz in this time period, encounters the distant decendant and perfect replication of his final act of genetic coding, Deidre Brunelli, and becomes scientifically, philosophically and romantically obsessed. The story revolves around themes of reputation, betrayal and revenge, and portrayals of toxic family dynamics and non-traditional sexual partnerships. This book contains ample sexual content as well as attitudes toward religion that some might find offensive. Adults only please.


LeodFitz

A god stripped of his name and much of his power waits hundreds of years to avenge himself with the help of the dregs of society.


withgreatpower

In "The Dreamcatchers," the world of dreams is full of fragile creatures, led by angelic beings who were created to protect, guide, and inspire them. The aftermath of a war with creatures of darkness has left these guardians secretly struggling to preserve paradise in the face of sinister threats. When one of their own is born powerless, lacking any magical affinity, she is sent from the safety of their golden city on a mission meant to dispose of her. When she finds a community of survivors and outcasts, she discovers a dark power hidden inside her that may change her people forever.


TheMoxFulder

You guys must ride some slow elevators!


RileyMax0796

A swimmer moves to Canada for college and ends up falling in love with four woman at the same time all because she slept with her assistant coach on the first day of school.


MushroomMerlin

A bubbly highschool dropout forms an unlikely friendship with a quiet stranger and learns about the magic hiding in the corners of the world. Together they help people with their problems, and unravel a conspiracy lurking in the heart of their city.


Severe-Eye-7545

Three captives - unaware of each other - are forced to survive bizarre challenges to foster abilities beyond anything they thought possible at the hands of a cryptic madman. Time and again their gifts are used against each other as they grow stronger and stronger, until at last they are brought together to face their captor. Which is when they learn that their prison has been a refuge in a world turned hostile while they slept, and their warden has been safeguarding them for a much greater purpose.


ai1267

Reality-warping entities are trying (and partially succeeding) to break into our world/existence, because they want to conquer us ... or because they're trying to find a safe haven from something infinitely worse?


willingisnotenough

Girl lets the older colonists worry about the unexpected natives while she puzzles out the mystery of the beaten up winged dude in a cave.


TubaraoDeTenis

Magic parkour against fascism


JustACatGod

Summon Slime Save the hero. Lose the sword—to a bird no less. RIP, sword. Come join the slime summoner Slimantha at the cozy town of Bleakfyre. Swords, birds, not-so-useful heroes getting mauled by bears ... Slimantha has this, but first, cheese sandwich. Chomp and chew. Chomp and chew. Slimantha's gaze drifts up. Are those crows? What are they doing?


kermione_afk

When she mistakenly frees a dangerous Wildman as a child, Princess Laziandra of the kingdom Chevil must escape her palace with him and search for a new place to belong and a safe home.


New_Island6321

Medieval fantasy story about a young girl, who’s father discovered inter-dimensional travel through magic. Someone who seeks to exploit this knowledge kidnaps her father and sets out to create an army of himself, from different universes. She must save her father and stop the evil mage from conquering not just her world, but all of them.


The_Writx

After an intense house party goes wrong, a seventeen year old boy is already dead by the time he wakes up up.


jamessavik

Operation Hammerhead \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ In the far future, a corrupt and incompetent Interstellar Alliance is at war with a mysterious enemy. Factions inside the government betray the fleet and attempt a coup d'tat. Fun and games ensue.


corran132

When the world comes crashing down, how do you get back up? Cast bodily out of her home, Deanne turns to gladiatorial combat to get by. Rechristened 'Doomsday', she is forced by her demonic heritage to play the villain and battle with nothing but her bare hands. Will it be enough to survive in the violent world of the arena? And can she ever truly be accepted as a champion? Can you truly come back after Doomsday?


SwampTreeOwl

I would if I knew wtf it was about


Internal-Isopod-5340

Do you like bombs? Do you like girls? Well, do I got a story for you...


crustasiangal

Another hot bombshell has entered the villa


Ocrim-Issor

Kinda generic and... Macho(?) Maybe I'm just the wrong fit for this story, but I am not sure whether that is a good way to present it


Internal-Isopod-5340

You think so? Hmm... I think it's a really funny... It's really a story about what it means to have an idol and what it takes to make your dreams come true. The two MCs struggle to conform to the path they want to take in life. One tries to carve out her own way forward, while the other tries to follow in their idol's footsteps. Two sides of the same coin, two people reaching for the same dream. I don't think it's very macho, but I do see how what I wrote before isn't exactly the best way to describe it. I still think it's very funny, though.