1. Literaturelady says:

    Great points! I’ll have to keep this in mind when discussing my novel or when recommending a story to friends.

    ~Literaturelady

  2. I love your blurb describing the Bible — perfect!

  3. I think the difference between a taxonomically-correct-yet-tediously-blasé story-description and one that’ll actually attract readers is specificity. So your book is a profound and thrilling Tolkienesque masterpiece of high fantasy. But isn’t everything? Those are subjective adjectives devoid of actual meaning. Compare such potentially empty promises with the back-cover self-description of the original Tolkienesque masterpiece itself:

    “In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins.

    When Bilbo reached his eleventy-first birthday, he disappeared, bequeathing to his young cousin Frodo the Ruling Ring and a perilous quest: to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord, and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom.

    The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the Wizard; the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam; Gimli the Dwarf; Legolas the Elf; Boromir of Gondor; and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.”

    No flowery superlatives here; there’s no need. The plot and characters, presented in plain, straightforward language, are sufficient to pique my fascination by themselves. Notice also that there’s no declaration of genre. The Lord of the Rings doesn’t think of itself as “fantasy.” Instead of using classification as a crutch to appeal to “those who purchased similar items,” it offers itself freely to anyone and everyone who enjoys good fiction. It’s the antithesis of niche marketing.

    • Galadriel says:

      Austin, I love your point. Specifics are really useful, but in the heat of the moment, it can be hard to remember the details and can be easy to fall into genre cliches

  4. Yes, despite all the advice to pitch a story as the journey of a character, we do fall into the trap of naming parts. I will say this though. The naming of parts is useful in one place: your Amazon description. Because those are keywords. But SEO has no place in a real conversation, which is what a pitch should be.

  5. Rightful pragmatism seeks to receive any good story on its own terms, for the better self-interested end of glorifying God.

    Stephen, I have to admit, I stall on a lot of your uses of “glorifying God.” Can you give me a simple sentence definition of what it means to you?

    How I understand the word, it’s impossible to do if you’re receiving something. I have the same problem when you talk about reading as worship. I think there has to be a redefinition of terms in order for that to work. I guess I’m old school.

    Becky

    • Deep question. Deep, deep question. Whew. Such questions led to the very reason I felt set free to enjoy fiction more, not for entertainment or means of promoting either wholesomeness or Gritty Realism to others, but as worship.

      One simplest sentence definition: I’m using “glorify” in the same sense as “worship.”

      Slightly less simple: I could cheat by borrowing from Piper *, but that’s a bit cliche (at least in my circles! 🙂 ). I’ll try this: We glorify God through beautiful and true worship in anything we do, and in such worship we do not “give” to God (for He does not need anything but only gives things — Acts 17:25) but “get more” of Him. That would be the “receiving” I had meant: receiving God’s holy, loving gifts in spirit and truth. Bu more vitally, this is one way to “receive more” of God.

      Psalms speak also of God receiving glory through “unconscious” worship even of sin-groaning creation. Yet redeemed saints are in an even better position because, unlike others, we can actively glorify and worship God.

      I call that true “self-interest” not just ’cause, say, Lewis wrote about this, but because Scripture promotes that as our greatest gain. Jesus Himself always spoke of getting rid of imposter “gains” in order to gain the Kingdom, and gain Himself. He made appeals in His parables to the greatest investments, possessions, etc.

      (* Piper popularized a twist on the Westminster Shorter Catechism in saying, “The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.” In Scripture-based books and articles he’s also one to promote that idea of free, joy-seeking, Biblically founded glorification/worship of God, not based on feelings or our own notions, but on truth — and including God’s calls to be holy and suffer and die.)

What do you think?