Baker’s Dozen: by Devi Laskar

Elizabeth cooked up something new last night during the Book Writing World mentoring class. It’s a short and sweet twist on pitch.

Ideally, your pitch should be 2-3 sentences in length, contain some elements of conflict and most importantly, have a suspenseful “hook” – a tease of what’s to come. When you write your query letter, you’ll have this “hook” to go with a short blurb about the author (that’s you!), a.k.a. the cook.

Mine: “The novel, Shadow Gardens, is about Mrs. Lahiri, an American born Bengali woman grappling with the problems of race and identity. Mrs. Lahiri has tenuously arranged everything in her life, her home and relationships with her family – and she has carefully hidden the past in plain view. Now that she wants to host her daughter’s wedding in her own prized garden, the past races into the present and threatens to ruin the picture-perfect life Mrs. Lahiri has created, forcing her to choose what matters most: the truth or tradition.”

That was 90 words in length.

The baker’s dozen trick is to get that pitch down to 13 words or less, and try to use some of the most important words from the original pitch.

My “important words” strung together was a pithy, poem: race identity arranged family past plain-view prized garden ruin picture truth tradition.

My attempt last night was adequate but not ideal, so here’s my newest and latest try: “She hides in plain-view and through her garden, truth may be revealed.”

What are the important words in your pitch? And what is your baker’s dozen?

Devi Laskar is a founding member of the Book Writing World. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University, is a rabid Tar Heel basketball fan and will be reading some of her work on April 9 at the Sacramento Poetry Center in CA.