Pitching with a Twist

As most of you know I'm a giant space nut. So when I heard about SyFy's new space drama Ascension, I got pretty excited.

(**SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN EPISODE 1 OF ASCENSION**)

But upon finishing episode one I felt a bit cheated by that description. You see, there's a twist at the end of the first episode. (Really stop reading if you don't want to be spoiled.) Viewers discover in the last five minutes that the people who were launched into space in the sixties for a 100 year space mission, are really just part of a government experiment that never left Earth.

WHAT?

I did a double take. How could that ship shown in space not actually be there? And while I suspected earlier on in the episode this might be the case because there was little to no explanation as to how sixties technology would support this kind of long range space mission, I was still really shocked. But not in a good way. And that wasn't the only emotion surrounding me. I honestly felt extremely let down. Here SyFy was pitching this epic space drama (which they haven't done in quite some time), and in reality... there was zero space involved.

So all this got me thinking. How do you pitch a grand idea that has a giant twist, and not piss off your audience?

The pitch

The first thing you focus on is the pitch. Pitches are meant as a tease. They are also meant to entice the audience. In this case, I was teased by the space end of things, and I was definitely reeled in by the idea of a murder mystery on a space mission. But because the pitch is only meant to tease and not to spoil, the pitch should only focus on the initial part of the story, the inciting incident if you will. As far as Ascension goes, SyFy did everything right with their pitch. They teased me (maybe a little too much), and they definitely got my attention. So pitch well done! If you are pitching something with a twist, it's best to leave the twist out of the pitch.

The twist

The second thing to work on is the execution of the twist. This is where things can go south really quickly. You have to build up to the twist in such a way that when you do inevitably deceive your audience, they don't feel cheated, but feel enlightened and excited about the result. The clues and the story need to work together seamlessly, so that when the big reveal is dropped, it makes sense to the audience rather than leaving them rolling their eyes and/or feeling hoodwinked.

This, I think, is where SyFy didn't execute as well as they could have. In episode one, there weren't many, if any clues that supported the giant twist. While it's a really cool idea, there wasn't enough lead up to the twist. There was a lot of focus on the main plot, a girl who is murdered, and how one of the crew members managed to get a gun on board the ship. Which if this is the main plot of the story, that's fine to focus there, but the twist of not being in space needed to be tied into the main plot somehow. Thus far, it hasn't been (stay tuned for episodes two and three Tuesday and Wednesday).

Instead toward the end of the episode, we got a hint that the government was watching the Ascension's every move; which if they are on a long range space mission they should be. But unfortunately there wasn't a hint that this was some grand experiment that never even went into space, other than my deductive reasoning that developing this kind of technology in 1963 would have been extremely difficult.

The few breadcrumbs unfortunately didn't lead to the twist. This was a problem because when the bomb was dropped, we weren't even in the vicinity to take on the full blast. Instead, we were watching from afar shaking our heads at the devastation it caused. Which is not where you want to be when you reveal something huge. You want your audience so reeled in, they go how did I miss that? That's awesome, but... yeah, you want them speechless.

So if you want to plot out a grand sweeping twist for you story, great. Just make sure you build it so that's it entirely believable. Otherwise you risk upsetting your audience. On the flip side, a great twist will set off a series of emotions from your audience, but if you do everything right, they will be the right kind, not the feeling that someone cheated you out of something really cool.

Blog Hop - What I'm working on

The lovely Nicole Evelina tagged me in her blog hop so here’s a little bit about what I’ve been up to.

1) What am I working on?

A MG fantasy about dragon changelings and my main character Sasha who wants nothing to do with her dragon form.

I’m also furious editing a YA sci fi thriller that I’m really excited about! Hopefully I’ll be pushing that out into the world soon.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?
Okay let’s talk about my MG WIP. And without spoiling too much since my WIP is fairly new, Sasha lives in a world where the dragons aligned into clans, but the clans don’t get along. In fact it’s traitorous to associate with dragon changelings outside of the clan they reside in. Sasha grew up outside the clans, which inherently puts her at risk. And she quickly learns there’s a secret all the changelings are hiding and it’s the very reason they don’t get along and have remained separated.

3) Why do I write what I do?
I absolutely love the question ‘What if?’ It’s how most of my ideas start and that lends itself very well to science fiction and fantasy. I also grew up on both genres, and am a huge sci fi/fantasy junkie. I love it and have a hard time saying no to it no matter the medium.

I’m also an aerospace engineer by day, so I love to take existing ideas and technology and stretching them just a little bit further. You might say I’ve been training to write science fiction and fantasy my whole life!

4) How does my writing process work?
After the initial idea, I start with an outline. Always. I need to know where I’m headed, even if I don’t 100% follow it. With the case of my current WIP, I’ve also spent a lot of time world building. Figuring out what each dragon clan was about and what makes them special. How they differ from the other clans. Usually though the world builds as I write so this vast initial world building is new for me. But I think it’s a necessary part of fantasy.

After that I write. I start at the beginning and I go and keep going until I reach the end. As I go my outline shapes and changes and sometimes I get snippets of scenes I’ll plug into my outline, but for the most part my writing process is very linear. Idea, outline, write start to finish. I think it’s my engineer side taking over. ;)

Thanks to Nicole for tagging me in her blog hop. See below for more information about her and for a link to her post about what she’s been up to.

Author bio:

Nicole Evelina is St. Louis-born historical fiction writer represented by Jen Karsbaek of Foreword Literary. She is the author of an Arthurian legend trilogy that tells Guinevere’s life story from her point of view, as well as a work of women’s fiction.  Nicole is a member of and book reviewer for the Historical Novel Society, and Sirens, a group supporting female fantasy authors, as well as a member of the St. Louis Writer’s Guild and Women Fiction Writers Association.

She is one of only six authors who recently completed a week-long writing intensive taught by #1 New York Times bestselling author Deborah Harkness. Nicole has traveled to England twice to research the Guinevere trilogy, where she consulted with internationally acclaimed author and historian Geoffrey Ashe, as well as Arthurian/Glastonbury expert Jaime George, the man who helped Marion Zimmer Bradley research The Mists of Avalon.

Her website/blog is http://nicoleevelina.com and she can be found on Twitter as @nicoleevelina as well as on Pinterest and Facebook.

The Tales of a Closet Pantser

If you've been reading this blog you know by now that I'm an engineer and a writer. And if you haven't been reading, why not? Because I'm an engineer, when I write I think very logically and plot through things as they are supposed to happen one thing leading into the next. So recently it has come as a complete shock to me that my current WIP, like a stubborn toddler, downright refuses to be plotted - a phenomenon we writers call pantsing (see it wasn't as dirty as you thought). No matter how much I try to plot my WIP, Orion, my devil muse (who I probably should have named Loki), has been throwing wrenches into my carefully plotted and logical outline. 

This act of throwing tools, sends me into a tailspin of back and forth between the voices in my head. Yes hearing voices is perfectly normal for a writer. I'm not crazy I swear! So starts the intern conflict....

If I change this, it will change the location of that event in my manuscript. Hmmm maybe that's better. But if I leave it as is then I have more tension here. Oooo that's good. BUT if I change it, then I have more tension throughout.... OOOO even better! The evil voices in my head laugh. Yes call me a sadist but I love torturing my main characters.

The problem with changing things though, is that the minute I do, I turn around and see that Orion has bested me by shoving me into a closet and leaving me with my pants around my ankles. CURSE YOU PANTSING! How could you be better than my tried and true carefully thought out and planned outline? How dare you ruin my perfectly fine method! It works or at least it worked until this WIP, that still doesn't have a detailed ending. What's with that Orion? You have some more tools to throw at me? BRING IT! 

Pantsing it is!

*runs off to write*

Note: I am not crazy. I SWEAR!