If you’re fan of #TeamClaws, then we’d love if you could add our books to your want-to-read list on Goodreads!
Tomi’s CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE
Kit’s A COURT OF MIRACLES
What We Want
- Category: YA
- Genre: Fantasy
We want YOUR (*cough, cough, your scavenger hunt word is a blue YOUR) beautiful, high-concept, Young Adult Fantasy! WE WANT TO READ IT NOW!
Your fantasy doesn’t have to have magic in it to be considered a fantasy. For example, Kit’s Pitch Wars book and debut novel A COURT OF MIRACLES doesn’t have any magic in it (but it’s definitely a magical read!)
To get real specific, we want your:
high/epic fantasies
low fantasies
dark/gritty fantasies
historical/alternate historical fantasies
alternate world fantasies
military fantasies
political/court intrigue fantasies
quest fantasies
(Unsure what kind of fantasy your book is? Here’s a great list with a bunch of definitions. And if you’re still not sure after reading, just tweet us and ask if it sounds like a fantasy we’d want to see!)
FOCUSES
The following aren’t requirements for you to submit to us, but if your manuscript has this, we would LOVE to see it!
diverse stories and diverse characters
unique, non-western settings
high-concept stories
STORY ELEMENTS WE LOVE
The following are elements that we love writing and reading! If your fantasy has even one of the below, we’d love to see it!
strong voice
lyrical writing
lush, detailed new worlds (bonus if your world has a hint of darkness!)
ass-kicking, no-nonsense heroines (bonus if they kick literal ass!)
complex characters
unlikable characters (give us your Lada's, Katniss's, and Adelina's cause we want them!)
villains and anti-heroes (if you’ve got the next Kaz Brekker you best be sending that manuscript to us)
strong sibling relationships
unlikely character relationships/allies/friendships
strong group dynamics/character relationships (like the Six Of Crows squad or the Avatar: The Last Aibender gang!)
tension-filled, complicated romances (special bonus for enemies to lovers and/or slow burn romances like KAZ AND INEJ!)
unique roles (thieves, gangs/gangsters, criminals, femme fatales, pirates, crusaders, masked vigilantes)
retellings of mythology, folktales, fairytales, fables, classic literature, and whatever the heck you want! Big bonus of they’re uncommon retellings (like a retelling of Les Mis and The Jungle Book to just pick a completely random example…)
unique events (like heists or mysteries!)
subverting or putting unique/compelling twists on common tropes (like “the chosen one”)
WHAT WE DON'T WANT
While we love reading the below fantasies/genres, we wouldn’t be the best mentors for them and we know how limited your submission spots are!
So don’t send us your:
medieval fantasies (unless it’s non european/western medieval setting)
paranormal fantasies/vampire and werewolf fantasies
urban fantasies
portal fantasies
And here are genre’s we don’t want:
science fiction
horror
contemporary
straight mysteries (mysteries inside of a fantasy are okay!)
time travel
(again, if you’re not sure what category your fantasy/book falls into, check out this list and if you’re still not sure, just tweet us and ask!)
BOOKS/AUTHORS/STORIES WE LOVE
If you can comp your book/your writing style/premise to one of the below, there’s a good chance we’ll love your manuscript!
Authors
Sabaa Tahir
Leigh Bardugo
Renee Adieh
Marie Lu
Marissa Meyer
Susan Dennerd
Sarah J Mass
Daniel Jose Older (even though we’re not mentoring urban fantasy, if you have the writing style/world-building/incredible characters of DJO in your fantasy, we want it!)
V.E. Schwabb
Victoria Aveyard
Laini Taylor
Upcoming Books
Books we can’t wait for and would die to have in Pitch Wars!
The Last Namsara (which is one of Tomi's favorite books! And the author is a PW mentor this year!)
Books
- And I Darken Trilogy
Six Of Crows Duology & Shadow and Bone Trilogy
An Ember In The Ashes Series
The Reader
Caraval
The Wrath and the Dawn & The Flame in the Mist
Daughter of Smoke and Bone & Strange the Dreamer
Three Dark Crowns
A Star-Touched Queen
Rebel of The Sands
Throne of Glass
The Winner’s Curse
Nevernight
Spindle Fire
Wintersong
Uprooted
Deathless
Sabriel
His Dark Materials
Other stories/authors/creators we love that aren’t necessarily YA or aren’t books:
Non-YA Books
Game of Thrones
Darker Shade Of Magic
The Dark Tower
City of Stairs
The Gods War
Percy Jackson Series
Artemis Fowl Series
The Girl Who Circumvented Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making
Creators
Neil Gaiman
Terry Pratchett
Tamora Pierce
George R.R. Martin
N.K. Jemisin
Nnendi Okorafor
Ursula Le Guin
Scott Lynch
China Meillville
Pat Rothfuss
Ava Duvernay
Shonda Rhimes
Christopher Nolan
Stephen Moffat
Non-Books
Avatar: The Last Airbender (which is a part of Tomi’s soul) and Avatar: Legend of Korra (#TeamGeneralIroh)
Howl’s Moving Castle / Princess Mononoke
Mad Max: Fury Road
Attack On Titan
Deathnote
Naruto
Bleach
Samurai Jack
Secret of The Kells
Kubo and The Two Strings
Once Upon A Time
Nirvana in Fire
Hero (Jet Li) / House of Flying Daggers / Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Comics: Nimona / Fables / Sandman / The Abominable Charles Christopher (webcomic)
*although we are NOT looking for scifi*: Star Wars / BattleStar Galactica / Dr. Who
If you’re still unsure whether or not your book is something we would want to see in our inbox, just ask!
You can’t directly pitch your book, but you can ask if we’d be interested in a book that has the elements of your book. For example, last year Kit’s book was “A Les Miserables and Jungle Book retelling in a criminal underworld in Paris.”
She asked mentors: “Do you like musicals like Les Mis or Hamilton (historical based musicals)? Do you like Jungle Book (the cartoon, movie, book, new movie)? Are you a fan of Six of Crows (a comp for her book) or Lies of Locke Lamora (fantasy criminal books).”
This is a great example of how to ask all of the mentors you’re considering questions when it comes to narrowing them down!
HOW WE WORK/MENTOR
We are fun-loving cheerleaders who want to form a relationship with our mentee that will last far beyond Pitch Wars! We’re hoping for the best in the agent round, but no matter what we will continue to guide our mentee when it’s time to query and beyond!
When it comes to working hard on our books, we are intense Ravenclaws (with a healthy dose of ambitious Slytherin). We like to look at every single aspect of the story and make sure they’re working together seamlessly, so if you like to be really intense about editing your book/charting out your writing career, then we’re the mentors for you.
(Also if you have excel sheets of any kind related to your writing in any way, we’re probably the mentors for you #teamexcel).
We are also very communicative and are hoping to have 1-2 skype sessions with our mentee (1 after they receive their edit letter, another in before the agent round).
Additionally, we’ll always be there to answer questions/motivate you in between those sessions! We’re highly responsive to emails (and we message each other so much on twitter that our respective hubbies make fun of us).
OUR REVISION PLAN
We want to do a minimum of 2 rounds of edits (*3 if time allows!)
Big Picture Edits - We’ll provide you with a comprehensive edit letter full of constructive critique to make your manuscript as great as humanly possible
*Continuity Pass - If time allows, we want to do a quick round of edits after you make all the big changes to your story to make sure everything still flows seamlessly
Line Edits - We want to do an in depth-line edit to polish your prose before the agent round
OUR IDEAL MENTEE
We want to work with someone who has a strong sense of what they want their story to be, but is also very open to big revisions. Your story might not need big revisions, but if it does, we need a mentee who is open to them and excited to do them! (if you’re not open to revisions or doing a lot of work, do not sub to us because we are not the mentors for you)
To give you an example of how big revisions possibly could be, for Pitch Wars last year Tomi rewrote the last 150 pages of her book. Kit cut a major character and rewrote ⅓ of her book.
The best mentor/editor helps you write the story that you thought you wrote the first time. That is our goal. We want you to leave Pitch Wars with a story that is true to your vision, but also the best version of your story possible!
So if that’s what you want, you should sub to us!
WHY PICK US?
We were you last year!
We stressed out over our #pimpmybios, we didn’t sleep so we could revise our manuscripts, we stared at endless excel sheets compiled from the mentor bloghop so many times our eyes hurt.
But because of all that craziness, we got into Pitch Wars and by working hard during it and after it, some awesome things happened:
Kit:
20 requests in PW Agent Round
6 offers of representation and signed with Josh Adams of Adams Literary
6-publishing house auction resulting in a major book deal
Tomi:
30 requests in PW Agent Round
15 offers of representation and signed with Hillary Jacobson & Alexandra Machinist of ICM Partners
7-figure book and movie deal
Pitch Wars did so much for us which is why we wanted to give back to this amazing competition as mentors this year. If our dreams come true, one day our future mentee will be writing a post like this for their future mentee!
Another reason you should pick us is because we are passionate af! We read widely and we analyze and critique stories all the time. So you’ll be in really good hands!
So submit to us!!! Submit, submit, submit! We can’t wait to read your beautiful fantasies!!!
WHO WE ARE
Kit is a literal queen, this picture proves it, sub to us and become a queen, too
Kit is a British Mauritian writer of Colour who grew up all over the world she’s represented by the fabulous Josh Adams of Adams Literary. She can generally be found planning her next ten book series and fangirling over Nirvana in Fire whilst surrounded by her fiendish pack of cats and dogs. She has been told her face is sometimes scary, she is a sweetheart once you get to know her. Her debut novel A COURT OF MIRACLES, a fantasy reimagining of the Jungle Book and Les Miserables, comes out Fall, 2018 (Random House).
This is Tomi's "I have a secret you will only learn if you sub to us" smile
Tomi Adeyemi is a Nigerian-American author and creative writing coach based in San Diego, CA. She is represented by the incredibly fierce Hillary Jacobson and Alexandra Machinist of ICM Partners. When she’s not working on her novels or watching Scandal, she can be found blogging and teaching creative writing to her 4,500 subscribers at tomiadeyemi.com. Her website has been named one of the 101 best websites for writers by Writer’s Digest. Her debut novel, CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE, comes out March 6, 2018 (Macmillan) and the movie adaptation is being developed at Fox 2000.
For more of an insight into what Tomi and Kit are like, check out our videos and posts with Pitch Wars Information, Tips, and Advice:
GET IN TOUCH
Okay! That’s it! We hope we’ve convinced you why we’d love to work with you!
Good luck polishing those fantasies! We can’t wait to see them!
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