The dread question comes at the oddest moments: You’re going about your business, about to sip your cappuccino, or riding in an elevator, believing you are relatively safe, and then, wham: What’s your novel about?
Authors hate this. You have to give a glimpse of your book in a sentence or two. Agony. Don’t make me do this right this second. Let me warm up a bit.
Pitch #1
A Thousand Perfect Things, just out, is a historical fantasy set in an alternate 19th century England and India. It’s an
But way too long. Let’s boil it down.
Pitch #2
That’s the gist of the plot. It’s what most people want to know when they ask, “What’s your story about?”
Rounding it out
But there are other layers to this story, and in a sense, this is what the story is really about, at least for me. The book traces themes of ambition, sexual repression, colonialism and the attainment of wisdom. It’s a love story. There’s an unconventional love triangle, tainted by racism and the question of–for an educated Victorian woman–male domination. Readers will follow Tori, but also Edmond, a conflicted captain of the Raj, Elizabeth, a spirited school teacher, Mahindra, a charismatic holy man, and a prince with a ghostly destiny. We will see love and death, betrayal and bravery, all played out with appearances by magical silver tigers, demons and ghosts.
It is, in the end, the story of a woman who seeks an ideal life but, set against a heart-of-darkness background, is given the chance to discover what she really wants.
I suppose that in creating Tori Harding, I wrote about deep things in myself. That’s usually the case in my work, and I suspect, that of most authors. Even if I’m writing about demon birds and fantastic oceanic bridges (oh yeah, there’s one of those, too) I’m looking into my own heart.
Last try
So what’s the story about? A Victorian woman on a quest for magic in an altered India.
Got it down to twelve words! But I still hate the question.
SFWAauthors
#Alternatehistory #elevatorpitch #historicalfantasy #AThousandPerfectThings #Victoriannovels