And the winner is...

First, I have to say how interesting it was to do the contest the way I did. I used four different readers to judge and rate the pitches, and then combined the scores to decide an overall winner. I found it fascinating to see how differently each judge rated the various entries. However, only one person could win, and the one that got the highest overall score when combining all four judges scores was:



JAMIE!! Here's his pitch: Waking up in a coffin hungry for blood is only the beginning for sixteen-year-old Everly Blue. Things are about to get a lot worse.

So, obviously vampires are far from "over" - at least, according to my four readers! (Who varied in age by almost thirty years by the way.) Jamie please email me your query at sarablarson21 (at) gmail (dot) com and I will get working on your critique. Congratulations!

What did I learn from this? That different readers have different tastes, opinions, and reactions to the exact same pitch (or query, or book, or anything!) and that you need to write what you love, do it well, and find the person who loves it as well. Because someone will.

Coming up on Wednesday is my recap of the awesome Writing for Charity evening extravaganza I went to over the weekend, which included Shannon Hale (who is pregnant with twins, in case you didn't know, and on bedrest) nearly getting dumped off the stage (from her wheelchair) by James Dashner, Brandon Mull joining with his old comedy troupe to do some skits that included enacting a Jack and Jill death scene in Edgar Allan Poe style, and even more. You don't want to miss it. Until then, Happy Monday!