Pitch Wars 2020: The Breath of Teloria

I’m submitting a different manuscript than I ever have to Pitch Wars this year: a high fantasy adult one. It’s going to be epic.

Get ready for more bad puns, loveable (often hapless) characters, and a writer who’s ready to WORK.

THE BREATH OF TELORIA. From this novel I learned what it means to rewrite. I’ve edited and edited and separately rewritten the entire book twice in the years I’ve worked on it, and I’m ready to rewrite it again, if necessary. This story is primed for improvement, in whatever form that takes. 

My History/Background

I’ve worked at a mid-size book publisher in NYC for four years now, two years as the Operations Manager, so I know a lot about the publishing business. While there’s always more to learn, I have responsibilities involving almost every department, literally—contracts/legal, foreign rights, royalties, production, editorial, print production, publicity, and finance. Because of this, I’m ready for whatever the industry throws me, and I apply the same attitude and drive toward my novels: whatever happens, I will figure it out.

This capacity to adapt helped me a lot in graduate school, where I honed my craft to receive an MFA in Creative Writing and Literature. Since then I’ve attended multiple workshops at the Highlights Foundation and led by the RUCCL, wrote three novels, and sent 98 queries for a YA science fiction with mecha battles. I’m ready to give this book its fighting chance!

The Novel’s History/Background

THE BREATH OF TELORIA has multiple POVs, but three main perspective characters— Ephraim, Travis, and Xhella (Shell-a)—all of whom are trying to reconcile their place in history and their role in each other’s future. This book also spotlights their fathers, Balfore/Stephen, Jaret, and Daonene, and their choices to protect their children, for good or bad, both in the past and the present. As I look towards eventually having children of my own, reflecting on the effect that parents have on their kids continues to be an intense experience!

The book isn’t all thought experiment, of course; there’s humor, romance, intrigue, and an interwoven epic poem! The magic system is inspired by (and in part bound by) science, relying heavily on the wielder’s knowledge of energy but also on their creativity in harnessing it. I’m a writer whose combined touchstone is logic and faith; I majored in biology in college and I’m also religious. This book’s religion plays a tremendous role in the characters’ lives and decisions. The epic poem is the creation myth for this fantasy world, and develops in tandem with the plot of the story, informing or mirroring major plot events.

Mythology and its role in society always fascinated me: the oral and written histories shared between generations, the reason why we’re all here. How our culture determines our opinion on life, our attitude towards death, and the name of the monster hiding under the bed or in the closet or in the woods outside. I wanted to explore those lofty overarching ideas in this book, but also the nuances: how a few characters’ decisions can change everything.

And that’s just it, ultimately. It all comes back to the characters: Ephraim wants the truth, Travis wants to love, Xhella wants revenge, and everyone else wants the Breath of Teloria. Hopefully they all find what they’re looking for, especially when it looks nothing like they thought it would.

Some music that has inspired the characters in the first few chapters & their relationships:

Ephraim/Travis

Halcyon – Ellie Goulding

Freakin’ Out on the Interstate – Briston Maroney

Collar Full – Panic! At the Disco

 

Xhella

The Healer (Redux) – KT Tunstall

My Song – Brandi Carlile

¡Viva la Gloria! – Green Day

 

Balfore

Blame – Bastille

Smoke and Mirrors – Gotye

Things We Lost in the Fire – Bastille

Vail

I'm Only Joking – Kongos

Up in the Air – Thirty Seconds to Mars

Elsewhere – Young the Giant

Some random things I enjoy, in no particular order:

Tea (any kind, though I’m partial to black tea blends)

Fire Emblem (Path of Radiance especially, Radiant Dawn, Three Houses)

Zelda (I’ve played every platform Zelda)

Atomic Blonde (& The Old Guard & Mad Max Fury Road, and any badass movie starring Charlize Theron)

Burn Notice (yes, the USA spy tv show—it’s the best)

Sherlock Holmes (anything involving him—books, tv shows, movies)

Crocheting (a skill I learned from my grandmother)

Endeavor (Morse)

Wallander (I really do like Kenneth Branagh. #unpopularopinion)

Great British Baking Show (love cooking/baking with family recipes)

Great Pottery Throwdown (my husband is getting me more into pottery these days…)

Puzzles/solving mysteries/escape rooms (I love Sherlockian adventures)

Listening to music/the radio (apparently no one listens to music radio, but I love expanding my musical horizons)

Singing (I took voice lessons in high school but I mostly sing to the radio now)

Slothilda. She’s my spirit animal. 

To all my fellow Pitch Warriors, good luck! I'm on Twitter and Instagram @AlexScholls!

Pitch Wars: Pale Yellow Disc in a Pale Blue Sky, Round 2

I’m submitting an adult sci-fi manuscript (cli-fi, apocalyptic, if we want to get more specific) for #PitchWars this year.

The plot, in a little more than a nutshell: Nineteen-year-old Douglas experiences inexplicable, crippling anxiety and destructive rage, but he’s found a solution: a drug that will take away his emotions. The military is offering it to make better soldiers. He soon becomes such an exemplary guard that he’s assigned to protect Selena, a solar-powered teenager created to help repopulate the planet. When he discovers that she’s really a prisoner in her own home, suffering through painful experiments, he can either help her escape—and slowly go insane—or lose everything that makes him human in order to survive. It has a lot of science, a good amount of pseudo-science, some philosophy, action, and love (in semi-romantic doses).

I submitted this manuscript to Pitch Wars three years ago, as YA, and it wasn’t chosen. Just after submitting, I started working as the Operations Assistant at Skyhorse Publishing. I’m now their Operations Manager. I got married. I wrote, edited, and sent 98 queries for a completely different novel. I came back to this novel and realized that it had much more complex themes than I was giving it room to explore. A lot has changed in my life. So has a lot in this manuscript.

Now that I’ve been working in publishing for three years and gained more life experience in general, it’s affected how I look at writing and informed a new approach to this book. I’ve added to the original inspiration, which I talked about in my last bio, and am now submitting it as adult. Douglas’ voice is still YA to a point, but his arc (and Selena’s) has expanded to accommodate more of what I’ve learned about the courage of love over the past three years. Their stories are less about discovering themselves and more about finding out what it really means to be human—what it really means to love someone. That’s a loaded topic. Everyone has a different opinion on it. These characters find out a little more about what their opinion is about it, and hopefully challenge readers to define more of their opinion about it. 

I like books that make me think. One of my more profound reading experiences over the past few years was Kiersten White’s AND I DARKEN, which I’d read just before I got engaged. It prompted me to confront some equally profound thoughts about love and marriage, the biggest of which was that loving someone—really loving someone—means that you give up your freedom. In loving someone you are bound to them, and that’s both a very powerful and very scary thing. So this manuscript touches on that topic a little: the power of the choice to love. The gravity behind that choice. The joy. The different kind of freedom that results from it.

All in all, I love these kinds of questions. These characters. The interstitial spaces in which we live our lives. I’ve also been more around the block in the querying/writing realm than I had been three years ago, so I’m better equipped to handle criticism, intense revision, and getting to the truth of the story than ever before. I hope to find a mentor who’s equally excited about exploring these themes with me (and who’s just as driven as me to get things done). I’m ready to give this book its chance to become fully-realized.

Some of the music I listen to when I work on this book to give you more of its vibe:

Cough Syrup (Young the Giant)

Difficulty (KT Tunstall)

Feed the Machine (Nickelback)

Technologic (Daft Punk)

Solar-Powered Life (The Classic Crime) - this is the song that actually inspired the short story that became this novel

Weight of Living, Pts. I and II (Bastille)

Complainer (Cold War Kids)

Run for Cover (The Killers)

99 Luftballoons (the original is great, so is the version from the Atomic Blonde soundtrack)

Anna Sun (Walk the Moon)

Thanks for reading! Please connect with me on Twitter: @AlexScholls. Always looking to make new writer friends.

Pitch Wars 2016, My Hopeful Mentee Bio

So, as you can see, I don't blog often. Almost never, statistically. But I would love for Pitch Wars mentors and mentees to get to know me better! So here is my saga, abridged, but really the abridged saga of PALE YELLOW DISC IN A PALE BLUE SKY.

This novel is YA Science Fiction, a book influenced strongly by my college years. Back then I was a Biology major, headed for med school, when in junior year I realized I wanted to write stories more than I wanted to write research papers about the degeneration pathways of diseases affecting the basal ganglia. (Not that I didn't love Neuroscience; it was my favorite elective!) 

That Neuroscience course is what inspired a good part of this novel's preoccupation with the brain in general and logic vs. emotion. Also, looove Spock.  

Anyway, I then stunned Biology professors and ROTC officers alike when I chose to go to graduate school for creative writing instead of join the Army and become a doctor. Ultimately, I'm glad I followed my passion, no matter what other people thought about it. Can't compromise your goals because others think they're implausible or laughable. You are you, and you need to keep it that way. ;-)  

As my blog header states, I'm a crocheter and a tea snob. The latter comes primarily from BBC's Sherlock.

I love all things BBC: Downton Abbey, WALLANDER (that show is amazing, although I thought the last season was weaker than the others), The Great British Baking Show, The Paradise, Worricker, Endeavor, Inspector Lewis, Grantchester... I could go on. It's safe to say that British drama/mystery has had a big influence on my writing; I take the subtle avenue rather than the shock value one in character relationships and plot points alike. 

Some books that have influenced my writing of this novel:

Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy. These books are smart, compelling, and deftly crafted. Don't read them before bedtime. (Biggest mistake I ever made, in my entire life.)

Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner's THESE BROKEN STARS. I loved the structure of this book, Tarver's sarcasm, Lilac's femininity+badassery, and Majors that were eighteen. Yesss to high-ranking military officers that are also teenagers. Such great built-in conflict right there.

Jen Brooks' IN A WORLD JUST RIGHT. If I can write something as simultaneously precise, poignant, and brilliantly structured as this book is, I will have accomplished everything. Her writing is so excellent, and the story so well-orchestrated. 

Rainbow Rowell's FANGIRL. I wish I had this book to read in college, because it would have completely validated my life. Anyway, FANGIRL was perfect in a lot of ways. It had just the kind of romance I wanted to see more of in YA: the quieter kind, the kind that builds slowly and steadily. One that just gets its legs by the end of the book and shows the potential of the relationship rather than the apex of it. I think our high school/teenage years are when we discover how profoundly we can love someone, whether in romance or in friendship or in family relationships; they provide the first taste of how deeply the rivers of our feelings can run. Books that explore love this way are my faves.

   
Other books that I've enjoyed (and have inspired me to improve):

ILLUMINAE, Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
BONE GAP, Laura Ruby
SIX OF CROWS, Leigh Bardugo
CONVICTION, Kelly Loy Gilbert
AN EMBER IN THE ASHES, Sabaa Tahir
THE DISTANCE BETWEEN LOST AND FOUND, Kathryn Holmes
THE GAME OF LOVE AND DEATH, Martha Brockenbrough
CODE NAME VERITY, Elizabeth Wein ("Kiss me, Hardy!" I sobbed. For a long time.) 

Other influences on my life/this book: video games. I used to play a lot of them, practically anything with a good story and cool weapons or magic. Metroid, Fire Emblem, Zelda, Baten Kaitos, Assassin's Creed, Halo. Lately, reading and writing has all but consumed my life, but getting back into the game (haha) is something I hope to do one day soon! Especially when I have money just lying around.... 

In any case, PALE YELLOW DISC IN A PALE BLUE SKY has some science, a little bit of romance, and a ton of heart. It's about love, freedom, and what makes us human, but ultimately, it's about Douglas, who's just trying to live and love and feel ok in a very screwed up world. I adore these characters and I can't wait to work with a mentor who loves them, too, if I'm deemed so lucky!  

If you choose me as your mentee, you can expect dedication to the tenth degree and an enthusiastic response to your critique. Two years of MFA workshops, a visit to the Rutgers University Council on Children's Literature One-on-One Conference in 2015, and a week-long intensive at the Highlights Foundation with the fabulous Laura Ruby and Anne Ursu this past May have taught me well on that front, and I'd be happy to bust my butt on this two-month journey of improvement. No pain, no gain, as I learned during many a ruck march and PT test. So, bring on the revisions! I'm ready to lance through this manuscript's problems, just like Titania here.

I'll add that if anyone wants to talk about Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and its superiority to Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, find me on Twitter (@AlexScholls). Or, if you want to talk about books, science, writing, or anything else, I'm open to those subjects, too. :)