What the Elevator Pitch Can Never Tell You

True story:  I called for an elevator from the lobby of a Las Vegas hotel; when the door opened, Chris Angel was standing inside, levitating a beautiful female tourist.  I'm pretty sure he was actually seducing her, using the old "I'm a magician" line to convince her to let him "levitate" her in the elevator, because his method involved a lot more groping contact than other magicians I've seen.

  

This... but in an elevator.

Anyway...  levitating women in elevators.  Now that is an excellent elevator pitch!  The surprise, the mystery, the sexiness, and the visual gives you a really accurate idea of what to expect from the Chris Angel magic show (coincidentally happening later that night at that same hotel).

Elevator pitches for books are a little different.  They rarely involve touching, groping, or levitating. 

Writers are generally pretty good at expressing themselves.  In fact, in many cases, expressing themselves well is pretty much the only thing they can do.  Get a couple of drinks into a normally shy and reclusive writer at a cocktail party, and chances are you'll generate some pretty good conversation.
  

But one of the surest of surefire ways to trip a writer up and watch him fail at self-expression, is to ask him to tell you about his book.   

Tell you about some else's book?  Sure!  No problem at all.  Most writers can break someone else's story down to all the bits that might make you want to read it, and provide just the right amount of insight on why you really should (or maybe shouldn't).  

But ask the same writer about his or her own book and you might just get the deer in the headlights.  Not always, of course, because writers get better at handling the question with time, but if it's a first book... you might want to freshen your beverage pretty soon.

There is a simple reason for this.  Your own book is incredibly important to you, personally.  It's got a huge amount of you in it.  You dove as deep as you could into the bottomless pool of your  own psyche, came back to the surface with a little piece of gold... and wrote about the journey.   

They may as well have asked, "God:  Yes or No, and Why (show your work)?"

(Note - They're asking you about the Sexy, Violent, Aspirational, Dirty Playground of your Innermost Thoughts  - It's Part 1 of this rant, it's much shorter, and it's right here).

This is why writers must work out an elevator pitch for their book.  Can you say what it's about between floors in an elevator?  Many, surprisingly, can't.  

Fortunately, this is not an elevator.  If it were, I could tell you about my book (because I've worked on it really hard).  But this is my personal Blog.  And this is a rant wherein I get to say what I want to say.  So I'm going to say what I can't say at a cocktail party or in an elevator.  

I'm going to tell you (briefly and without spoilers) what no elevator pitch can ever tell.  

The Subtext!  Or, what my book is really about.   The sexy,violent, aspirational playground.  

Part of the elevator pitch for King’s X usually involves something like, “imagine 'The Maltese Falcon' crossed with 'The Lord of the Rings.'  

Now, that may very well be a pretty interesting thing to say, but what does it really mean?  

This is where the Tyranny of Genre really starts to assert its iron fist. 

Is it a detective story?  A mystery?  

Yes.  Much like “The Maltese Falcon” a modern detective suddenly finds himself in the middle of a chase that’s been going on for centuries.  Everyone is looking for one special item, something called the “King’s X.”  Only instead of a jewel encrusted statue, the King’s X is a ring.  Perhaps a “magic ring.” 

So... is it Fantasy?  Sort of.

Normally when we think of “Fantasy” stories we picture dragons and monsters, wizards and magic...  a dreamscape presented as solid flesh and blood.  King’s X takes place in the “real world,” the one you and I live in.  But at the same time, it seems to feel that this “real-world” - and all the wonders that exist within it - might just be a dreamscape presented as flesh and blood.  

The history of the world, as told to you by anyone, is not concrete. It is a tale that can change greatly depending on point of view.  The history of the United States, for example, is a radically different story when told by a professor of Economics from Harvard or a tribal elder living on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota.  Both of their stories may have merit, both may be “true” in one sense, but neither one of them tells the same story, or the complete story.  “Real” is in the eye of the beholder. 

The "magic" ring of King's X reveals something to all who wear it.  A great secret jealously kept since the beginning of "history."  You do not really die.  None of us do.  Much as you have heard many times in tales that rely purely on faith and belief, within you is an immortal spirit for which your body is a shell.

The "real world” of King’s X features familiar places and history we know a great deal about, but it is very much about the way we “behold” things.  Imagine, for example, what you would be like right now if, like Molly in the story, you could remember past lives in perfect detail.  If you could remember every book you've read, every skill you've mastered.  What would this lifetime have in store for you?  How good would you dare to be?  Or, if you were so inclined, how evil?

There are two primary ways to see the world we live in.  One way is light, easy, and optimistic.  The other way is dark, difficult, and pessimistic.  

You know these two ways perfectly well.  You can identify them co-existing in yourself as you move back and forth, constantly choosing between them from moment to moment.  You can see them operating in others all around you.  We call them character traits, opinions, or points-of-view.  In the “real-world” we all have a little bit of both in us.  In the world of a traditional Fantasy, characters tend to pick one side or the other and stick with it.  There we call these two opposing ways of seeing things, “Good” and “Evil.”  

In fairy tales it’s pretty easy to see what these stories are really about: Us.  We know the dark side of ourselves as the Wicked Queen.  She compulsively looks into the Mirror, and the Mirror informs her point of view.  So she is forever envious of what others may have, forever jealous of the beauty in others, and forever vain, clinging to her appearance on the outside because she fears the ugliness within.  

We also know the dark side as the dragon, high atop his mountain, hoarding and protecting stockpiles of gold and virgins - two things for which he has no use whatsoever, yet still keeps only for himself.  

Yes... I know these are two different movies,
but it's really the same story.
Just ask Alec Baldwin on the wall there...

On the light side, the “good” side:  There is a sleeping beauty within you, even now, who lays dormant, waiting for the hero’s kiss to awaken her.  Whether you are woman or man, the sleeping beauty is you.  The hero she waits for is also you.  How does the hero save Sleeping Beauty?  He must first defeat the Wicked Witch/Queen and the Dragon - both also you.  

Once the hero awakens her, the Kingdom which had lain frozen and lifeless, will come alive again... that’s yours too.  It’s your world, this world, seen from a new perspective.  

The characters in King’s X are real people with real problems.  A runaway teenage girl caught between a cop and a killer in Los Angeles.  A beautiful slave girl caught between a soldier and a pirate in ancient Palestine.  Their stories are connected because - just like yours and mine - depending on the ever changing point of view -  they are all questing heroes, sleeping beauties and wicked witches stuck gazing too long into their own mirrors.

Real-World Fantasy.  What is magic?  What is "reality?"  Look!  You can fly!  You can peer into a looking glass to see and speak with others on the other side of the world!  You can harness and wield fire to create or destroy anything you want to.  

And within your mirror is a wicked witch, a noble and courageous hero, and a sleeping beauty waiting to awaken. 

There... I guess that's all I wanted to say.  I think this is your floor.