Pitch Crafting Part III

Continuing with Rachelle Gardner's crafting a pitch writing exercise....

Question 5: What conflict, dilemma or choice does the protagonist face? This is the central question of the novel.

Answer: For Alex, it's learning to trust and to love Chase after her divorce, which really undermined her sense of self-worth and confidence. She needs to learn to trust her judgement and to stop comparing Chase to her ex-husband.



For Chase, it's a little different. He's trying to rebuild his life and carry on without his first wife, who died in a car accident several years ago. Professionally, he's been successful. Personally, not so much. Every time he gets close to woman, he feels disloyal to his first wife. Alex is the first woman who's helped him move beyond that guilt, but he recognizes that Alex struggles with her own trust issues. He doesn't like being compared to the jerk of her ex-husband. He wants Alex to be "all in," not hold a part of herself in reserve. Is he the man that can make her love wholeheartedly again?

Question 6: What is at stake?

Answer:  This seems like a fairly simple question, requiring a simple answer. It's a little more complicated than that, however. 

Okay, so Alex is being stalked by a paranoid schizophrenic homeless man throughout the novel, but this aspect of my book doesn't take center stage as you might expect. He remains a nebulous threat that is always hovering, making Alex feel paranoid and unsafe. But Chase is honor bound to make sure nothing happens to Alex. 

More importantly, what Alex fears most is that she is doomed to be the bitter old woman who lives with 78 cats. She cannot seem to get over her first husband's infidelity, distrusting all men and assuming that every man will cheat on her. Is her relationship with Chase doomed to fail too because her first marriage did? 

Can Chase reconcile his survivor's guilt with his desire for Alex?

Stay tuned for more later in the week...