A little pitchy

(For those former American Idol fans out there, just imagine the title of this post spoken in Randy Jackson's voice.)

I was once a fan. (Ah, puns...)

Now that we're done with that, I took a small break from editing this weekend to formally write a pitch for Chronicle of Angels and Men:


Thirteen-year old Shigeru Kouna had never wondered why. “Why did good people die?” “Why was conviction so lacking?” “And just why did good intentions pave the road to hell?...” To him, “Why?” was a question that plagued so many. Too many. But it was a question essential to Human existence. 

Certainly it would seem implausible that a boy such as Shigeru, especially one so young, could have life so figured. And yet, he did. Being the son of such a father, a father who had plotted to alter the very nature of Man – to change the “why” – Shigeru had always known his purpose. His father had been a rigid man, strong in his convictions and strong in his beliefs, and as a young boy, Shigeru had so longed to tread in the footsteps of his father.

They were concepts drilled day in and day out into his skull, now brimming with existential theorems and religious query. And though it was his father who had keyed him in to such quandaries of life and death and God and Man, it was not his father who would solve them. No, in three days, his father would be dead. But only in this death would Shigeru find true insight into the crisis of Man.

Chronicle of Angels and Men is a 55,000-word novel and follows the stories of five men on expeditions of morality, understanding, and the Human condition. From the hunter, for whom Law was his god, to the reprobate creatures living in the shadows of Man and craving the redemption  of Heaven, their journeys explore the tenets of faith and law and the Human potential - what is life, what defines it, and what is the next step in Man's quest for evolutionary perfection. 


I can't say much on how good a pitch it is or not. (I suppose an agent will tell me that.) But as mentioned above, COAAM focuses on five specific characters and their stories. I'd so wanted to cram more on the remaining four into the pitch -- in early drafts of the above, I did. But then I supposed, well, that's probably what a novel is for anyways. Besides, how much more could I say on it in 300 words or less? 


So in the end, I allowed myself to zero in only on Shigeru's tale, at least for this first tease. I feel it at least captures the spirit of the first volume's journey. Don't you? ~Tet