Well, I probably shouldn’t be posting this late at night, but this is driving me nuts…
A while back—maybe a month or two—I could have sworn there was a thread here that linked to a site about awful pitches or synopses for books that were rejected by publishers. (The pitches AND the stories were both awful, as I recall)
Sadly, I can’t find a thread like that anywhere, here. And Google, Yahoo, and Sherlock have turned up nothing. (The closest I came was a page listing some real rejected kids books, including one about Jesus’ pet dog.)
So, did anyone else see that page, too? And could they point me to it—am I going to have to resign myself to letting my brain explode from frustration?
Can’t help you finding the site, but hope someone does as it sounds like fun.
I used to work at a major studio and I can tell you stories…
In case anyone is thinking of sending a story pitch, or a script, to a studio without going through an agent, save your time and postage. Will be sent back to you unread.
That said, I used to sneak a peek at the crap that was sent to us (illegal, I know, but I was nowhere near stuff that was actually picked and there was no danger of me stealing an idea) and I can tell you…zombies and vampire stories are number one for every yahoo who ever wants to pitch a film. They were all horrible, few even had a plot, and it was like every kid who ever got a zit sat down the same day and wrote that zombie/vampire film.
If anyone is serious about getting a pitch, or script, to a major studio…beat down the doors to get an agent. No other way, no exceptions, never. Whole bunches of legal reasons why.
I remember that link, as well. My recollection is that it was to a blog belonging to someone whose job it was to read all this stuff. Unfortunately, I had a problem with Netscape and lost all my bookmarks sometime after that. I, too, would like to find this again. My recollection is that it was posted more than just a month or two ago, possibly as long as three or four months ago.
That looks like the site! I remember the one from February that went “A gifted teenage girl, reduced to sleeping rough, finds a surrogate father who, despite his dark past, will do whatever it takes to give this young girl the life she deserves.”
That one just stuck with me—Like a persistant cough. Or a splinter.—for some reason. (Probably because I’ve seen exactly a billion and a half fanfics with the same basic decription.)
If you like stuff like that, you might want to check out Done Deal. It’s depressing because those are scripts that are being bought for prices in the six figures, but it’s encouraging for your writing because you know you can do better.
