How do you describe your novel succintly?

How on earth do you describe your novel succinctly?

The Boundless authors have come up with elevator pitches for some well-known children’s books. Can you guess what they are?

You watch as people’s eyes glaze over before you’ve even got to describing that crucial minor character and all the fine detail of their back story. Just stop! A one-line pitch that piques the interest will save you a lot of stress when you’re asked the question, ‘So, what’s your book about?’

1. A girl falls down a rabbit hole into a topsy-turvy subterranean fantasy land inhabited by peculiar characters who defy the logic of the ordinary world.

Pitched by Alice Ellerby

2. The story of an unlikely and unbreakable friendship between a spider and a farmyard pig.

Pitched by Nat Harrison

3. A young girl is stolen from an orphanage by a warm-hearted giant who catches dreams and eats snozzcumbers. With help from none other than HM the Queen, they set out to defeat the other giants of Dream Country who plan to eat all the ‘human beans’.

Pitched by Isobel Clara

4. A creature wakes up early from hibernation, and has to come to terms with darkness, cold and loneliness in a world he’s only ever known in summer; but the strange new friends he meets along the way help him through the darkest days.

Pitched by Jessamy Corob Cook

5. A girl with her spirit animal goes looking for her kidnapped friend. She discovers her family is complicated and that she has a special skill: she can have any question answered. She also makes friends with a bear, witches and Gyptians, who will help her find her friend.

Pitched by Andrea Fowkes

6. A boy and his horse are inseparable until the first world war breaks out and they are torn apart. Sold into the cavalry, the horse endures the horror of conflict, but the boy never gives up hope of finding him.

Pitched by Sue Howe

7. A lonely boy steals a book and is pulled through the pages into a magical world that needs him to find a new name for the dying empress before it’s too late.

Pitched by Carley Lee

8. A mathematician whiz teenage boy discovers the body of his neighbour’s dog and decides to investigate.

Pitched by Ryan Lynch

Answers:

1. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

2. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

3. The BFG by Roald Dahl

4. Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson

5. Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

6. War Horse by Michael Morpurgo

7. The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

8. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon