Not Quite Right and Quite Right

I’ve been looking at agents’ websites and it seems clear I have to have two bits of information ready for them. One is the pitch–a brief couple of sentences that’s supposed to hook them and get them wanting to read more–and the other is a longer description–basically jacket copy.

I have been sweating over the pitch like a motherfucker. And I just can’t quite get it right. I mean, yes, it’s a story about a woman who’s turning into a flock of birds. But really, it’s a story about how a minister’s kid comes to terms with her strange past. Ha, yeah, okay, those are a brief couple of sentences, but not quite right. Here’s what I’ve got:

Flock is about a Methodist minister’s daughter who is turning into a flock of birds. Along the way, she befriends an amateur professional wrestling folk artist and his eccentric family, reconnects with a childhood friends who is possessed by a possessed girl, kind of kidnaps a baby, and has an ill-fated affair with the Devil (though aren’t they all?).

But does that even get at the conflict in the book? It’s more just a brief plot outline. Could I go with something like “It’s the story of a women whose present strange circumstances–she’s turning into a flock of birds–force her to confront the strange circumstances of her childhood–being a minister’s kid.”? Ugh, I don’t know. But that’s it, short and sweet, though, I worry that, without the Devil stuff, they might think I’m pitching a Christian book.

However, I am feeling pretty excellent about the fake jacket copy part of the requirements.

Check this shit out:

Flock is a supernatural romp through the strange trauma of being a preacher’s kid. Hannah Sims, a Midwestern Methodist minister’s daughter, has grown up, moved to Tennessee, and grown away from her upbringing. But when she learns she’s turning into a flock of birds, she must confront not only the strange things that are happening to her now, but the strange things that happened to her when she was a child.

Along the way, she kidnaps a baby, has a brief, ill-fated affair with the Devil, and goes back to church. All the while, she’s aided by an amateur professional wrestling folk artist and his eccentric family, as well as her childhood pal, who is possessed by a possessed girl.

Comedic and heartbreaking, Flock is the story of a woman who discovers where she’s from just in time to figure out she can never go back.

I ask you, who doesn’t want to read that? Ha, don’t answer that.

Edited to add: Okay, I think I have it.

Flock is a supernatural romp through the strange trauma of being a preacher’s kid, told from the perspective of one such woman who struggles to come to terms with her upbringing when learns she’s turning into a flock of birds.