Sample Pitch: The Traveler’s Blade by Victor Sweetser

The Traveler’s Blade Pitch by Victor Sweetser, delivered at the 2015 Writer’s Digest Conference Pitch Slam

Hi, my name is Victor Sweetser and I’m pitching the Traveler’s Blade, a middle grade to young adult epic fantasy that is a twist on the Chronicles of Narnia kind of story.

Laurence Fane is the sort of kid who reads fantasy stories as a necessary escape. He struggles with the eighth grade, with paying attention in class, with making friends.

Unknown to Laurence, he is the Traveler. When he draws a magic sword from a heap of garbage at the local dump in Wotham, Florida, he discovers himself in another world, one born of his strangest fantasy. Ordinarily that would be a daydream come true for a kid who, on Earth, kept his nose in fantasy novels most of the time, but the problem is, Laurence has taken a one-way trip to a world called Tervoen, a place of deadly magic and ancient secrets, and more importantly, a place that wants him dead. Possession of the Traveler’s Blade immediately marks Laurence as a prophesized tyrant who will overthrow Tervoen’s dynasty of Prophet-Emperors and destroy their world.

On the run from a fanatical order of warriors trained to slay the Traveler upon arrival, his every move anticipated by a Prophet-Emperor, Laurence allies with a tortured man-dragon, and a warrior at odds with her loyalty to the emperor and her growing feelings for Laurence. The three of them are taken under the wing by an outlaw people are calling the Liar, who has been spreading so-called lies about a dimension-hopping beast, the Nameless. The Nameless has been controlling Tervoen’s Prophet-Emperors in order to feed on children. To stop the Prophet-Emperor and the Nameless, fourteen-year-old Laurence must walk a line between liberator and conqueror, where one wrong move could lead him on a path from which there is no return.

This pitch was delivered at the 2015 Writer’s Digest Conference. To find out more about how Victor prepared click here. https://novelpitch.com/pitching-fantasy-and-science-fiction-at-the-writers-digest-conference-2015-victor-sweetser/