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Cover Copy
10/11/07 06:35Sarcasm Girl is agonizing over her college essay. This is a kid who got a 12 out of 12 on her most recent SAT essay (I've read it. It's good) and yet, she's turning herself inside out about it. So as we were driving to her voice lesson the other day I started casting the whole thing as an exercise in writing cover copy.
Now, I'm not incredibly gifted in this department--there was a guy at Tor when I was working there who could make the DSM IV sound like a thriller; that's talent--but I've done my share of copy. When I worked at Acclaim and had the Classics Illustrated Study Guides under my aegis I wrote all the copy--catalog, cover blurbs, the works. So we were talking about how to get started with SG's essay, which is about the effect that her lifelong passion for theatre has had on her life.
Me: Start at the beginning.
SG: **gives dark under-the-eyebrows glare**
Me: No, I mean, start with you in a darkened theatre, seeing Beauty and the Beast on Broadway when you were four. You can mention that you were so small your legs didn't dangle over the ends of the seat.
SG: What good is that?
Me: Pathos. Or humor. Trust me.
SG: And then?
Me: Then: Little did I know that this performance would be the start of a beautiful relationship, a consuming passion that would carry me through my darkest times, to this very day.
SG: **impressed** My God, that's awful.
Me: Well, you can recast it in your own words. Say a little something about the darkest times--you know, the roiling turmoil of adolescence--and then hit 'em with a wow finish.
SG: Wow finish?
Me: You know. You write a play, it wins an award and is produced, which circumstance confirms the redemptive power of theatre and sends the admissions committee home whistling your name.
SG: **giggles** You said "Little did I know."
Me: I did.
SG: **quoting from Stranger than Fiction:** I wrote an entire book on "little did he know!" **wheedles** Couldn't you write it for me?
Me: Nope. But if you bribe me sufficiently I'll sit in the room while you write it, and we can breathe the same air.
SG: Dark chocolate?
Me: As dark as my soul. in quantities to stun and terrify even the heartiest soul.
SG: You can stop that now.
Me: 'Kay.
Now, I'm not incredibly gifted in this department--there was a guy at Tor when I was working there who could make the DSM IV sound like a thriller; that's talent--but I've done my share of copy. When I worked at Acclaim and had the Classics Illustrated Study Guides under my aegis I wrote all the copy--catalog, cover blurbs, the works. So we were talking about how to get started with SG's essay, which is about the effect that her lifelong passion for theatre has had on her life.
Me: Start at the beginning.
SG: **gives dark under-the-eyebrows glare**
Me: No, I mean, start with you in a darkened theatre, seeing Beauty and the Beast on Broadway when you were four. You can mention that you were so small your legs didn't dangle over the ends of the seat.
SG: What good is that?
Me: Pathos. Or humor. Trust me.
SG: And then?
Me: Then: Little did I know that this performance would be the start of a beautiful relationship, a consuming passion that would carry me through my darkest times, to this very day.
SG: **impressed** My God, that's awful.
Me: Well, you can recast it in your own words. Say a little something about the darkest times--you know, the roiling turmoil of adolescence--and then hit 'em with a wow finish.
SG: Wow finish?
Me: You know. You write a play, it wins an award and is produced, which circumstance confirms the redemptive power of theatre and sends the admissions committee home whistling your name.
SG: **giggles** You said "Little did I know."
Me: I did.
SG: **quoting from Stranger than Fiction:** I wrote an entire book on "little did he know!" **wheedles** Couldn't you write it for me?
Me: Nope. But if you bribe me sufficiently I'll sit in the room while you write it, and we can breathe the same air.
SG: Dark chocolate?
Me: As dark as my soul. in quantities to stun and terrify even the heartiest soul.
SG: You can stop that now.
Me: 'Kay.