Sales Pitch

01/03/06

Dear Editor
I have finished my latest short story, having worked on it for three months I am very proud of my best piece yet.  I started writing seriously about a year and a half ago, having my first poem published a year ago and another two since.  I have also worked on three but completed one short story, another magazine has been viewing it for almost six months and I’m getting more and more hopeful and confident, I am also currently working on a novel.  A month and a half ago I found a fantastic opportunity for non-fiction writing, when I learned that a magazine called Lifescape was looking for new freelance writers, I pitched an idea for an article and they liked my idea And so allowed me to write it as a sample.  They liked my sample article and since then I have written another two pieces, my sample and second piece have both been accepted for publication, I am awaiting response to my third article on Global Terror.  My success in every area I have attempted writing in so far, gives me the confidence boost I have needed to push forward in my favourite field, fiction short stories and novels, hence this letter.  
The synopsis that I can send or e-mail at your request, more fully captures all the emotion, and immense tension this story, based on a personal experience, creates.  Set on a good, but like all inner cities rapidly deteriorating estate called Longhill.  My main family sell their lovely home in rural Scotland leaving behind a seven acre garden, for a semi-detached with a little concrete square front and back, which means them giving away the family pet Alsatian.  They move for better employment opportunities for the father, but soon the parents begin to regret the move, this increases as the story transpires.  Their son James is a hothead but not an aggressor, karate discipline taught violence only when standing up for himself or his little brother Sam.  James starts getting into and winning unavoidable fights, and when he beats up a local gang member with ease and stands up to another six until they eventually overpower him, he instantly wins him the respect of the gang leader.  James is obsessed by gangs through his love of rap music, so when he recovers from his injuries and the gang’s leader has a proposition for him, he doesn’t take too much persuasion to join the ranks of Sickety-Six.  James doesn’t realise he’s is being used and made a fool of, scurrying around hull all day making deliveries and collections, unknowingly doing Sickety-Six’s drug deals, for next to no reward.  James’ life is increasingly in jeopardy in this part of the story, and when Sam follows James and the gang leader recruits him, the stakes become even higher.  James is enraged by his little brother being put in danger and is alerted to his own plight.  James has always been able to fight but his little brother is short, skinny, and just doesn’t have the bottle for the streets.  James hates his brother working for the gang but doesn’t know what to do, his attempts at reasoning with them fail and James is forced to go along with it at first, watching his little brothers back and giving him fighting tips.  James and Sam’s life are in almost constant jeopardy as the climax approaches.
The climax is inevitable but nonetheless shocking, James ran himself ragged trying, but always knew he couldn’t watch Sam 24/7.  Sam is stabbed when James just can’t be there.  The next time James sees his little brother he is in a critical condition in hospital.  All the anger and bad feeling inside James since beginning to realise he was being used, was now combining with intense guilt for getting Sam involved. When Sam tells him what happened James is suspicious, it just doesn’t add up.  It all becomes too much and James explodes straight over to Sickety-six’s hangout to confront the leader, Tyler.  James sees cocaine on the table and is furious.  Tyler pulls a gun and tells James that Sam was set up.  James looks down the barrel, waiting for the gun to go off.  Luckily Tyler’s right hand man and newest recruit before James and Sam, Ian has an attack of conscience and points the gun at James’ head before turning it, shooting Tyler in the arm and kicking his gun away.  They hear Sirens and Tyler is gone, James takes Ian’s gun and tells him to get out of there as he wipes away Ian’s prints and waits for the police.  The police hunted and put away Tyler, two years for possession of an illegal firearm, Sickety-Six collapsed in disarray, and James’ and Sam’s lives went back to as near normality as ever.

Yours Sincerely
Wordsworth