Character Descriptions in Pitch Form for Novels

[domisotto]

Hi guys, I was looking at the pitch foorm for Tapas, and they have something I have never seen before for novels:

Character descriptions (personality, character arc, any fun details) of your main characters

Does anyone have any examples? I am completely stomped as to what they are looking for?

[KRWright]

Write a few sentences that describes the physical appearance of your character and their personality.

I imagine the reason they have this is for optioning reasons and to get an idea of what your cast looks like (i.e. how diverse it is, what character achetypes are included etc.) at a glance.

In my pitches I included ethnicity, personality, any scars/unique features, and age.

[Dysis]

How important is diversity in a series, generally?

[Fuzed]

Would a drawn character design work as a substitute for a written physical description?

[KRWright]

I'm not Tapas lol I dunno

[milejdyvan]

I don't know if it is necessarily important (as in on Tapas) but I always want my characters to be as diverse as possible, simply because having everyone just look the same is kinda meh. Not to mention, being inclusive is important culturally too but I get that not everyone writes their story for that.

[Fuzed]

Fair... xd. You seem kinda knowledgeable so I thought you'd know.

[milejdyvan]

You're a really big person on Tapas so we immediately translate that to you knowing everything JK of course. But yeah, @Fuzed I was kinda curious too about the appearances but I think it is safe to assume illustrations could work, though nothing wrong if one uses both or just one either.

[KRWright]

Fair... xd. You seem kinda knowledgeable so I thought you'd know.

I've pitched successfully, but at that time, there weren't any guidelines really on what to submit at all. I did submit that information, but it wasn't requested at the time. I submitted it because I valued diversity. I did not submit pictures, as generally pitches are rather dull documents in times, size 12, double spaced, no frills. Whether Tapas wants that or not is for Tapas to say. Same with if they value diversity. I'd assume, looking at their catalogue, that they do.

[KRWright]

You're a really big person on Tapas so we immediately translate that to you knowing everything

If only both of those things were true hahaha As it stands I'm mid-sized and I know nothing Jon Snow. I extrapolate based on experience and market knowledge mostly. Tapas HQ is a mystery to me as much as the next person on what actually goes on in those novels acquisitions meetings.

[domisotto]

But it’s just the main character?

Also, they say story arc, but they also already ask for plot summary???

[KRWright]

But it’s just the main character?

I think you're overthinking this.

What I submitted but again this was under old guidelines.

[domisotto]

Thank you for the example!

[Danny_C]

Does it matter how many characters we add to the pitch?