Last Tuesday I had to present an elevator pitch about what my writing project would be about in class. I found out through a peer that we had to do that on the day beforehand… I had not read the weekly plan properly. I was pretty lucky that I ended up in the car with the only other writing student in my KYB301 Project during our field trip otherwise I would have looked like a complete idiot in front of the class.

Now, the other issue was that it was meant to be a 3-minute pitch. So, what I did was plan a 3-minute pitch and practice it… only to find out that our teacher had decided to change it to a 2-minute pitch. I’m going to post what my original pitch was going to be but it basically turned into 40 seconds of me saying “this is what it’s about, this is the audience, this is the genre, this is what I want to do… thank you, that’s all”.

The Elevator Pitch: Interview with a Serial Saviour

Does anyone in here play Dungeons and Dragons? Or have played?

Yes – Very nice.
No – Okay.

The “too long don’t read” is: Dungeons and Dragons is a role-playing game set in a fantasy universe where people in the real-world band together around a table to embark on an adventure in a fictional world and achieve great things, with a Dungeon master guiding the way and dice rolls.

Now, in Dungeons and Dragons, the Players do this thing called “making a mockery of”, and so the story I now throw to you is a mockumentary, as a journalist follows the life of the DND Deus Ex Machina, or Dex for short, and their work in DND campaigns, bringing to light the efforts of an ‘understated’ character who is often snubbed because of their nature.

For anyone who doesn’t know what the Deus Ex Machina is: think of Harry pulling the Sword of Gryffindor out of a hat; the eagles rescuing Frodo and Sam from Mount Doom; and the power of friendship in any anime. A kind of plot armour that shows up randomly but conveniently.

The short story will be a mixture of interviews and biographical accounts as the journalist spends a campaign with Dex, watching how they work and talking about their past jobs, trying to keep a serious tone no matter how ridiculous the miracles that Dex has to rub their hands together and make; like that time they had to suddenly appear and create an ice wall to stop a teleporting T-Rex from eating the Party because the Party thought it was a good idea to call after it, after watching it eat someone.

The genre will be a combination of comedy, biography and fantasy, existing mostly within the realms of DND and written with the intention of reading like non-fiction whilst obviously being entirely made up at the same time.

The target audience is fantasy readers and fantasy gamers, particularly focused on DND circles, as they will relate to and understand the context of the mockumentary, offering a laugh at the shenanigans the Players get up to from the point-of-view of a Dungeons Master’s secret trump card: the Deus Ex Machina. The short story will also appeal to writers as a general audience, as it centres around the story mechanic that is the Deus Ex Machina, with hopes to pique interest in Dungeons and Dragons through its portrayal at the same time.

The aim of the short story is to shed a comedic light on the work of the Deus Ex Machina in different forms of writing, such as Dungeons and Dragons. Highlighting its pros and cons in a satirical biography that any Dungeon master can look at and have the Kill Bill sirens triggered in their mind as a result. Rather than being a straightforward story, it will focus on interacting with a plot device in the most literal sense, hoping to bring a refreshing take on the consequences, or lack thereof, of character simply doing dumb things.

Whether you’re one of those characters, an author of those characters, or a Dungeons Master having their soul crushed: get to know the being behind the impossible turns of the tide, when the plot threatens lives, in this mockumentary about the Deus Ex Machina!

Thank you.