Writing Tips

The Pitch

Whether you've written a brilliant story or just have an idea for one, consider this: Does it truly sound as good as you think it does?  Most likely, it does not.  This little five-lettered word is the bane of many a writer's existence.  It has a lot of power.  And it will also drive you insane.

Make sure you remain aware of that buzzing, incessant whisper coming from the left side of your brain.  It will tell you if something feels wrong, or if something seems to be missing.  Keep in mind that the inner editor needs to go to work after you have done what needs to be done.

The pitch is the most important part of hooking an agent's or a publisher's attention.  Why?  In the pitch, your entire book is summed up into a single line—and some-damned-how, it was interesting.  It was a breath of brilliance.

Without a good pitch, you are not likely to snag the attention of an industry insider--or even the first person you're trying to sell your book to on the street.  That means they will not read your query or want to listen to you—the next most important thing—or anything thereafter which is related to the project at hand.  You will get a rejection, and it might be agonizing.

We've all heard about the writers who get rejected, and also about how there are several that finally get accepted after so many tries.  But the ratio of successful acceptances to failures is staggering.  Me?  I had yet to receive any kind of acceptance before I decided to go on my own journey to Self-Published Land--where everything is much harder if done right, because you become not only author but art director, marketer, bookkeeper, developmental and line editor, copyeditor, formatter, web designer, etc. Yay, crazy!  More hats than I wanted! (But more control, muhahaha.) 

The pitch is still important for Indie Authors.  It's part of the marketing.  It becomes your tag line, it becomes the gateway into other people's lives--hell, we're lucky if people spend one minute and twenty-eight seconds on a single web page of ours before visitors bounce off.  (Conversions and analytics talk.  Delish.)  So the tag line has to be good from page one.  From the very first earful or eyeful.  Or if the audience is both deaf and blind, then the very first handful.  Hahahaha...see what I did there?

Is it even possible to sum up a book into barely a sentence?  Yes. Yes, it is.  But you must know what goes into it first.  One soul, the left ventricle of your heart, both of your kidneys and ureters, your left pinky, and your right thumbnail's daughter—haha, just kidding.

One way to do it is to use a formula, so to speak, made of specific elements.  You can twist those elements, turn them into a cake (or a dukey, depending on how bad it actually is), or you can shave the elements in order to incite questions in the intended reader's mind.  Sometimes you can strike gold by also stirring in hints of theme. (Or, you might be a freak of nature and succeed with a pitch that defies all of this, in which case you will have sparked my jealousy and made me love you all the same. But for the rest of us...difficulty is the more likely approach.  And some tears.  And maybe a lot of growling.)

Every pitch must tell us these things (most or all):

Main character — The pitch can either name the character or give us a trait and/or an occupation.  Example?  "Housemaid must blah-blah-blah."  Or...  "James is blah-blah-blah."

Main character's goal — What is this person after?  What is at stake?

Obstacles to Main character's goal — These can be real, imagined or emotional, but they are obstacles and they are the backbone of the book.

Antagonist and how he/she/it intends to stop the main character — Villains aren't the only kinds of antagonists.  And the best kinds can scare us because we can relate to their morals and empathize with their positions.