Please Welcome Our Guest Winnie Griggs

A Tiny Pitch With A Big Punch

 Hello everyone - Winnie Griggs here.  I’m so happy to be back at Seekerville again - it’s always a fun place to visit.

I don’t know about you, but one of the hardest questions for me to answer is “What’s your story about?”  It’s not that I don’t know my story very well, it’s that I know it too well - all 300+ pages of richly detailed character and plot, not to mention all the backstory that may not even have made it into the book but that is very real to me.  I start talking and before I know it my listener’s eyes have either glazed over or are displaying signs of confusion.

The remedy for this, of course, is to nail down my elevator pitch, which is what I want to discuss with y’all today.  But before I get into the nitty-gritty of how to craft this wondrous little gem, let’s talk about what an elevator pitch is so we’re all on the same page. 

 The formal definition is that an elevator pitch is “a succinct and persuasive sales pitch.”  The name comes from the idea that if you step into an elevator and someone asks you what your story is about, you should be able to deliver the answer before your listener arrives at his desired floor.  In other words you have maybe thirty seconds to a minute to summarize your masterpiece.

So your elevator pitch is a short statement used to quickly and clearly provide a compelling picture of the core idea of your story.   It’s not an overview of your entire story, it doesn’t provide information about secondary characters or storylines, nor does it follow every plot twist.  Its purpose is simply to hook your listener in a matter of seconds. 

So now that we know what an elevator pitch is, let’s talk about how to create one.  There are a number of different approaches you can use - today I want to discuss three of them.

First, there’s the High Concept Method.  If you have a story that is so high concept that you can immediately capture a reader’s imagination by just stating the hook or premise, then go for it.

 Most of the time these will feature intriguing juxtapositions such as

·      A mail order bride service able to send potential brides through a time portal

·      A Romeo and Juliet story between feuding merfolk clans

·      A female James Bond with a Legally Blond attitude who holds the fate of the world in her expensively manicured hands

All of those paint a clear, intriguing picture of what this story will be about and more than likely the listener is going to be hooked enough to want to hear more.

However, if your story doesn’t lend itself to a high concept approach, there are other methods you can turn to.

One of these is the Character-Dilemma-Path method.

In this method you describe your protagonist, what his or her dilemma is and what path he/she will take to try to resolve it.   Let’s use the movie Kate and Leopold to show how this would work.

Here’s how it would break down:

Character:  A nineteenth century duke

Dilemma:  He’s facing an arranged (loveless) marriage

Path: He escapes by time traveling and finds his true love

Using that information, the pitch might look something like this: 

A nineteenth century duke, reluctantly facing an arranged marriage, time travels to present day New York where he finds his true love in the form of a high powered career woman.

Now, in the above example, I focused on Leopold.  I could have chosen instead to focus on Kate, and if I’d done so, it would break down something like this:

Character:  A driven career woman

Dilemma: has little time for romance or whimsy in her life

Path: once she finally tastes love, she must choose between continuing as she is or giving it all up to find her HEA

So the elevator pitch we would end up with would be:

 A driven career woman with little time for romance, gets a soul-satisfying taste of what she’s been missing, but learns that to hold on to it she must chose to permanently leave behind her familiar world, including friends and family

Both are accurate overviews of the story.  In looking them over, however, I would pick the one that focuses on Leopold, however, because that version is more compelling and contains more of a 'hook' (time traveler angle) to catch the listener's attention.  That’s a key element to keep in mind - finding your strongest hook.

The final approach I’d like to discuss is one that focuses on your story’s theme, or the lesson your protagonist must learn by the end of your story.  The formula for this one is Character-Goal-Lesson-Outcome.  So let’s see what we can do using this approach with The Wizard Of Oz:

Character: A dissatisfied farm girl who is transported to a magical land

Goal:  To find her way back home

Lesson:  She must first learn that she holds the power to change her life within herself

Outcome: She finally returns home with new-found self-confidence.

So, using those points, the elevator pitch would go something like this:

An unhappy-with-her-life farm girl is transported to a magical land where she has many wondrous and frightening adventures as she struggles to find a way back.   It’s only after she learns that the power to change her life lies within herself, however, that she finally finds her way home again.

That one needs a little work, but hopefully you get the idea.

So there you have it. Three different approaches to crafting an elevator pitch. And while these off-the-cuff examples could undoubtedly be strengthened with some tweaking, I hope they’ve given you a starting point for looking at your own work.

Just remember, regardless of which approach you use - one of these three or something of your own devising - the idea is to give the agent/editor, or the casual inquirer, an immediate visual to latch onto of what kind of story you’re offering. And above all, make them curious or intrigued enough to want to learn more.

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And today, as promised, I’m giving away two copies of my brand new October release, A Family For Christmas (see blurb below).  And in honor of Seekerville’s birthday celebration, I’d also like to send a third commenter a bit of bling - a sparkly “I Love 2 Read” pin.

A FAMILY FOR CHRISTMAS

An Unexpected Gift 

Eve Pickering knows what it's like to be judged for your past. So she's not about to leave the orphaned boy she's befriended alone in this unfamiliar Texas town. Since Chance Dawson's offer of shelter is the only way to look after Leo, Eve is determined they'll have a warm, welcoming home for the holidays.

Chance came from the big city to make it on his own despite a painful secret. But Eve's strength is giving him a confidence he never expected—and a new direction for his dream. With a little Christmas blessing, he'll dare to win her heart—and make their family one for a lifetime.
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Winnie Griggs is a multi-published author who writes for Love Inspired Historical.  Her writing has garnered enthusiastic reviews and numerous awards, including a recent RT Reviewer’s Choice Award. 

Winnie spent her childhood in an undeveloped area her friends thought of as the very back of beyond.  She and her two younger siblings spent many an hour exploring the overgrown land around her home, cutting jungle trails, building forts and frontier camps, and looking for pirate ships on the nearby bayou.  Once she ‘grew up’ she found other outlets for dealing with all those wonderful, adventurous imaginary friends by filling notebooks with their stories.    

Eventually she found her own Prince Charming, a rancher whose white steed is disguised as a tractor and whose kingdom is nestled in a small rural community she happily calls home.  Together they’ve built their own storybook happily-ever-after,  including four now grown children who share Winnie’s vivid imagination and her husband’s steadier influences and who are now out in the world pursuing their own adventures.

You can learn more about Winnie and her books at www.winniegriggs.com