Perfect Pitch: Getting Me to Request Your Manuscript With Guest Susan Brower

Literary Agent Susan Brower

Rejection is a frustrating reality for the unpublished writer and it often feels like a personal attack from some unknown critic who holds your career in his/her hands. It’s like applying for a job and being told you are not the right fit, or the position has already been filled. I can tell you from experience, though, that editors and agents open your proposals with all the anticipation of a child on Christmas morning.  We love story, and we are dedicated to providing quality writing to readers.

Let’s assume you’ve followed my guidelines for queries and proposals. You’ve sent me your proposal as an attachment to an email and now you wait for the reply.

Why do I not ask to see the full manuscript after reading a proposal?

Ø  It’s not what I’m looking for right now. We have to follow trends of what is selling and where the market is saturated. Editors tell us what they are looking for and it makes sense to go out and find the genre, tone or style that they want.   

Ø  It’s not a good fit.  This really isn’t a cop out. There are books that I just don’t feel I can represent well. It’s in a genre that I am not comfortable with.  Usually this will be identified in the query stage, but I do try to focus on certain genres in both the mainstream and Christian markets. Regardless of the marketplace, I am not likely to ask for a complete manuscript that might have graphic violence and language. I also don’t care for horror or dark images that give me nightmares. I look for hopeful (not sappy) endings and justice for the bad guy.

Ø  I don’t like the characters. The hero is weak or arrogant; the heroine has no spine. I may feel sorry for them, hope they are able to change, but I have got to care about them from the very beginning.

Ø  The synopsis indicates that there are just too many plots; I just can’t see how the writer can wrap everything up without having a hurried ending or a confused reader.

Ø  The story is too “issue” driven. I am not interested in politics or issue-driven agendas. If they show me something about the characters, fine. But don’t tell me an opinion. 

Ø  The writing in the sample chapters is not compelling. Dialog is stiff, characters are not likeable, and there is no sense of time or place.  You’ve got to show me your very best writing in every part of the proposal.

To get me to request a full manuscript, you have to draw my interest from the very beginning. I should be pulled through the document from the first Jacket Blurb to the last page of the Sample Chapters. I should be tearing my hair out that I don’t have more chapters to read right away.  That’s a compelling proposal. My favorite quotes capture the feeling I anticipate with every novel I read. 

“…fiction does its work by creating a dream in the readers mind.” “…one of the chief mistakes a writer can make is to allow or force the reader’s mind to be distracted, even momentarily by the fictional dream.”— The Art of Fiction by John Gardner

I love this!  So what am I looking for in the proposals I come across now?

Ø  The Jacket Blurb is intriguing and fits the genre in which the novel will fit. I am reading it just like I would be reading a blurb in the bookstore or on the internet. You have five seconds to get my attention.

Ø  The hook has to be something that I can use to 1) identify the publisher that will be the best fit for this author and 2) focus the marketing on one key them that readers will respond to.

Ø  The synopsis gives me a beginning, middle and ending and a general idea of how the main characters are going to make that journey. Identify their biggest hurdles and tell me how they are resolved. Include major plots and subplots.

Ø  Much of the marketing is something I can work on with an author.  But I need to know that you are willing to partner with your publisher to promote and publicize.

Ø  I would also like to know your ideas for future novels. Is this the first book in a series? Briefly tell me about plans for your next 2-3 books. 

Ø  Show me something unique. This is very subjective, but what I want to see is something that fits within a popular genre like suspense, but has a new twist.

Ø  I love emotion in the novels I read and I want to care enough about the characters to cry.  Show me in your synopsis or overview how you are going to engage the reader on a deeper level.

Ø  I want to read about strong women, flawed heroes, and tragic characters. I like to read about community and friendship and dogs…yes, dogs.

The #1 way to attract my attention is to learn your craft! If I have a well-written story that shows the writers talent and ability, I am more than willing to work on the market and find the right audience.

Questions?  Do you get enough feedback from agents on your proposals? How do you respond to criticism? What recommendations would you make to your fellow authors?  Have you learned anything new about how writing proposals? What is your biggest takeaway?

A chance to pitch to Susan Brower. We can all learn how she wants you to pitch to her the next two days--but you are eligible to enter the contest--ONLY if you were involved in SPEEDBO--The rules are under the rules tab at the top of the page for our PERFECT PITCH CONTEST!

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Sue Brower is an agent with Natasha Kern Literary Agent www.natashakern.com. She is looking for novels in the Suspense, Romance (contemporary and historical), and Women’s Fiction categories.  She is also a consultant and freelance developmental editor at Susan Brower Editorial www.susanbrower.com. 

Perfect Pitch Contest

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.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

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.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

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

My first book pitch

Uh, no, we're not talking baseball!

Myra here. Oh. My. Talk about naive! I’ve lost count of how many conferences I attended before I had the vaguest idea of what it meant to pitch a manuscript to an editor or agent! I suspected something significant was going on when I’d notice writers sidling up to editors and shrewdly sort of segue into a short synopsis of their work-in-progress.

But seriously??? The audacity!

The first clue I had that all this sidling and segueing was de rigueur was in 2001 at my second Mount Hermon conference. As at other conferences, attendees were given the opportunity to sign up for one-on-one appointments with editors and/or agents. And, as at other conferences, my initial thought was, “And what, pray tell, would I EVER IN A MILLION YEARS have to say to such an important person???”

But that year, fortunately, I was attending the conference with the ladies in my critique group, two of whom were published and who actually knew what they were doing. I watched in silent awe as one of them approached a big-name editor from a well-known Christian publishing house and began glibly describing the premise of her book. The editor nodded with interest and invited her to submit the manuscript.

Oooookay. Pitching to an editor. You get him interested. He says send the proposal. That’s how this is supposed to work, huh?

But moi? You want ME to try this? Uh-uh, no way!

So I let another entire conference go by with little more than timid smiles at the editors whose paths I happened to cross, while hoping and praying they’d NEVER ask me to talk about my book! (No worries there. All the glib and audacious writers successfully monopolized the editors’ time. )

Fast-forward to Houston 2003, my first national American Christian Romance Writers conference. That year I had a book manuscript I actually felt hopeful about. So I swallowed my fears (well, not really) and signed up for an appointment with the editor my research had told me would most likely be interested in a story like mine.

My appointment was at 2:00 Saturday afternoon, so I had all day Friday and all Saturday morning to get really nervous. I had a list of pitching guidelines in my folder that someone had generously posted to the loop prior to the conference, and I knew the important points I should share about my story. But no way did I have an “elevator pitch” perfectly memorized! I just prayed God would give me the words I needed when the time came.

Pass the tissues, please!

Finally it was time to meet the editor. Donning my most professional demeanor, I sat down across from her and introduced myself. Then I confessed my inexperience and nervousness, after which I promptly burst into tears!

Not an auspicious first-ever appointment experience.

I’ll always be grateful for this editor’s patience and understanding. Her first instinct (a good one) was to offer me some of her peanut M&Ms. My response (a bad one) was to say, “No, thank you.” (I LOVE PEANUT M&Ms!)

Anyway, somehow I muddled through a description of the book I wanted to propose. She politely declined, saying she didn’t think it was quite what they were looking for. I thanked her, and that was that.

Bummer, huh? My first book pitch a total bust.

Not really. I’d tested the waters, broken the ice, conquered (or at least temporarily subdued) my worst fears. Next time, at least, I’d know what to expect.

Most importantly, I learned editors don’t live to rip off authors’ heads and fling them over the edge of the highest cliff. Editors (agents, too) are real people, not inapproachable luminaries enthroned on high. Most of them (in the Christian book market, anyway) are actually quite supportive and encouraging and want to see you succeed.

As for the manuscript the editor passed on, time (and lots of revisions) heals all wounds. I’m happy to say the story went on to win the 2005 RWA Golden Heart for Best Inspirational Romance Manuscript. Autumn Rains was published by Heartsong Presents in 2009, and was named a Short Contemporary Romance finalist for the 2010 Carol Award. If you’re doing the math, that was seven years after my originally unsuccessful pitch, which just proves you should never, never, never give up!

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If you haven’t yet read Autumn Rains, you could win your own autographed copy of the utterly fantabulous book passed up all those years ago by a certain editor who shall remain nameless. Just mention your interest in a comment to be entered in the drawing.
 
You can also find Autumn Rains in the Barbour Publishing three-in-one collection Gateway Weddings. Three Missouri women enter the gateway to life, love, and longing. Valerie Bishop, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, is afraid to leave her home. Can ex-con Healy Ferguson show her the path to freedom? Sailor Kern is enamored of romance author Chandler Michaels. Will she fall for his lines or find a real hero in Parker Travis? Jilly Gardner has reluctantly agreed to help out her estranged foster parents. Will Cam Lane help the family heal the breach? Will these three couples be open to the plan God has for their lives—and loves?

Lookin’ for the Strike Zone

So, anyone here going to the ACFW Conference?
Read carefully for a chance to win a $15 Amazon gift card. One dollar for every one of my Seekerville buddies. AND a copy of Out of Control is also in the wide open prize vault today.

First of all, the Seekers will be gathering every evening in the lobby. Usually there’s a bar with a lot of seating area and we congregate there and finally get to SEE the people we’ve gotten to know through the year online. Every night. Come after whatever event you’ve got in the evening. If you skip the late night chats, then come early. If you go to them, come whenever you get free.

Now that the party has been fully planned, I’ll get back to getting ready for the OTHER stuff you’re supposed to do at the conference. You know, getting a book published? Meeting editors and agents, learning new skills that will help you kick your way through that stubborn door to publication. THAT STUFF!!!

Today—we’re going to pitch. We’re going to practice our 30 word pitch, elevator pitch, one sentence pitch…call it what you will.

But the idea is to have some lovely editor say, “Tell me about your book.” And you’re READY. Have you ever had to sit through a bad pitch? Like your neighbor says she’s writing a book and you say, “What’s it about?”

And (much to your regret) she tells you. In fifteen excruciating minutes. She meanders. She says, “You know…” too often. She tosses in asides that have precious little to do with the main point and everything to do with boring you to death…you know…THAT pitch.

Well, we aren’t going to have any of that from Seekervillager, now are we?

Many of you (most of you!) are waaaaaaay too experienced for that. Too smooth. Too wise. Way too cool.

No, when someone asks you what your book is about, you’re going to say, “A vegetarian and a cattle rancher go to war and fall in love.” (Buffalo Gal pitch)

Or you’re going to say, “A feisty lady rancher with four daughters marries a mountain man who’s never been around women.” (Petticoat Ranch pitch)

Or you say, “A controlling rancher must choose between his beautiful new neighbor, who believes exploring a dangerous cave is God’s will, and his brothers, who believe a childhood tragedy in that cavern destroyed their family.” (Out of Control pitch)

So today we polish pitches. We head for the strike zone. And we hope some kindly and wise editor is standing there (Jeter-like) to knock it out of the ball park...in a good way. Except wait...HITTING the ball is actually the pitcher LOSING right? So is the batter the publisher? Or is the CATCHER the publisher. And if the catcher is the publisher what part does the batter play? Or maybe there isn't a batter, it's a writer's conference after all. Not that many batters, unless the writer is parttime batter and parttime pitcher.

This baseball analogy may be taken a bit too far. Let's just MOVE ON!!! (and I only put Jeter in there for Ruthy anyway, he's not pitching.

Give me your pitch (whether you’re going to conference or not) and we’ll bat it around. (hah! More baseball.)

And have I ever told you I used to coach girls softball? 

Nightmare.

I don't want to talk about it. The psychological scars are still too close to the surface.

~~~~~~~~~~

So, now to the prizes. Two prizes today. One $15 Amazon ecard for being VERY BRAVE and pitching a book. And if you're NOT a writer, pitch a book anyway and you can still get your name in for the ecard. (P.S. Let me know if you're never going to be a writer and if it's okay to steal your idea and write it myself.)

And a second giveaway open to all commentors--A signed copy of Out of Control, either a print book or an audio books. Winner's choice.

Creating a pitch

Camy here. I use Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake method, and I realized that the 5-sentence summary in step 2 is an easy, painless way of creating a 30-second verbal pitch. The 5-sentence summary consists of story setup, three plot disasters and lastly the ending/resolution.

It made me break the storyline down into basic components, made sure I have those crucial three disasters, and also helped me to look at the pacing of those disasters. I'm pretty stoked.

When I took Jan Coleman's pitch workshop at Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference, she also mentioned a few important things to include, which I believe can be incorporated in the 5-sentence summary once that groundwork is laid:

1) The book genre—Chicklit, cozy mystery, Regency romance, etc. This can be mentioned in the first sentence.

"In my Chicklit novel, Ashley is a bored urbanite seeking purpose, and she decides to bring her version of civilization to South African natives." (Genre and setup, sentence 1)

2) Tone and Pace—make sure the language and word choice of your pitch reflects the book tone, whether somber or sassy.

3) Benefits—spiritual takeaway, moral lesson. This should be mentioned in the last sentence, the ending/resolution.

"...In the end, Ashley realizes that all God needs in a servant is a humble heart, willing to do whatever He asks." (spiritual takeaway, sentence 5)

4) Angle—what makes the book stand out from others? You can also apply a Hollywood High Concept—mention a known movie/book with a specific twist. For example, "Bridget Jones" in the Amazon jungle. You can sneak this in as a sentence at the end or mention it in the beginning, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary to include in the pitch. Also, I've heard that you need to be careful with comparisons. If you do one, it should immediately capture interest and sparkle.

"My Chicklit novel is like 'Bridget Jones' in the Amazon, where Ashley, an urbanite seeking both love and purpose, decides to bring her version of civilization to South American natives." (Genre, Angle and setup, sentence 1)

5) Reader—mention the specific audience. Urban 30-somethings, professional women, troubled teens, lukewarm believers, etc. This can also be at the end or mentioned in the first sentence. I think this is an important aspect of the pitch.

"This novel is like 'Bridget Jones' in the Amazon, and will appeal to 30-somethings, lukewarm Christians, and believers interested in overseas missions." (Angle and Reader, sentence 6)

6) Passion and qualifications. What inspired you to write the book, what makes you qualified to write about this topic?

"I was inspired to write the book after my overseas short-term missions trip to South America (qualifications), and I want to reveal the joys of missions to a fiction-reading audience (passion)."

Jan Coleman also mentions preparing possible marketing ideas for AFTER the presentation, if the editor is curious to know more, but I don't think this is absolutely necessary.

One thing I personally think would be a good thing to prepare for the pitch is a Comparative Title Analysis. It's a list of other published book titles, and what about the book is similar and different from your own. This, however, is not absolutely necessary—it's usually used for book and series proposals—and it probably shouldn't be mentioned unless the editor/agent expresses interest after the pitch. Here's an example:

"What a Girl Wants" by Kristin Billerbeck, Westbow Press, 2004
Both this book and my manuscript star an urban Christian career woman, discontent with her singleness and looking for purpose, but "What a Girl Wants" is set in trendy Silicon Valley, whereas my manuscript thrusts Ashley into the rough-and-tumble Amazon on an overseas missions trip.

Some editors say they enjoyed reading the Comparative Title Analysis in query letters, others did not. I doubt they'd throw you over just because they didn't like your CTA, and some might be interested in you because you took the time to do a CTA.

Camy Tang writes romance with a kick of wasabi. Her novel Single Sashimi is out now, and she runs the Story Sensei critique service. In her spare time, she is a staff worker for her church youth group, and she leads one of the worship teams for Sunday service. On her blog, she gives away Christian novels every Monday and Thursday, and she ponders frivolous things. Sign up for her newsletter YahooGroup for monthly giveaways!

Sharing My GMC Chart. Have You Done Yours?

Missy here. I’ve been thinking a lot about goal, motivation and conflict lately. Deb Dixon, of the popular GMC: Goal, Motivation & Conflict, will be doing a workshop in Atlanta in April, and I’m signed up to go. She does the best workshops and is a great teacher. For those who may not be familiar with the book, I thought I’d share a GMC chart I did for my upcoming June Steeple Hill Love Inspired, His Forever Love.

Let me say, first, that I do a sort of blend with Carolyn Greene’s Magic Conflict Chart (from her Prescription for Plotting Notebook). I start with a basic GMC from Deb’s book in my head. Then I fill out Carolyn’s chart. Since I have no idea how to actually post a chart here, I’ll just type each section. But please picture it as a chart. :)

First, a little backstory. My hero, Bill, is a brilliant physicist whose parents died when he was a child. He lived with his grandmother, and was always a sort of outcast geek. One person who was kind to him was Lindsay, the heroine. They became best friends and study partners. She was beautiful and popular. And he had a terrible crush on her growing up. When they got in high school, he fell in love. But she was clueless (of course!). And when she got engaged to someone else near graduation, Bill was devastated. He left right after graduation, moved on up to Boston where he was going to go to college, and had no more contact with her. And of course, she was devastated because her best friend left her. And he didn’t even come home after her fiancé left her standing at the alter.

So, here’s the chart for His Forever Love…

Bill—Internal
Need (gut level): 1. Family and a sense of home
2. To be accepted and fit in

Motivation: 1. His parents died, Lindsay fell in love with someone else, and now he’s wrapped up in his job so he has no social life.
2. Was outcast as a child

Obstacles: Work fills his time; the desire to achieve to prove himself; his family is far away in Georgia

Goal (misguided): To keep achieving and to attain the position of department head at the university (he’s accepted in the academic world)

Consider: No amount of success can fill the void for family, love and acceptance

Bill—External
Need (to gain or accomplish): Take care of his family (his grandmother)

Motivation (recent event): Granny fell and is at the hospital

Obstacles: Taking the best care of her would require giving up his career and moving home.

Goal: To bring her to Boston to live with him.

Story Question: Will Bill be able to go to Magnolia, GA, and successfully move Granny to Boston to live with him?


Lindsay—Internal
Need (gut level): To risk loving again (with someone she can depend on)

Motivation: Her mom died when she was a teen, her fiancé dumped her, and Bill (her best friend) deserted her.

Obstacles: She’s made herself so busy caring for others that she doesn’t have time for herself; plus, she’s scared to risk loving again.

Goal (misguided): To make everyone else safe and happy; to be indispensable

Consider: She can’t make everyone happy or always protect them. They may get tired of her interfering, anyway. Plus, she still won’t find the love she needs.

Lindsay—External
Need (to gain or accomplish): To start her new career and get it off the ground (a new community center with a program for kids with senior volunteers)

Motivation (recent event): She loves working with children and seniors. Plus, she enjoys Granny’s company (Bill’s grandmother is like a mother/grandmother to Lindsay)

Obstacles: Bill wants to take Granny away to Boston.

Goal: To convince Bill that Granny is okay on her own in her home.

Story Question: Will Lindsay convince Bill to leave Granny behind so they can launch the new community center program together?


What’s really cool is that you can take the story question from each character and come up with a sort of back cover blurb that can also make a great pitch for an editor or agent appointment. Here’s the one I came up with using my chart:

Will Bill move Granny to his Boston home and find the sense of family he’s been missing? Or will Lindsay persuade him to let Granny stay in Georgia where she and Granny are actively pursuing a community center ministry together?

While the two face off, he might fall in love with Lindsay all over again. But is Lindsay willing to take the risk?

Okay, have you done your GMC chart yet?

If not, here are links to the resources I used (and no, I have no connection and don’t get any of the proceeds!) :)

GMC: Goal, Motivation & Conflict by Debra Dixon

Carolyn Greene’s Prescription for Plotting Notebook

And here's a link to a post with the information on Deb's workshop if you're in the Atlanta area:

http://writingbyfaith.blogspot.com/2009/02/deb-dixon-workshop.html

Oh, and if you're interested in seeing how this chart plays out in the book, it's available for pre-order (and yes, I guess I would get a little of those proceeds eventually. :)) His Forever Love.

So I'll ask again... have you done your GMC chart yet??

Missy

http://www.missytippens.com/

What's Your Fifteen-Word Wonder?

Recently Camy and I went to Sonoma to a wonderful retreat hosted by our agency. There was a great line-up of speakers which included editors, publicists, financial advisers, agents, bestselling authors and more. Some of those included Andy McGuire of Moody and Andrea Doering, formerly of Crossways Book Club and now editor at Revell. She talked about what it takes to make browsers into buyers. Jeanette Thomason, Editorial Director at WaterBrook Press also touched on this subject when she discussed branding.

The thing that stuck out the most to me was, at least one of the speakers mentioned that book buyers give publishing houses approximately 20 seconds of time per book. In that time frame, the publisher has to "sell" the book or convince the bookseller to carry a particular title. Normally they have a few-minute conversation where the book buyer hears a slew of short blurbs in a row from the publisher, who is pitching a sequence of projects.

So we were encouraged to break our stories down into one 15 word sentence. Because basically, that's all you have to WOW the editors who will then have to WOW their committees who will then have to WOW the bookseller who will then have to WOW the reader. All of these people will decide in a matter of seconds whether to buy your book.

Scary but true.


juxtaposition

–noun 1. an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, esp. for comparison or contrast.
2. the state of being close together or side by side.



Camy and I roomed in a cottage together and we discussed our stories and how we could insert within that 15 word sentence a juxtaposition of terms that would hook readers, the first of which is an editor.

I became totally enthralled with this juxtaposition concept. I'd heard that blurbs should leave the editor intrigued, but the juxtaposition of terms was a new concept for me.

We know we have a matter of 1 sentence to hook a potential editor or agent.

How do we do that?

Best-selling author, Brandilyn Collins, known for her "Seatbelt Suspense" has great advice on verbal pitches on her Web site here. A verbal pitch really is the same thing as this 15 word blurb (story summary) I'm talking about.

I'm counting on my fellow Seekervillains and you commentators to pitch in with advice. As well as any other resources you've discovered that talk about how to come up with these one-liner book zingers.

So today I thought it would be fun to play with our blurbs here in Seekerville.

I'm also hoping my Seeker sisters will pitch in and share their past and present blurbs as well as the process they use/d to come up with them.

Ones I came up with for the stories I'm working on now:
1. She just wanted to be a hero. The hero just wanted a home.
2. An attorney with traffic tickets crashes into a Harley-riding hero on a mission.
3. Still working to condense my third to under 15 words. LOL!

The second one sort of juxtaposes with itself because attorneys should be law-abiding yet she has a problem speeding. Also, Harley riders are cliched to be bad boys. Yet, because I love to turn stereotypes on their heads, this bad boy is an elite rescuer and First Class Hero.

The one for my debut novel that sold to Steeple Hill said:
A special ops soldier meets rapid-fire resistance after pledging allegiance to a promise made to a little ill boy.

An alternate blurb for that story was:
A teacher of special needs children determined to make the rest of life matter to a dying child finds something special and unexpected along the way.

Those were longer than 15 words but at the time, I was happy to get them down to 30 secs. LOL! And obviously Steeple Hill saw something about the blurbs to like because they garnered editorial requests.

Now I know I need to shoot for 20 seconds and no more. Quite a challenge for a wordy-bird like me.

So let's get started:

---If you write or have a story or even an idea, how about you share your 15 word blurb with us (in the comment section) and let us give you our feedback on it.

---If you are a reader only, share a back cover blurb you read recently that convinced you to buy a book.

Ready, set, BLURB!

Cheryl

Pitch Perfect

One of the main reasons for submitting to contests prior to publication is to attract the attention of an editor or agent. Sure, the awards are nice to receive, and the credits look great in a cover letter, but bottom line, writers want to sell their stories. To do that, manuscripts need to be requested and read. So if a particular submission doesn’t make the final round in a contest, what’s Plan B? Pitch the story at a writing conference!

With the RWA National Conference approaching in July and the ACFW in September, I thought it might be interesting to throw out some ideas about how to pitch. My advice? Keep is simple.

First impressions are important. Start with a firm handshake and warm smile as you introduce yourself. Thank the editor for taking time to meet with you and/or for coming to the conference. A minute spent exchanging pleasantries -- perhaps ask about her flight or if she’s had a chance to see the sights in the local area -- can put you both at ease. Yes, believe it or not, the editors and agents are sometimes as nervous about meeting you as you are of meeting them.

Now sell yourself. The clock is ticking so pick and choose a few facts that will give the editor/agent an idea about your professionalism, your commitment and your expertise.

Be sure to mention your writing credits, such as any magazine or newspaper articles you’ve had published. Don’t forget web publications or chapter newsletters, especially if you’ve done a series of articles or how-to pieces. Have you presented workshops at writing conferences? That would be of interest to the editor as well.

The editor/agent wants to know if you’re new to writing or established. Give her some sense of how long you’ve been working on your craft either in years or the number of manuscripts you’ve completed. (Remember a manuscript is an unpublished story. The story becomes a book once it’s in print.)

Are you a member of professional writing organizations? Don’t forget to mention any offices you hold.

Contest wins? If you’ve won a number of them, summarize: “I’ve won ten national writing awards, including . . .” Then mention some of the more prestigious wins. Or you could say, “I’ve finaled in a number of contests, and the story I want to talk to you about today won the Maggie Award of Excellence and the Jasmine.”

If you have expertise or training in an area that plays a part in your story, be sure to include that information, such as if you have a law degree and your story is a legal thriller. But expertise doesn’t have to be limited to higher education. If you ran a dude ranch in Colorado and that’s the role you’ve given your heroine, the editor will enjoy hearing that you’re writing what you know.

Now sell the story. Word count, genre and whether the manuscript is completed are important. If you’ve targeted a specific line the editor publishes, be sure to mention that as well.

Just as stories should start with a riveting opening, so should the pitch. Can you come up with a high concept, hook or one-liner she’ll remember?

What’s high concept? In his book, WRITING SCREENPLAYS THAT SELL, Michael Hauge says, “If that single sentence describing your story idea(s) is enough all by itself to get people to line up or tune in to see the movie, then it has a high concept.” He goes on to provide the following high concept for WAR GAMES, “A teenager computer genius breaks into the Pentagon computer system and has to prevent World War III.” Sure Hauge is talking about movies and screenplays, but high concepts work for manuscripts as well.

Another possible opening is to throw out a question pertaining to your book that catches the editor/agent by surprise. “What would you do if TSA found a bomb ready to detonate in your carry-on luggage?” You’ve got her attention, now tell her about how your sassy heroine caused a national stir when she grabbed someone else’s luggage off the airport shuttle.

Remember less is sometimes better. Donald Maass, in his WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL WORKBOOK, says, “All I need to get hooked on a story is to know its category, the setting, the protagonist, and the main problem. Add to that one unusual detail that makes this story different from any other like it, and you’ve probably got me.”

For my first novel, NOWHERE TO HIDE, my one-liner was, “When the men who killed Lydia Sloan’s husband try to kidnap her five-year-old son, she and Tyler flee to an island community off the coast of Georgia and run headlong into the trouble they were trying to escape.” I added that, unbeknownst to Lydia, her husband freelanced as the Web master for a gentleman’s club porn site.

For SCARED TO DEATH, my second Love Inspired Suspense, I started my pitch by saying, “Kate Murphy never expects a quick trip to Mercy, Georgia, to retrieve her grandfather’s missing gold cross will land her in the middle of a transplant tourist racket.”

After you’ve thrown out your hook, reel the editor in with a few comments about the story, especially plot points that drive the protagonist to the climax. You could mention the hero’s greatest fear or greatest need or how the characters change, what they learn, what they overcome, who they save, etc. Again, keep it brief.

For my current release, I used the following: In MIA: MISSING IN ATLANTA, a returning war hero’s search for a missing girlfriend leads him through the dark side of inner-city exploitation to a woman of faith who teaches him that memories of the past are not always as they seem and authentic love is grounded in truth.

Be prepared to provide information on another manuscript if the editor asks what else you’ve written.

Pitching to an agent? She’ll want to know if an editor’s shown interest in the story or requested a submission so include that as well.

The ending is as important as the beginning. Know when to stop so the editor/agent can ask questions. Once you’ve satisfied her curiosity, ask if she would like to see three chapters and a synopsis or the full manuscript.

Nothing else you need to discuss? Then thank her, shake hands and leave the room, even if you haven’t used up your allotted time. The editor or agent will appreciate having a minute to relax. Hopefully, she’ll make a note on her tablet about the polite and professional writer with whom she just spoke.

One sheet: Some Christian houses request a one sheet when you pitch. Compile some of the personal information mentioned above and add a short blurb about the manuscript you want to discuss. Place your address, phone and email at the top of the page along with a downloaded photo of yourself. Even though you hand the one sheet to the editor or agent, be sure to mention a few of your professional accomplishments and credits at the beginning of the pitch.

Practice makes perfect so start working on your pitch now! Good luck!

Wishing you abundant blessings!
Debby Giusti

PS: Anyone have a pitch horror story? Mine was when I got so involved explaining the plot of a single title story I wrote years ago -- before I knew the Keep It Simple Rule -- that I finally stopped mid-sentence and said, “Sounds confusing, doesn’t it?” Lucky for me, she smiled sweetly, then requested the full!

The Pitch

As we're focusing on publication, one of the things that's very important is the pitch you prepare for meeting with editors and agents at conferences. It can also be helpful when you meet with published authors and possible future readers when they ask what your book is about. As an example, I thought I would show you the pitch I used for the book I sold, Her Unlikely Family, Steeple Hill Love Inspired Feb. 2008. (In contests, titled Michael's Surrender). Here's what I wrote to use to pitch the story before selling it:

Blue-blood banker, Michael Throckmorton, is looking for his runaway niece. Spirited waitress, Josie Miller, is protecting her. Will Josie help Michael learn to care for his niece, then send them on the road home? Or will the three of them learn that forging a bond might be the road to healing love for them all?

Now here's what the marketing department wrote when promoting the book:

Opposites attract when an uptight banker encounters a free-spirited waitress during the search for his troubled runaway teenage niece. As they work together to heal the young girl's damaged spirit, an unlikely family begins to form...

I don't know right off whether I ever sent them a copy of my pitch or used it in my art fact sheet, but you can see they're pretty similar. Marketing just made it more short and to the point. You can also see that they used a marketing hook: Opposites attract. It's interesting to me that they did that, because that's one of the themes that I tend to use in all my books.

So, what kind of shape is your pitch in? Do you have one? Can you write a short and sweet summary of your story that will hook the listener, and can you possibly include a marketing hook?

Anyone want to share theirs?

Missy