You’ve been slaving away on your novel for X number of years with no idea if it will ever get into a slush pile – let alone crawl out of one and into a publisher’s warm loving embrace.
Then one day you find yourself stuck in an elevator/at a dinner party with your dream publisher.
Do you admit to working on a manuscript – you betcha! What? You want her to tease/torture it out of you?
Will she want you to pitch to her – probably not, but it’s your baby and now is your moment. And you should have your elevator pitch ready, rehearsed and perfected for this moment.
It is complex to create a short pitch but it should sound fresh and simple, as though it has just dawned on you. It’s a SHORT paragraph that describes your story and makes it sound at best RIVETING and at the very least interesting.
In reality it takes time to develop – maybe weeks or months. It needs to encapsulate the story, the premise and theme. Try reading the blurbs on the backs of books that have similar genre stories to yours. Develop a rough draft and try it out on friends. If their little faces crumple with bewilderment and they ask a stack of unexpected questions, you have missed the mark. You want them to be curious not confused.
One way to play with it on the page is looking at how loglines are developed for movies, basically the equation of:
protagonist + antagonist + setting + situation + conflict = essence of your story.
ScriptShadow recently ran a competition for loglines - gives you a good idea of how it works.
As I tell every class I ever run – it is most unlikely that a publisher will come to your house and wrestle your manuscript off you (despite your protestations of humility). You will have to seek out the publisher and, if need be, you may need to hustle.
A great elevator pitch could be the key to the door, behind which there may (or may not) be fame or riches but who knows?!
