Last weekend I taught a pitching workshop in Slovenia (below is the view from my balcony). It's a country of only 2 million people, so in order to build up their film industry they are going to have to look for co-production possibilities in order to get the necessary funding. Their authors are also going to have to find markets for their books if they want to make a living from their writing. That's why pitching (or verbally presenting) stories is starting to look more important to them.
The problems of pitching are the same all over the world: the better you know your story, the harder it is to tell it concisely. Here is a formula I find useful:
What is the genre of your story?
Who is your protagonist?
What does he or she want?
What is the biggest obstacle they face?
What is the highest point of crisis?
For example: In this romantic drama, a poor young artist falls in love with a rich girl, but has to fight her family and her wealthy fiance. Ultimately their love is tested in the life or death drama that confronts them--for they are also passengers on the ill-fated Titanic.
If you were pitching this verbally, you'd relate it more conversationally, but these couple of lines could be the foundation of your pitch. The goal of a brief pitch is always simply to get your listener to want to hear or read more. This listener could be an agent, publisher, actor, director, or network or studio executive--anybody who can help you realize your dream of telling your story.
If you are writing a book, you might put your pitch in the form of a one page query letter to an agent or publisher--again, to get them to want to know more.
The Slovenian participants (some of whom you see below) were motivated, creative, and picked up the basics very quickly--especially impressive as the workshop was conducted in English, and five of them volunteered to do their pitches to me in English, too.