Time to Write

How to Pitch Your Story (anywhere)

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.

A Great Idea for Pitching

I've included a few posts recently about coming up with a short pitch for your idea. In Paul Williams' excellent blog, Idea Sandbox, he suggests that the short narrations at the beginning of TV series are good models. He includes a few examples, including the opening of the classic series, "The A-Team":

THE A-TEAM (20 SECONDS)

In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit.
These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune.
If you have a problem. If no one else can help. And if you can find them. Maybe you can hire...
The A-Team.

Sets up the basic idea extremely efficiently, doesn't it? Here's one more, from the current comedy series, "My Name is Earl":

MY NAME IS EARL (30 SECONDS)

You know the kinda guy who does nothing but bad things and then wonders why his life sucks?
Well, that was me. Every time something good happened to me something bad was always waiting around the corner.
Karma.
That's when I realized I had to change.
So I made a list of everything bad I've ever done and, one by one I'm gonna make up for all my mistakes.
I'm just trying to be a better person.
My name is Earl.

The visuals that go with this make it obvious it's a comedy; if I were using this as a verbal pitch, I'd specify first that it's a comedy and maybe give one or two examples of the kinds of funny wrongs that Earl is hoping to put right.

The next time you watch TV, pay attention to the short openings--Paul Williams is right, theyr'e a super source of pitching models.

Brothers Dan and Chip Heath have written a marketing book called, "Made to Stick." In it, they analyze what differentiates brands that make a lasting impression on consumers.

I'll write a review of the book another time, but it struck me how the qualities they mention (using the acronym, 'success') apply to any good writing:

Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
Stories

When you think about it, aren't those the qualities you want your scripts, novels, short stories or articles to have? This formula might be a good one to write on an index card and keep in sight!

Writing Comes to Reality TV

I'm not sure whether it's a good thing when reality show producers start showing an interest in writing, but it's happened with Canada's Book TV. They covered a three-day novel writing contest that took place in a Edmonton's largest "Chapters" book store. You can see the trailor for the show here, and very dramatic it is!

I suppose anything that creates an interest in writing and writers might be a good thing. Certainly the UK's "Richard and Judy" TV show have had an Oprah-like effect for the authors they feature on their afternoon talk series. The writer whose novel they covered recently shold 46,000 copies of his book in the following seven days!

Giving Writing Away Helps Sales?

In Forbes magazine, sci-fi author Cory Doctorow writes:

"There's no empirical way to prove that giving away books sells more books--but I've done this with three novels and a short story collection (and I'll be doing it with two more novels and another collection in the next year), and my books have consistently outperformed my publisher's expectations. Comparing their sales to the numbers provided by colleagues suggests that they perform somewhat better than other books from similar writers at similar stages in their careers. But short of going back in time and re-releasing the same books under the same circumstances without the free e-book program, there's no way to be sure.

What is certain is that every writer who's tried giving away e-books to sell books has come away satisfied and ready to do it some more."

Seth Godin has done the same thing with some of his marketing books, to good effect. So does it make sense to put your books out there for free? The answer may be in a comment quoted by Doctorow: "as publisher Tim O'Reilly wrote in his seminal essay, Piracy is ProgressiveTaxation, 'being well-enough known to be pirated [is] a crowning achievement.'"

If you're unknown and put your stuff up for free, the perception may be that it's not worth anything. If you are somewhat known, doing the same thing may get you more talked about and help the sales of the hard copies of your work. At that point, other benefits may kick in, as they have for Doctorow: "What's more, having my books more widely read opens many other opportunities for me to earn a living from activities around my writing, such as the Fulbright Chair I got at USC this year, this high-paying article in Forbes, speaking engagements and other opportunities to teach, write and license my work for translation and adaptation. My fans' tireless evangelism for my work doesn't just sell books--it sells me."

Interested in Film Writing and Production?

If you're interested in film writing and production, this might interest you:

MySpace has launched MyMovie MashUp in partnership with Vertigo Films, a competition to find the best short film director on MySpace. The winner will get to direct a feature film with a budget of over £1 million with the film scheduled for theatrical release in 2008. Entries will be judged by a distinguished panel of film-makers and actors who will select five finalists. The finalists then face a public vote by millions of MySpace users to decide the ultimate winner.

You will be able to follow the entire process online, including the production phase--this is kind of a rare opportunity. I had a look at the work of a couple of directors whose short films are on the site and can't say I've been overly impressed, but it's early days. (One of the short films starts with a close-up of a digital alarm clock which then rings and a hand reaches out and turns it off...one of those visual cliches I hope never to see again...).

Want to Collaborate? Try Penguin.

Once again, Penguin Books UK is being innovative and grabbing some publicity in the process. Here's the latest from Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher, on the Penguin blog:

"Penguin is launching its first wiki and in a project called A Million Penguins we've created a space where anyone can contribute to the writing of a novel and anyone can edit anyone else's writing.

Over the next six weeks we want to see whether a community can really get together, put creative differences aside (or sort them out through discussion) and produce a novel. We honestly don't know how this is going to turn out - it's an experiment. Some disciplines rely completely on collaboration, while others - the writing of a novel, for example - have traditionally been the work of an individual working in isolation. But with collaboration, crowdsourcing and the 'wisdom of the crowds' being buzz words du jour, we thought we might as well see if these new trends can be applied to a less obvious sphere than, say, software development.

So we've got a team of MA students in to kick things off and seed a community, a Penguin editor is on hand to write regular reading reports on the novel in progress (which we will publish here) and now all we're waiting for is you, dear readers, to fire up those creative juices, leave your egos at the door and get stuck in.

Can a community write a novel? Let's find out."

You can find out more about the project here. I don't think it'll result in a work of great literature (and because people can edit each other's contributions it's sure to cause some frustration and feuding), but it can be fun, and for some people a way to ease into writing and build their confidence so they can get started on their own projects.

How to Get Into the Writing Flow

I've been writing some articles that are distributed on the internet, and so far the most popular one has been about how to get into the writing flow. I thought I'd share it with you here, too:

First, create an atmosphere in which you have as few distractions as possible. Later in the process, you may be so involved that you don't even notice things like a phone ringing but it helps if you can start off in an environment that makes it easy to concentrate. This also includes setting aside a period of time when you won't feel you really ought to be doing something else.

Choose a task that is at or just above your level of ability. If it's too hard or too easy, you won't enter flow. So if you want to write a novel, break it down into chunks you can handle. One task might be writing a rough outline. Another might be doing a character biography for your protagonist.

Finally, make sure that the task includes immediate feedback, so that you know as you go along whether or not you are doing well. For example, start by setting yourself a goal of writing a certain number of words per half hour. Eventually you may not need this kind of feedback because the task will so absorb you that you stop thinking about how you're doing it, or how well.

Ready to give this a try? Schedule some time during which you want to tackle a project and create the conditions described above. Go into the process with the idea that if flow occurs, that will be great, and if it doesn't, you'll still get a lot done (that mentality makes it less likely that you'll distract yourself by asking 'am I in flow yet?’).