Tips for Writing the Perfect Pitch: Pitching Fiction for Literary Agents
If you don’t nail the pitch no agent will stick around long enough to see read the genius. At least, that’s the prevailing wisdom, and there’s a good chance it’s true, so let’s nail the fiction pitch, shall we?
Tips for Writing the Perfect Pitch
Pitching fiction for literary agents (You can shout it from the window if they will listen)
Sorry gang, there is no substitute for practice, and writing a good pitch does take practice. I’ve been at it for months. Use the ideas below as jumping off points to get your fingers on the keys and practice. I think it’s smart to start working on the pitch soon after the second (or third) solid draft of your novel. It will help you hone in on building three solid acts with a climax and a conclusion. More on that later, now for Pitch Tips.
Luckily for all of us, many kind souls have posted great advice for how to write a great pitch.
The Write Practice has solid pointers on what to include in a pitch and its purpose. BTW the pitch is your quick, few minutes to sell your novel to an agent so it should be rehearsed but not canned and fresh but also relatable to other books on the market. Heartache and headache? Basically.
Some questions to consider:
What are your novel’s strengths (Please let me say “What makes your novel novel?”)
Is it the irresistible characters? The unique world? The intriguing plot?
Monica at the Write Practice, recommends picking the most dynamic pieces you are excited about and delivering those with confidence. Hopefully those are also points that set your novel apart from the heap.
Tomi Adeyemi breaks it down into smaller, more straight-forward chunks. She says a good pitch should be an overview of the novel that includes: genre, setting, character, conflict, and stakes. This break down leaves out some important aspects, but it is a useful exercise to learn more about your story.
I’ll use my current project to practice pitch writing with her technique:
Lay out the title, genre, and word count
A Place Between is a soft science fiction, young adult, 63,000 word novel.
Setting?
The story is set in two worlds, one a crumbling Earth heading toward destruction, and the other, an idyllic new planet that successfully broke away from Earth.
Who is the protagonist?
Miranda was raised on Earth and doesn’t remember, or even believe, in the other world.
What is her conflict?
Miranda’s Earth is full of greed and pain and she wants a better life, but struggles through life in the dying world and can’t hope for anything better. When her twin appears from the other planet she learns that there is a better world and she can go there. Once she’s there, she realizes Earth is worth saving and she’s the one to do it, but how?
What does she have to do to overcome this conflict?
She has to trust in her mother’s mission and throw herself into forces that she doesn’t understand and can’t control.
Tomi says string these all together to make your pitch, but a close read of her Lion King example shows that she is also including other elements of the main action from Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3 (and I do think those are needed).
Here is my draft pitch using Tomi’s technique:
Pitch A:
My novel is 63,000 word science fiction novel called A Place Between.
Miranda doesn’t believe her mother’s story about another, more perfect world, or that Earth would not be doomed if people learned to love again, but when her twin appears from the other planet and says they must leave because Earth is being sucked into a black hole, she is forced to believe.
Guided by mysterious music and cryptic forces, Miranda finds herself in the new world, alone. She must trust in forces she doesn’t understand and can’t control to save her mother and sister, but she is also driven to save the Earth that brought so much pain. She must find faith in her mother’s mission but the final outcome may not be what she expected and it could change the universe forever.
Another equally useful technique, is to summarize the main action from Act 1, Act 2, and a piece of Act 3, without giving up the ending. The pitch is not the synopsis (where you do have to give up all the fun and write without heart ((or so I’m told))). Here is the pitch I’ve already had for a few months where I used the technique of a high level summary of the key plot points from the main Acts.
Pitch B:
Miranda is a cynical 18 year old, keeping her head down, trying to make it one more day in the polluted, desert wasteland she calls home. When a woman appears claiming to be her twin sister, it explains her visions, but means nothing she knew is real- and she has the chance to leave this dying planet for good.
When her mother and sister don’t make it to the new world, she must enlist the help of a philosopher through a magic book and trust he can guide her through open space to save her family from purgatory.
Reunited in their new bucolic world, they must venture into the void of space again, together, to battle a god to release the souls of the people of Earth trapped in the black hole, and ensure the planet cannot get trapped again, whatever the cost.
Update: I kept working on it, and now I have a new combination that includes more hints to the character’s motivations and speaks to each major plot point and references the music that is also part of the book.
Pitch C:
Miranda is a cynical 18 year old, trying to make it one more day in the polluted, desert wasteland she calls home. She can’t believe her mother’s fantastic stories about another, better planet, or that Earth’s only chance to escape a looming black hole is for people to learn to love again. When a woman appears, claiming to be her twin sister, it explains her visions, and proves her mother was right, but now it’s too late.
Guided by mysterious music and cryptic forces, Miranda finds herself alone on another world and enlists the help of a philosopher through a magic book to save her family from purgatory, drifting in open space.
Reunited in their new bucolic world, Miranda is tortured by visions of her one friend on Earth suffering in the black hole. Joined by their mother, the twins team up to battle a god to free the cruel planet but it may cost her more than she imagined, and change the universe forever.
Which one do you like better? I would not lead with pitch A because it is missing feeling, but using those techniques was good practice to lay out the major components. I think pitch C is the strongest of the batch now but I’d love to know your thoughts. And please share your draft pitches in the comments.
I hope these tips were useful. In the meantime: practice, practice, practice.
Photo Credit: Angelina Litkin