The Elevator Pitch Part IV addendum

I couldn't leave it alone...

A wanted man suffering from amnesia searches for clues to his past and a way to destroy a prototype weapon, which has the power to enslave billions, before it falls into the hands of a powerful religious cult.

Update: I read it and I just wanna change it all the time...

A wanted man suffering from amnesia searches for clues to his past and a way to destroy a prototype weapon that has the power to enslave billions, before it can fall into the hands of a powerful religious cult.

The Elevator Pitch Part IV

OK, a couple of points need improving to move this pitch to the next level.

As a one-sentence summary, what I've written works reasonably well. There needs to be a little more to it though and I've identified the issues with it in a previous post.

A one-sentence summary can be quite useful. Imagine being in that elevator and the Agent/Editor's floor is next. The doors slide open and just before they exit the elevator, they ask you what you are writing.

A short tag line or one sentence summary can also help maintain focus on the overall big picture. This is something that's helped me very recently.

Rachelle advocates having several different pitches for different situations.

So, I'll keep the tagline format for now and then I'll move onto a conversational format.

Hunted across the galaxy by a powerful religious cult, an amnesiac searches for clues to his past and the forgotten knowledge of a prototype weapon that has the power to enslave billions.

I'll drop forgotten knowledge it still sounds pants. The hero needs to destroy this weapon to prevent a terrible fate befalling billions of innocent people, so that needs to go in too.

An amnesiac is hunted across the galaxy whilst he searches for clues to his past and must destroy a prototype weapon, which has the power to enslave billions, before it falls into the hands of a powerful religious cult.

Hmmm.

Has this improved the pitch? I'll give a reserved yes to that question. It now has the hero's aims in it so in that respect it is slightly better.

An amnesiac, wanted throughout the galaxy, searches for clues to his past and must destroy a prototype weapon, which has the power to enslave billions, before it falls into the hands of a powerful religious cult.

This sounds much better. The religious cult isn’t the only group searching for the protagonist so it still fulfils the requirement of a one-sentence summary.

In Part V I'll look at making this pitch more conversational. In the meantime check out Rachelle's critiques on elevator pitches in The Elevator Pitch, Part 1 and The Elevator Pitch, Second Floor

The Elevator Pitch Part III c

Some of the results are in.

Rachelle has critiqued my Elevator pitch.

If you remember, for the purposes of the critique I settled on this:

Hunted across the galaxy by a powerful religious cult, an amnesiac searches for clues to his past and the forgotten knowledge of a prototype weapon that has the power to enslave billions.

This is despite knowing there were a few problems with the pitch as it stands.

Rachelle thoughts:

Try as I might, I can't imagine you letting loose with this in response to the question, "So what are you writing?" Why not start with something more conversational like, "I'm writing a sci-fi about an amnesiac who is being hunted across the galaxy by a powerful religious cult, because he..." Make this into a verbal pitch, a dialogue. First, put it in context by saying what it is. (A sci-fi or whatever.) Then fill it in with some of the story. Why do we care about this amnesiac? What will he do with the weapon? And why does the cult want him? Then put a finish on it. You could have a concluding statement like, "The novel is finished and I have sample chapters available" or you could ask a question such as, "Are you interested in sci-fi?"

Can you see a trend here? Boris thought along similar lines and he too wanted to know about the weapon.

So what will my hero do with this weapon?

Well, as I've mentioned previously, he will need to destroy it, although this wasn't part of the original outline, in fact it wasn't much of a weapon at all. What has become apparent is that this weapon needs to take a bigger role in the story.

Previously, the story was more of a personal struggle for the protagonist, but I've become aware even before writing the pitch that I needed to up the stakes a lot more.

The pitch has guided my focus to such an extent that I now have a much better idea of the bigger issues that my hero will face. What I had originally envisioned as the main story arc has now become rather minor, but nonetheless driving aspect of the story against a much bigger backdrop.

Just Added. . .

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing by JA Konrath.

I've added it to the Publishing Section rather than Author Blogs. The reason will be immediately obvious when you take a peek at the site.

It is packed to the gills with good advice.

Enjoy!

The Elevator Pitch Part III b

In the latest post on Rants and Ramblings Rachelle is asking Q4U: What's Your Book About? She is very kindly offering critiques on any pitches that are posted.

Elevator pitches at the ready!

I've taken the plunge (I was feeling brave) and went with the latest version of my hook.

Hunted across the galaxy by a powerful religious cult, an amnesiac searches for clues to his past and the forgotten knowledge of a prototype weapon that has the power to enslave billions.

Update: I should point out that Rachelle does not represent Sci-Fi or Fantasy but she's a good sport and she may well critique it anyway.

The Elevator Pitch Part III a

In The Elevator Pitch Part I I had a stab at writing an elevator pitch.

In that post I wound up with this:

An amnesiac, on the run from the Police, searches for clues to his past whilst hunted by a powerful religious cult.

It was missing some key elements so in The Elevator Pitch Part II I added those key elements and revised it a little.

Eventually I settled on this:

Hunted across the galaxy, by a powerful religious cult, an amnesiac searches for clues to his past and tries to remember the knowledge of a prototype weapon that has the power to enslave billions.

I resisted the urge to tinker with it and just left it as it was so that, when the time comes for the final version, I will hopefully have a fresh perspective on it.

Then Boris came up with some great suggestions for the pitch in the comments section.

Minor niggle: I think the first comma is superfluous.

Yes. It reads so much better without it.

Tries to remember knowledge... sounds klunky, at least to me. Can you even remember knowledge? And since he is trying to remember it, he already has knowledge of it, doesn't he?

Yes, the protagonist has some knowledge in that he knows something about it, but he doesn't have any useful knowledge other than this prototype exists, but remember knowledge sounds very clunky.

Boris suggests the following:

Hunted across the galaxy by a powerful religious cult, an amnesiac searches for clues to his past and tries to remember how to build a prototype weapon that has the power to enslave billions.

This excellent, but (ah there's always a but) the protagonist is not going to build this weapon he must destroy it. So why isn't that in there?

Boris then asks several questions about what will happen which, as he pointed out meant it worked! Yay!

Although... will he enslave billions with it to save himself from the cult? If not, how will it help him then?

Always leave 'em wanted more - part IV coming soon.

More on Motivation Reaction Units

It's been a while since I last posted on MRUs so I thought now would be a good time to gather my thoughts on the subject.

Regular readers may remember that I have been rewriting my earlier chapters using MRU's in between writing the new chapters. This has been quite refreshing and allows me to get into different parts of my protagonist’s head (parts that have become dull with time and almost forgotten about). It has also allowed me to see how much my writing has improved over the course of the novel.

When I first started writing using the MRU technique, I found that I produced short choppy paragraphs. To some degree, I still do that now, but when I feel there is too much white space I look over some of the preceding paragraphs to see where they can be embellished.

Often this is a simple fix. Sometimes all that is needed is to clump several motivations together and have your character react to the most important one. Other times a little interspersed description will do the trick.

If your writing tends to be very tight and to the point, you'll find this is a great way to increase your word count without bloating your story.

You can find a whole lot more on MRUs in Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain and here on Randy Ingermanson's Advanced Fiction Writing and in some of my previous posts below:

Motivation-Reaction Units
Thou Shalt Not Have Thy Protagonist in Thy Motivation Unit
Thou Can Have Thy Protagonist in Thy Motivation Unit
Mini Post
Fridayitis is Back (er except it's not. It was then but it's not now, but it might come back this week - who knows!)