Literary agent shares pitching advice for writers
Literary agent Deirdre Power shares pitching advice for writers
For Idea Idol, WriteMentor’s brand new competition for ideas right from the early concept stage, competition judge and literary agent Deirdre Power from David Higham Associates shares valuable pitching advice for writers.
There’s lots of things a pitch can do, but its primary goal is to make whoever you’re pitching want to see it, and make them feel like they really need to read it. It’s the back of the book, but a little shorter. It’s hard to get much into 50 words! So the key things are to highlight or hint at the main driving force behind the story, and give some sense of the stakes or motivation of the main character.
Communicating premise and voice
The pitch is your arena to communicate two key aspects of your manuscript: the premise (being the main story, in a few words) and the voice. As I mentioned already, the premise normally comprises of a one-line summary of what actually happens, but gives some indication of what’s at stake. That’s pretty clear if you’re dealing with a fantasy – where it’s probable that the stakes will be “the need to save the world”. If you’re dealing with contemporary, it’s slightly harder – but it’s enough to just hint to the fact that there’s something the main character is trying to do, and let us know that they’re going to be going on some kind of journey. Voice is a little trickier to get into a 50 word pitch, but if you can, it’s a good way to get the tone of what you’re writing across to the pitchee (is that a word?) Sometimes this can do as much as explain what’s happening and sometimes you can just use specific words to suggest the overall tone.
Setting up expectations
Pitches also set up a lot of expectations. They give agents something of a blank canvas for the rest of the story – to imagine where we think it might go, in terms of both plot and style, we have some idea of the kinds of character development and growth we’d like to see.
The best starting point is often just to write out the bare bones story in one sentence or two at the most, and see what you have, and then you can start to craft about it. Think about what’s important. Think about the aspects of the novel that you most want to highlight, or elements that are popular/would remind the reader of something else that you’d like to draw attention to.
Bottom line, what works for me is something that sets up a concept that sounds interesting from the pitch alone, and that sounds meaty enough to have an entire plot following it. Absolutely stick to the basics – be parsimonious on detail and background information and instead focus on what is going to sustain this idea across an entire book-length manuscript.
Sample pitches
I’ve done some examples which I hope illustrate what I’m talking about, and I’ll get into them a little bit more – bear in mind I didn’t spend more than 10 minutes on these combined, so I’d recommend a little more refining before sending in your entry. I’ve tried to pick mostly universal stories people might recognise, so they might be more helpful.
Regina George rules high school as queen bee. New girl Cady, desperate to make friends, teams up with social outcasts Janice and Damien to get back at Regina for tormenting them. Because that fugly slut has it coming. YA black comedy. (41 words)
What I was going for: indicating the social structure of high school as a law unto itself with use of the word “rules” and “queen”, explaining Cady’s motivation for going along with this scheme, indicates that the bulk of the story will be a revenge plot, indicates a sense of humour and uses words from the lexicon of evil high school
No one wants Percy Jackson in charge of saving the world. He’s a kid who’s got in a lot of trouble – but he’s also a demigod, accused of stealing Zeus’s lightning bolt, which means it’s up to him to recover the bolt, and stop a war between gods. MG fantasy. (50 words)
Indicating the Percy is a troubled kid who gets in trouble more often than not, and not exactly a typical hero, suggests he’s been thrown into this life sort of against his will, but the stakes are high enough that he has no choice but to get involved and save the world. Suggests the main plot will be Percy finding the bolt and getting it back to Zeus.
Bear has lost his hat, and he wants it back. He asks every animal he meets if he’s seen his hat. But they say no. But he wants his hat back. And he thinks he can remember where he’s seen it…(42 words)
Alluding to the slightly quirkier nature of the book, suggestion of the repetition found and the humour to be found in it. Suggests (very subtly) the strong visual aspect that plays an important role.
In the totalitarian nation of Panem, 12 districts send tributes to compete in the Hunger Games, the deadliest reality TV show ever. Katniss Everdeen is the best shot District 12 has had in forever for a victor, if she can learn to play the Capitol’s game of survival. YA dystopia.(50 words)
Establishing the huge stakes at play, Katniss fighting for her life, and indicating the development or learning curve she’s going to need to survive, indicates the rules of survival are different in THG than what she’s used to. Indicates the main plot will be Katniss’s participation during the Hunger Games, alludes that she’s going to have to come up with a new approach. Doesn’t mention romantic subplot explicitly, but that can easily be folded into the new approach that’s suggested, and hopefully indicates with the mention of other tributes that Katniss’s interactions with them will play a role.
Five students walk into detention, but only four walk out alive. The dead kid? Outsider Simon, who runs a gossip blog sharing everyone’s secrets. Everyone has their own secret to protect, but which of the four suspects went far enough to kill for it? YA thriller. (46 words)
Establishes a classic murder mystery, sets up the secrets of the main characters indicating character journeys for all four (full disclosure, I borrowed the first line from the book’s copy on amazon, because it was good, and set the tone really well!)
Lucy comes to London to join a Psychic Investigations Agency and start her career as a ghosthunter, but instead she winds up joining the most ramshackle agency there is, run by the eccentric Lockwood, with one final case to redeem their agencies and escape with their lives. MG horror. (49 words)
Sets up the agencies that tackle ghost hauntings, and establishes this is a viable career, hints that there’s a reason teenagers are the ones to do it, hinting at the stakes for Lockwood’s agency to not screw up their case, which might not go as planned.
I’d like to think these are recognisable titles from their pitches alone – but I think what’s key is that there is a lot of information left out that’s still important, but the pitch functions without them. For example, it’s hugely important in Percy Jackson that he’s a son of Poseidon, who wasn’t supposed to have any more demigod children, so as a forbidden child, he’s a huge target. You could add more details of each of the four detention kids still alive. So it really is about stripping it down to the bare minimum – it becomes what you absolutely cannot do without in order to make it sound like a good story, but giving the impression that the rest of the detail is there.
by Deirdre Power
Agent at David Higham Associates
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