Writing involves more than writing. In fact, writing is a vanity project unless you can get someone to pay you to publish your work.
As much as anyone in this 24/7, always-on, don’t-leave-your-phone-behind world, editors are overworked. They work through piles of ideas from hopeful writers. Most of them are bad, impractical, boring, impractical, tone deaf, and [insert flaw here]. As a writer, you need to stand out from this dreck. You need to be the bright spot in the editor’s day.
Here’s the lesson in a nutshell: Like readers, editors respond when they find a story or an idea that they simply can’t put down. They want to find something fresh, active and alive, provocative, counterintuitive.
So let’s talk about how to brighten your editor’s day. Let’s talk about creating a kick-ass pitch letter.
The Story’s the Thing
You have to hook the reader with your story, especially with the main characters and their dilemmas, struggles, and inner turmoil. Readers need a stake in the writing. They need a rooting interest. The more you give editors that, the better your chance to sell your article or book.
People buy fiction (and often nonfiction too) on the basis of whether you can hook them in the first paragraph. So don’t waste any time with pointless introductions. Get right to the business of seducing your reader. Show how it’s done. Show the editor you’re pitching that you are the writing equivalent of a pickup artist.
So how do you hook and intrigue the reader in your pitch letter? Before exploring that, let’s set up a quick case study.
A Case Study: The Parable of the Prodigal Son
Let’s pretend we want to write an article or a book about the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Jesus tells this tale to teach about human nature–about the power of love, the inevitability of mistakes, about learning and forgiveness, about jealousy and grace, and so much more. (If you want a great book-length treatment of this parable, see Henri Nouwen’s The Return of the Prodigal Son.)
Here’s an abbreviated version of the story from the Bible (Luke 15: 1-32):
A man had two sons: an older, responsible one and a younger, more adventurous one. The younger one said, “Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.” When the father gave him his inheritance, he journeyed to a far country.
The younger son then wasted his inheritance with riotous living. Then a famine devastated the land. To survive, the younger son got a job feeding swine. Tired and wasted, he would happily eat the husks he fed the swine. He decided to return home to apologize and beg for a job.
When his father saw him approaching, he ran and embraced him. “Father, I have sinned against heaven,” the younger son said, “and am no more worthy to be called thy son.”
But the father said to his servants, “Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” And they began to be merry.
When the elder son grew jealous and angry, his father came out and begged him to join the party. The older son recounted his many years of loyalty and hard work. Hurt, he said: “You never gave me a party. But as soon as your younger son came, you killed for him the fatted calf.”
The father told him: “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.”
Now, suppose you wanted to pitch this story to an editor? What might that look like?
The Pitch Letter in Five Parts
You should be able to pitch this story–as an article or a book or even TV series–in a one-page letter. The trick is to excite the reader. Hook reader in right away with a scene, then explain how this scene fits into a larger story, and then provide some practical ideas for the project. Let’s explore it, step by step.
1. Introduction: Let Me Introduce Myself
Open, with the briefest hello that says something about the story. Introduce yourself if you must. But wrap that introduction into the first part of your pitch.
For the Prodigal Son, the intro might go like this:
“I write to you about my 74,000-word novel, The Deplorable Returns, a tale that reveals the major motivations of human beings–their fall from grace and their road to redemption.
Avoid talking about yourself. There’s plenty of time to do that if you intrigue the reader with your story.
2. You Are There
Next, give the reader a gripping scene. This is your opportunity to show off your best storytelling. Zoom into the story at a tense moment. Show the dilemma of the characters in their bodies, movements, tentativeness, halting words, and so on.
If you were selling the prodigal son story, you might open with the moment when the father’s joy intersects with the “good” son’s anger and confusion and the prodigal son’s hope. Zoom in and get physical. It might go like this:
After years of whoring and drinking in a distant land, a young man runs out of money and is humiliated doing menial work. Humbled, he decides to come home to beg his father for a laboring job. He doesn’t expect much. After all, when he left home, he rejected everything his father stood for. Surprisingly, his father embraces him when he gets home and calls for a party. All is well. Or is it? The older brother, who has been righteous, now feels slighted. He sulks and complains that his father is playing favorites.
In this narrative, move back and forth from positive to negative notes: Something good happened … then something bad … then hopeful … then scary … then uplifting … then deflating … And so on.
The prodigal son pitch could take another angle. We could have shown the drama of the son leaving home. We could have zoomed in on his dissolute living abroad. We could zoom in on the older son, following the rules and honoring his father but full of anger and resentment. We could show a scene of the sons fighting, and then zoom out to reveal their father and the story before the younger son’s return.
Pick the scene that best brings your reader into the drama you want to convey. Make it a real sample of the kind of writing you want to do.
Whatever scene you choose, let the reader get close to the moment. Show specific people doing specific things, with hopeful and then catastrophic consequences that force people to face the truth. Be totally visual. Get the reader’s mind racing. Get gritty as hell. Do that for, oh say, 40-50 words.
3. Here’s the Bigger Picture
Then step back and ask, in essence, How did we get here and where are we going? Provide a broader context. This broader context will help the reader to imagine the whole story–without your detailing it so much that the suspense is ruined. The followup paragraph might look like this:
This scene was just part of a larger filial drama. As the story opens, we see the father and his sons laboring at the farm. The father teaches his sons the virtues of good living. But sometimes those lessons require failure–venturing out into the world, making mistakes, learning from mistakes, and deciding to make amends. That setup leads to the homecoming. What follows is even more dramatic.
And so on. You get the idea. After giving the reader a dramatic moment, step back and put it into context. Then hint at larger dramas and lessons.
4. Why You–and Everything Else–Should Care
Now say something about your project and concept. You might mention the genre, how the project came along, or how it says something that modern readers would appreciate. As a prompt, consider starting with a reference to the present moment.
The Deplorable Returns offers an intimate look at a modern dilemma of families and communities everywhere. The story explores all three corners of the family drama–the importance of a strong parent who can teach their children but also allow them to make mistakes and learn; the value of duty and loyalty, as well as the potential for those virtues to breed resentment; and the necessity of adventure, mistakes, and redemption.
And so on.
5. So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu
Quickly–before you lose momentum from your dynamic narrative–wrap up. Write one or two sentences about why this could be B-I-G. Again, for the prodigal son parable, you might close like this:
This story offers a timeless drama of failure, redemption, hope, and forgiveness. I would love to explore more details about the story, my plan to research and write it, and how it might fit in your publications. Might you be interested?
Congrats! You’re finished. Or are you?
Other Tips for a Winning Pitch Letter
• Read it aloud: Read your draft aloud. Read it fast and read it slowly. Read it backward, paragraph by paragraph. When you read it, break it up by phrases. Emphasize the nouns one time and the verbs another time.
• Simplify, simplify, simplify. When we summarize something big and complex, we tend to pack too much information. We jam ideas into our paragraphs like sardines into tins. Don’t! Do not make the reader track back to figure out who’s who, whats’ what, and where’s where. Introduce people and dilemmas slowly; let then u-n-f-o-l-d.
• Put everything into action. Show action to show the character doing something specific. Put something in the character’s hands. Show something happening nearby. Catch the character switching his attention and actions.
• Avoid boastful or tentative language. Yes, we know you’re the perfect person for the project. But don’t boast. Let your writing and record tell the story. At the same time, don’t be defensive. I know someone who mentioned that he had a “professional editor” read his manuscript. Ouch. That made him look tentative and defensiveness. (He shouldn’t be. He’s brilliant.) Let your ideas and storytelling prowess win the day.
• What about the “high concept”? Some publishers love the “high concept” idea–that is, the unique angle that cracks open a complex or overly familiar topic. You might know about The View from Flyover Country, by Sarah Kendzior; A History of the World in Ten Cocktails, by Wayne Curtis; or The Year of Living Biblically, by A.J. Curtis. These books provide unique overviews by taking a unique, usually neglected perspective. Better than that is …
• The ONE Idea: Try to build your book or article–and therefore, your pitch–around a single idea. Sure, you can explore more than that single idea–but do it with reference to the big, driving idea. Think of these classics: A.O.Hirschman’s Exit, Voice, and Loyalty; Peter Theil’s From Zero to One; and, of course, Gary Keller’s The ONE Thing. Each states a simple concept, then looks at it from different angles, like a jeweler looks at a gem.
That’s you–offering an editor, not to mention that editor’s readers–a gem.
Who could resist?
For more posts on writing, visit the Elements of Writing Blog. Check out the posts on Storytelling, Writing Mechanics, Analysis, and Writers on Writing.