Can you elevator pitch your story?

[PennLady]

A friend of mine sent me this article from the CBC about the "Elevator Pitch" -- pitching your idea in the time it takes from an elevator to go from the first floor to the second. There are some neat anecdotes about famous pitches, but he also thought some of it could be applied to writing, in terms of clarity, and I think that's true.

Many of us talk about how our stories spiral out of control. I wonder if distilling a story down to its elevator pitch, so to speak, might help keep focus. At any rate, it's a good read.

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence/elevator-pitches-an-encore-presentation-1.2801770

 

[DreamCloud]

Creative writing should never be hemmed in. I could never draw such tight borders around my stories. If I ever aimed at a target, utter crap would appear. Might as well move to journalism. That said, web sites could always use an Elevator Pitch:

Literotica, share the blush.

 

[lovecraft68]

I couldn't pitch mine going up three flights of stairs...

 

[rjordan]

Many of us talk about how our stories spiral out of control. I wonder if distilling a story down to its elevator pitch, so to speak, might help keep focus. At any rate, it's

DreamCloud and LC68 both blew the idea off, but both of them actually DO this.

In the article, the elevator pitch is meant "to engage or intrigue someone enough so that they want to hear more."

The little blurb after the title of each story is nothing but an elevator pitch. This is the author's first chance to actually interest a reader. Way before they read the opening sentence of a story, they read this blurb and make a decision whether to read the story or not.

I checked all the blurbs DC and LC68 have written for their stories. Many of them are very intriguing and could account for many of the red H's that result. Some of them are simply descriptive and not very intriguing. They wouldn't entice me to want to read the stories.

Also in the article is this line, "if a writer can't sum up his or her story in one intriguing line, they haven't thought their story through." Or they haven't put enough thought into crafting the blurb.

If you can't sum up a story in one intriguing line, there's probably something wrong with the story.

The first sentence of my post was an elevator pitch.

rj

 

[Bramblethorn]

A friend of mine sent me this article from the CBC about the "Elevator Pitch" -- pitching your idea in the time it takes from an elevator to go from the first floor to the second. There are some neat anecdotes about famous pitches, but he also thought some of it could be applied to writing, in terms of clarity, and I think that's true.

Many of us talk about how our stories spiral out of control. I wonder if distilling a story down to its elevator pitch, so to speak, might help keep focus. At any rate, it's a good read.

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence/elevator-pitches-an-encore-presentation-1.2801770

IMHO: a worthwhile idea, but oversold (maybe not surprising in an article about marketing...) Yes, a lot of stories suffer badly from lack of focus. The writer doesn't know where they're going or what they're trying to do, and it shows; an elevator pitch might be helpful for keeping those pieces on track.

With that said... if I'm writing a 15,000-word story and all the important bits can be condensed into a ten-second elevator pitch, that might indicate that I'm not making very good use of my medium and perhaps I ought to go into advertising instead of writing 15,000-word stories.

They mention "Snakes On A Plane" as an example. As an elevator pitch, yeah, it's superb. Those four words got a big-name actor to sign; from there, "Snakes On A Plane with Samuel L. Jackson" got them a huge amount of free publicity and even a little of the screenwriting. Everybody was talking about it, right until it was released... and then nobody was talking about it. It had snakes, it had a plane, it had Samuel L. Jackson, it used all three of those elements heavily. But that was all it had, and it wasn't enough to carry a 100-minute film. Word got around; the US box office barely made back the cost of production, and after adding in marketing and distribution I'm not sure if it turned a profit overall*. If it did, it wasn't by much.

I think the idea of elevator pitch might be most applicable for plot-focussed stories, but maybe not so helpful for stories whose strength is mood or characterisation (or indeed steamy sex scenes). Those aspects often depend heavily on building up an effect over a period of time, and there just isn't room to convey that in a few seconds - sure, you can say "it's a beautifully-written story that evokes a haunting atmosphere!" but that's not much of an elevator pitch.

Focus is still very important for those type of stories, I'm just not convinced that "elevator pitch" is a helpful mindset there.

*A real profit, that is; no film ever makes a profit once the accountants are done reinterpreting the numbers.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I checked all the blurbs DC and LC68 have written for their stories. Many of them are very intriguing and could account for many of the red H's that result.

An intriguing blurb can certainly boost your views, but it's not going to get you an H; getting people to read doesn't guarantee that they're going to like it. If anything, it can be detrimental to your averages since it sucks in more new readers who may not like what they get, as opposed to returning readers who are there because they've already seen your style and like it.

I'll offer my own submissions page as evidence that even somebody who's really bad at blurbing can get the occasional H.

 

[slyc_willie]

Actual conversation:

"What's your latest book about?"

"It's about incestuous twin brothers who get off on killing people."

"Oh . . . okay. That sounds interesting."

Yeah, I could pitch it . . . and clear out the elevator at the next floor.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I couldn't pitch mine going up three flights of stairs...

If I tried pitching mine going up the stairs, I be out of breath at the first landing.

 

[glynndah]

I couldn't pitch mine going up three flights of stairs...

I'm almost certain I could pitch any of mine down a flight of stairs, but they'd leave a horrid mess at the bottom of the steps.

 

[SamScribble]

I think it depends on the type of stories that you write. If your stock in trade is stories with a twist, then, yes, they can probably (usefully) be reduced to an elevator pitch. (The Twins idea.) If your thing is writing a few thousand words about character – with an erotic undertone – then I’m not so sure.

In ‘my other life’, the first TV adaptation that I wrote was based on a Dickens ghost story. The whole idea lent itself to an elevator pitch. My second film was an exploration of what – in legal terms – constitutes ‘a reasonable force’? Again, it was a candidate for an elevator pitch.

But, after that, I wrote a play in which nothing really happens. It was all about an ageing professor and a PhD candidate having fun with words. I think had I made an elevator pitch for that, the answer would probably have been: ‘Yer wot?’ But I submitted a (reasonably) finished script, and it was snapped up within days.

However, I do think that most nonfiction stories can benefit from an elevator pitch. But then there are not a lot of nonfiction stories on Literotica.

 

[Privates1stClass]

Can you elevator pitch your story?

Yes, she did.

When I walked onto the elevator on the first floor, there she was, the young lithe brunette with big boobs that I'd salivated over for months, but she'd paid me no mind.

As I pushed the elevator button for the second floor, she lifted her blouse and flashed her beautiful twins at me.

"Would you like to have a good time?" she asked.

Can you think of a better elevator pitch than that?

 

[rjordan]

I think it depends on the type of stories that you write. If your stock in trade is stories with a twist, then, yes, they can probably (usefully) be reduced to an elevator pitch. (The Twins idea.) If your thing is writing a few thousand words about character – with an erotic undertone – then I’m not so sure.

[snip]

However, I do think that most nonfiction stories can benefit from an elevator pitch. But then there are not a lot of nonfiction stories on Literotica.

I still think there is misunderstanding about what an elevator pitch is. It is not a condensed description of the story. Snakes on a Plane doesn't describe much about the story at all, yet it's touted as a great elevator pitch.

The purpose of an elevator pitch is not to describe the story. It is to entice the reader to want more. It's a sales pitch. It's a trailer. It's not a synopsis.

So you're telling me you can't think of a single thing to say that will entice readers to try your story about character with an erotic undertone.

There isn't a book published in any genre that doesn't have a dozen or more enticing blurbs in the front matter way before a single word from the author is printed. Those are (more or less) elevator pitches, not descriptions of the story.

Book publishers obviously think they have some value and not just for stories with a twist or non-fiction. It's how they grab the browser in a book store to buy the book. It works for ANY kind of story.

rj

 

[rjordan]

But, after that, I wrote a play in which nothing really happens. It was all about an ageing professor and a PhD candidate having fun with words. I think had I made an elevator pitch for that, the answer would probably have been: ‘Yer wot?’ But I submitted a (reasonably) finished script, and it was snapped up within days.

One last stab at it.

Seinfeld, Episode 43, The Pitch

George Costanza pitches a "show about nothing".

GEORGE: See, this should be a show. This is the show.

JERRY: What?

GEORGE: This. Just talking.

JERRY: (dismissing) Yeah, right.

GEORGE: I'm really serious. I think that's a good idea.

JERRY: Just talking? Well what's the show about?

GEORGE: It's about nothing.

That's the elevator pitch. As a listener/reader/viewer/whatever, how could you stop there without wanting to know more? It's too ludicrous to pass up.

Here's the whole script of that episode.

A show about nothing became the blurb for Seinfeld. It's still repeated today.

rj

 

[PennLady]

I still think there is misunderstanding about what an elevator pitch is. It is not a condensed description of the story. Snakes on a Plane doesn't describe much about the story at all, yet it's touted as a great elevator pitch.

Exactly. I wasn't suggesting that people should "reduce" their stories to an elevator pitch.

And the friend who sent me the link was wondering about the idea of clarity, and how an elevator pitch does in fact clarify at least the basic idea. From there it of course grows and there are lots of other parts to the story.

But I wonder if it might not help in some cases to keep that basic idea in mind. There have been a lot of posts from people talking about how their stories and characters get away from them, or they want to finish but can't, etc., and I also know how that can be.

It's a good point that the tag lines here are like elevator pitches, and I imagine a lot of us have struggled over what to put in those spaces. I know I have, and it is an exercise in distilling something down, I think.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I still think there is misunderstanding about what an elevator pitch is. It is not a condensed description of the story. Snakes on a Plane doesn't describe much about the story at all, yet it's touted as a great elevator pitch.

I've seen SoaP (because parenting involves making sacrifices). If "snakes on a plane (with Samuel L. Jackson)" doesn't sound very descriptive, it's because there's not much beyond that to describe. Everything beyond those three elements is paper-thin, mostly recycled from countless other films.

The purpose of an elevator pitch is not to describe the story. It is to entice the reader to want more. It's a sales pitch. It's a trailer. It's not a synopsis.

Yeah, I get that. But a sales pitch that doesn't represent the strengths of the product is a bad idea; you might get customers but they're going to be very unhappy.

Anybody remember "Three Kings"? It was a good movie if you want to see something about harsh realities of war, sucking chest wounds, George Clooney contemplating the failings of US foreign policy, that sort of thing. And it had a trailer that made people want to see it.

Problem was, the qualities that the trailer sold it on (light-hearted action caper/heist movie) were not what the movie was actually about. People who saw it on the strength of that trailer were unpleasantly surprised, and people who might have wanted to watch a sucking-chest-wounds US-policy-sucks movie were deterred by the trailer.

A pitch needs to be persuasive - but unless your business model is "take the money and run", which doesn't really work on Literotica, it can't be only persuasive. It has to say something about what the strengths of the product are, the things that might make people remember it, and that isn't always something that fits convincingly in an elevator pitch.

I've written a couple of horror pieces here that some readers really liked, and there are all sorts of ways I could pitch them without stretching the truth. ("girl meets girl meets Hastur"). But judging from reader comments (which on this occasion agree with my self-assessment), the strongest points of those stories are the use of language and the way I develop mood, stuff built up over thousands of words. I have no idea how to condense that into a pitch.

If somebody else says "haunting and mysterious" or "vividly rendered" I can use that as a blurb, but as a pitch it's feeble, because who listens when an author says stuff like that about their own work?

If anybody wants to prove me wrong by coming up with a pitch that does sell my stories those aspects without sounding like just authorial ego, you'd be very very welcome! In the meantime, I just rely on the idea that eventually somebody's going to stumble across one of my stories despite the unexciting taglines, and if they like the writing then they'll go check out the others, blurbs be damned.

There isn't a book published in any genre that doesn't have a dozen or more enticing blurbs in the front matter way before a single word from the author is printed. Those are (more or less) elevator pitches, not descriptions of the story.

Blurbs look similar to an elevator pitch but they don't work the same way. A blurb isn't written by the author (unless that author is Lionel Fanthorpe) and it gets to invoke the reputation/credibility of the blurber.

If Neil Gaiman or J.K. Rowling says "this is the best book you'll ever read", that's one hell of a valuable blurb. But if I say the exact same thing about my own work, that's just an author with an inflated self-opinion. A pitch needs to be self-supporting in a way that a third-party blurb doesn't.

One last stab at it.

Seinfeld, Episode 43, The Pitch

George Costanza pitches a "show about nothing".

...

JERRY: Just talking? Well what's the show about?

GEORGE: It's about nothing.

That's the elevator pitch. As a listener/reader/viewer/whatever, how could you stop there without wanting to know more? It's too ludicrous to pass up.

Here's the whole script of that episode.

A show about nothing became the blurb for Seinfeld. It's still repeated today.

I've never watched Seinfeld, other than a few minutes here and there when it was running late before something else. I do have friends and family who love it, and I've heard that "it's a show about nothing" line more than once.

For me, that line feels more like an inside joke for people who've already watched episodes 1-42, than a pitch appealing to my interest. Like watching Monty Python fans shouting "Ni!" at one another, to somebody who's never seen "Holy Grail".

As an outsider, my first reaction is "but there are already way too many shows about nothing" - celebrity gossip, over-hyped reality TV, etc etc. Quite possibly Seinfeld is a different type of nothing, executed in a clever and interesting way, but the pitch hasn't shown me that.

 

[rjordan]

A pitch needs to be persuasive - but unless your business model is "take the money and run", which doesn't really work on Literotica, it can't be only persuasive. It has to say something about what the strengths of the product are, the things that might make people remember it, and that isn't always something that fits convincingly in an elevator pitch.

I never said that an elevator pitch should misrepresent the story. It should say something about the story that makes a reader want to go further. That's all. When the reader goes further and opens the story, it better pay off.

If a meaningful blurb or pitch isn't going to entice anyone to read your story, then the only thing left is to let readers stumble around in the dark. But that probably isn't what they are going to do.

Here's my own story selection process. If it's a known writer who has delivered most of the time in the past, I read it based only on reputation. That's obvious.

But if it's an unknown writer in a genre I frequent, I first read the blurb or tag line. If that doesn't grab me, I probably won't go any further. If the writer can't write a convincing tag line, I don't have much hope that I'll enjoy the story.

If the tag line grabs me, I'll give the writer one page to hold my interest.

If the first page doesn't grab me, I'll skip to the ending or scan the comments.

If nothing there makes me want to read the second page, I'm done.

The whole process involves practically begging the writer to make me read.

There are hundreds of stories every day competing for my attention, not just Literotica stories. There has to be some workable way of managing that. No matter what way I choose, I am bound to miss many good stories that I would have enjoyed.

If a writer is indifferent about my interest, well...there's only one outcome from that.

rj

 

[SamScribble]

I've seen SoaP (because parenting involves making sacrifices). If "snakes on a plane (with Samuel L. Jackson)" doesn't sound very descriptive, it's because there's not much beyond that to describe. Everything beyond those three elements is paper-thin, mostly recycled from countless other films.

Yeah, I get that. But a sales pitch that doesn't represent the strengths of the product is a bad idea; you might get customers but they're going to be very unhappy.

Anybody remember "Three Kings"? It was a good movie if you want to see something about harsh realities of war, sucking chest wounds, George Clooney contemplating the failings of US foreign policy, that sort of thing. And it had a trailer that made people want to see it.

Problem was, the qualities that the trailer sold it on (light-hearted action caper/heist movie) were not what the movie was actually about. People who saw it on the strength of that trailer were unpleasantly surprised, and people who might have wanted to watch a sucking-chest-wounds US-policy-sucks movie were deterred by the trailer.

A pitch needs to be persuasive - but unless your business model is "take the money and run", which doesn't really work on Literotica, it can't be only persuasive. It has to say something about what the strengths of the product are, the things that might make people remember it, and that isn't always something that fits convincingly in an elevator pitch.

I've written a couple of horror pieces here that some readers really liked, and there are all sorts of ways I could pitch them without stretching the truth. ("girl meets girl meets Hastur"). But judging from reader comments (which on this occasion agree with my self-assessment), the strongest points of those stories are the use of language and the way I develop mood, stuff built up over thousands of words. I have no idea how to condense that into a pitch.

If somebody else says "haunting and mysterious" or "vividly rendered" I can use that as a blurb, but as a pitch it's feeble, because who listens when an author says stuff like that about their own work?

If anybody wants to prove me wrong by coming up with a pitch that does sell my stories those aspects without sounding like just authorial ego, you'd be very very welcome! In the meantime, I just rely on the idea that eventually somebody's going to stumble across one of my stories despite the unexciting taglines, and if they like the writing then they'll go check out the others, blurbs be damned.

Blurbs look similar to an elevator pitch but they don't work the same way. A blurb isn't written by the author (unless that author is Lionel Fanthorpe) and it gets to invoke the reputation/credibility of the blurber.

If Neil Gaiman or J.K. Rowling says "this is the best book you'll ever read", that's one hell of a valuable blurb. But if I say the exact same thing about my own work, that's just an author with an inflated self-opinion. A pitch needs to be self-supporting in a way that a third-party blurb doesn't.

I've never watched Seinfeld, other than a few minutes here and there when it was running late before something else. I do have friends and family who love it, and I've heard that "it's a show about nothing" line more than once.

For me, that line feels more like an inside joke for people who've already watched episodes 1-42, than a pitch appealing to my interest. Like watching Monty Python fans shouting "Ni!" at one another, to somebody who's never seen "Holy Grail".

As an outsider, my first reaction is "but there are already way too many shows about nothing" - celebrity gossip, over-hyped reality TV, etc etc. Quite possibly Seinfeld is a different type of nothing, executed in a clever and interesting way, but the pitch hasn't shown me that.

Yeah. What Bramblethorn said.

To which I would add: an elevator pitch is not click bait. Every day, we have thousands of opportunities to read headlines that have very little to do with the story that follows.

 

[rjordan]

Yeah. What Bramblethorn said.

To which I would add: an elevator pitch is not click bait. Every day, we have thousands of opportunities to read headlines that have very little to do with the story that follows.

I agree. An elevator pitch is not click bait. Click bait is misrepresentation. An elevator pitch is not.

If you think about the origin of "elevator pitch" it's obvious they're not meant to misrepresent. You don't get far in Hollywood by fooling the money guys who make million dollar decisions based on a short pitch. Deliver the pitch, then be ready to deliver the goods...or else you'll never have another chance.

I was a freelance automotive and motorcycle writer for 12 years. I made many elevator pitches. My income depended on them being sincere. If they're good enough to hook a busy publishing exec, why not a reader?

rj

 

[PervOtaku]

Come to think of it, we're pretty much all familiar with the concept. When we post a story we have to accompany it with a one-line summary that hopefully will make readers want to click into the story and read it. Especially here on Literotica since it's a character-limited form field.

See also: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WunzaPlot
(Though I suppose in our case, rather than "One's an X. One's a Y. They fight crime!" it would be "One's an X. One's a Y. They have sex!")

Hell, a lot of my story ideas have started out as the elevator pitch among the other random thoughts stirring in my head. If it's a good enough pitch, my mind switches gears to developing it further.

 

[Athalia]

Come to think of it, we're pretty much all familiar with the concept. When we post a story we have to accompany it with a one-line summary that hopefully will make readers want to click into the story and read it. Especially here on Literotica since it's a character-limited form field.

Exactly.

If I'm understanding this correctly, an "elevator pitch" is a way of selling a "high concept" movie or book, which is one where a situation is posed that suggests the nature of the work.

Jurassic Park: "Cloned dinosaurs run amok, eat people."

The Avengers: "Assorted superheroes team up to rescue Earth from alien invasion."

"High" doesn't mean "lofty" ... it just means that it can be expressed with just a few words.

High-concept movies are usually the stuff of summer blockbusters, but seldom the grist for Oscar season.

 

[rjordan]

Come to think of it, we're pretty much all familiar with the concept.

Very true. I made that point in MSG #4. But there are a lot of writers here who don't see it as an opportunity to pitch their story. They write at such a lofty plane that their stories can't be pitched in a dozen words.

rj