What's Your Novel About? Pitch Your Book to Anyone with Confidence
How To Explain Your Story Using My Fool-Proof Method
Greetings,
A post on a Substack note is the inspiration for this new article in the Writer’s Café. Someone asked writers to describe their books, but some of them didn’t do it well. The responses were like bad loglines on Netflix, the ones that say nothing about the two-hour movies offered on the channel.
Of course, the trailers do a better job pitching the stories, but I prefer to read and scroll until I’m semi-hooked. Then the preview helps me decide if I’m willing to invest my time in whatever they’re showing.
So, today’s post will focus on my fool-proof method for the dreaded novel pitch. And if you find it helpful, download the free PDF for future reference. Maybe it will help you get a book deal or sell your books.
What’s Your Book About?
The answer might lead to a million dollars if given to the right person, an agent, a publisher, a reader, a screenwriter, or a movie producer. Yes, I’ve included the big screen. If you’re going to dream, make it worth your while. And if you write a novel for anyone other than yourself, you better be able to distill it into one effective sentence.
To accomplish this, you must boil the story down to the bare bones. At first, it seems impossible. I’m going to make it easy for you. Here’s the good news; you only need four bones. What’s the bad news? If you’re missing one, my fool-proof formula won’t work. But I have more good news. Figure out what’s lacking and you’re halfway there.
The goal is to put the components below into one sentence to describe the what you wrote. When mastered, this method will show the conflict and hook readers.
1. The main character (MC)
2. The inciting incident (What happened? What problem changed the MC’s life? What mess did they get themselves into?)
3. The character’s goal? (The MC must fix the problem or clean up the mess. They must find a solution.)
4. What are the stakes? (This is the horrible thing that will happen if the character doesn’t achieve their goal.)
Think of it like this:
The MC and the goal verses the inciting incident and the stakes.
One way to approach this is when the inciting incident disrupts the MC’s life, they must achieve a goal, or they’ll suffer the stakes.
The inciting incident will lead to the stakes if the MC doesn’t find a solution.
Examples from Movies
I attempted to color code this post, but I’m not able to do it because of the limitations on Substack.
In the PDF file I’m giving you, each component is in the following colors.
Color codes: The MC is green.
The goal is blue.
The inciting incident is purple.
The stakes are red.
They aren’t necessarily in that order. Just construct a sentence using them.
I wrote the following loglines for the films. It’s what I think the movies are about.
The Fugitive
A doctor framed for murdering his wife hunts for the real killer, while he evades a federal agent intent on arresting him.
This has all four components. The best part of this hook, in my opinion, is a doctor is being framed. Society generally considers doctors as law-abiding citizens. If the word gangster replaced the doctor, I wouldn’t care as much.
· The Wizard of Oz
A lonely farm girl gets caught in a tornado and ends up in a magical land where she must find a wizard with the power to send her home or never see her family again.
· Thelma & Louise
When a woman kills a man for trying to rape her best friend, they run from the law that will deny them a fair trial and incarcerate them.
· Scarface
A Cuban immigrant becomes entangled in drug smuggling and succeeds at becoming a powerful drug lord while his addiction and enemies threaten his rise to the top.
· Titanic
An unhappy, engaged woman falls in love with another man aboard a ship and chooses her new soulmate over her fiancé to avoid a life of misery with the wrong guy.
Examples from Books:
· Run Girl Run (This is the pitch for my own novel.)
An abused teenage girl takes an offer to run away with a male friend but must find safety and solve a family secret, or she’ll be homeless and never see her little brother again.
· The Shining by Stephen King
A recovering alcoholic takes a job as a winter caretaker in a haunted, isolated hotel and must resist the influence of murderous spirits, or he will kill his wife and child.
· The Help by Kathryn Stockett
A Caucasian writer rejects racism in the 1960s Mississippi and uses her skills to assist the black maids in penning a tell-all book detailing the injustice or risk becoming part of Mississippi’s problem.
Your Turn:
Hopefully, this post will help anyone who didn’t know how to pitch their story. If you have written a book, tell me what it’s about in the comments. It’s fun to read through them and see what other people have written.
Great topic, Ellen and you explained it really well. The biggest mistake I ever made was not writing one before I wrote the book. Now, I always do. Before I type a single line, I draft my proposed title, taglines, blurbs, and synopsis. It helps me stay focused and know where I’m going. It doesn't mean I don't change my mind. I can then take this piece and make it into a longer synopsis.
Right now, I’m writing a holiday romance—the follow-up to the first book I ever self-published after leaving my former publisher. That book was Hitman’s Honey. The new one? Hitman’s Holiday: A Very Killer Christmas – Snowflakes & Silencers.
Here’s my elevator pitch:
All Rylee wanted was to survive her book launch without puking—but when she’s kidnapped by a hitman, her ex-assassin husband must take one last job to save her. The problem? The target is someone they both care about.
It’s Christmas. The clock is ticking. And someone’s coming—this year, they’re not wearing a white beard.