Make Pitching Playful

I have a confession to make: I like writing pitches. It’s fun. And I like to think that I’m good at it (though I don’t have any concrete support for that claim!).

If you already are a pro at writing short pitches that you can use for Twitter pitch parties or in-person pitch fests, you can maybe skip this post. If you don’t know why you need a short pitch, do a little reading first.

If, on the other hand, you know what a pitch is and why you need it, but feel like you are terrible at it, I have a suggestion for you. Get ready to . . . <drumroll, crescendo> play a board game!

Specifically, see if you can track down Balderdash. You’ll need the version that includes the movies category. In that category, you are given the title of a movie and you have to construct a one sentence description of it. Your challenge is to make it sound just wacky enough to be a believable real-life weird movie. You’ll do better at the game if you can imitate the language and structure of a traditional movie logline. And the practice you get from making up those loglines, I think, can help prepare you for pitching.

Don’t want to play an actual board game? You can still make pitching a game. If you don’t know what good pitches look like, I urge you to prowl through the #pitmad pitches on Twitter. See which pitches get lots of hearts or lots of forwards. What makes pitches work? Ask yourself which pitches make YOU want to read the book, and why.

Then practice. Try to “pitch” your favorite classic works of literature as if they were popular works in your preferred genre. Or, make it more fun and try to pitch classic works of literature as if they were in a DIFFERENT genre. What if you pitch GREAT EXPECTATIONS as a thriller rather than a bildungsroman? Or what if you pitch STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI as if it were primarily a romance, with Leia and Han as the main characters? This could get really fun, I promise. And if you play it was a game in a group, it’s a great way to build community . . . which is important for writers, as I’ve written about in the past.

If you want more serious practice, try helping other writers write THEIR pitches. This will give you practice in taking a title and concept and making them compelling. You will grow stronger yourself while helping another writer. It’s a win-win! So, why not play?