One of best challenges I've faced as a writer is putting together pitches for publishers.
The first pitch I wrote could only be five sentences in length yet encompass an 8-10 page story. It also had to be hype-free and not ask any questions. I simply had to tell my entire story in five sentences and make it compelling enough to move on to the next stage with the editor, which ended up being a more fleshed out one page outline.
So here's what we're going to do: Pitch your life story to me in five sentences. Tell me what I need to know and hook me on finding out more details.
I'll do it in two:
It's a story about a boy who chases his dreams. Follow the series as it chronicles his life, his adventures and travels as he journies thousands of miles towards his final destinations.
How's that?
That's good but a bit too generic. Use those other three sentences.
So here's what we're going to do: Pitch your life story to me in five sentences. Tell me what I need to know and hook me on finding out more details.
At the age of six, a young boy scrapes his dead kitten off the pavement. Some of it does not come up, but clings to the asphalt like glue. Struggling to understand the paradox of a loving God that his friends and family insist is real, he filters earth's blood and bone through the cross. From divinity school to hospital beds, his pursuit of truth takes him through doubt and fear to the cusp of suffering. Hope purrs back at him with each new stroke of mangled fur.
Oooo...my heartstrings are pulled. Good one.
Where's everybody hiding? This is going to be fun!
Cool exercise, man. I've always had trouble summarizing my stories. Never thought of trying to summarize my life. Let's see...
A good-hearted geek knows what he wants in life from an early age, but time and again, chooses the wrong paths to get there. As he course-corrects again and again, he never doubts the worthiness of his goal, but has to find in himself and his friends the strength to stay on the road.
When the fanatical armies of foreign theocracy land on the shores of the Kingdom of Tuliny, the lands champions must unite to repel the invaders. Tired and disillusioned, their power and spirit broken by time and distrust of one another, the Dragon Corps must resolve to stand together before it is too late to stand against their common foe. The sorcerer known as the Raven must reform the shattered order for his precedence has shown him a future in which a Dragon Corps that stands apart falls as one.
eh, needs work........
When the fanatical armies of foreign theocracy land on the shores of the Kingdom of Tuliny, the lands champions must unite to repel the invaders. Tired and disillusioned, their power and spirit broken by time and distrust of one another, the Dragon Corps must resolve to stand together before it is too late to stand against their common foe. The sorcerer known as the Raven must reform the shattered order for his precedence has shown him a future in which a Dragon Corps that stands apart falls as one.
eh, needs work........
That's your life story?
More interesting than MINE...