Summary

The article provides guidance on crafting an effective elevator pitch for genre fiction, emphasizing the importance of condensing a novel into a compelling two-sentence pitch that captures the essence of the story.

Abstract

The article "Making Light Of The Dreaded Elevator Pitch" by Penny Grubb offers authors a method for creating a concise and engaging elevator pitch, which is crucial in the crowded market of genre fiction. Grubb outlines a technique that involves identifying five key elements: the main character, their key objective, a situation highlighting the objective, the opposition, and a potential disaster. By combining these elements into a sentence and a question, authors can formulate a pitch that encapsulates their story's core. The article also advises on when not to use the elevator pitch, suggesting that it should be reserved for correspondence rather than spontaneous encounters, such as in an elevator, to avoid coming across as intrusive.

Opinions

The author believes that the elevator pitch is a "terrible analogy" but acknowledges its effectiveness in capturing interest.
Grubb suggests that authors often struggle to condense their work due to their deep involvement with the story's details.
The article posits that a well-crafted pitch can lead to publisher, editor, or reader interest, which is critical for a book's success.
The author emphasizes the importance of experimenting with different elements to find the most compelling version of the pitch.
Grubb shares personal experience, stating that using this pitching method never resulted in a straight rejection and was even used in book blurbs.
The article humorously advises against using the elevator pitch in an elevator, citing agents who avoid such situations.
Grubb encourages authors to see the elevator pitch as a way to distill their story and demonstrate an understanding of its broader picture.

Making Light Of The Dreaded Elevator Pitch

How to create one and when not to use it

The eye of many a publisher or editor has been caught by a good sharp elevator pitch. It’s a great idea but you know what…? It’s a terrible analogy. However, let’s leave that aside for the moment, and look at one sure-fire way to create a good concise pitch. I’m going to use genre fiction because it’s a crowded market and one where catching the eye of a publisher, editor or reader is key to getting the book out there and getting it read.

People have problems condensing a whole novel into a couple of sentences. Of course they do. As an author, you’ve immersed yourself in many thousands of words; you have honed your characters, worked your way through the intricacies of the plot, the subtleties of relationships, the nuances of a satisfying denouement. You are in the worst possible place to shrink your masterpiece to a few choice words.

Don’t struggle with it, just pin this technique to your wall, and all the pitches you need will be at your fingertips:

The 5 Elements Required To Create A Short Sharp Pitch

Firstly, make a list of these 5 elements:

The name of your main character. If you have more than one main character, then experiment — pick one or try using more than one as a group. See how the pitch develops.
This character’s key objective. Your character will probably have several objectives on their way through the novel. Pick an important one but be creative — try out different ones and see what your final pitch looks like.
A situation which highlights the chosen objective. Again, there might be several. Try them out and see where you land.
The opposition; something or someone who stands in the way of your character achieving their objective. This opposition to your characters’ key objectives always exists. It is a key element of genre fiction.
A disaster that could prevent your character from achieving their objective. Again, such a disaster will always exist because you wouldn’t have a work of genre fiction without it.

The Key Question That Underlies The Elevator Pitch

Using the above 5 elements, you can ask a question that becomes the basis of your pitch: Will the character, in this situation, defeat the opposition, overcome the disaster and achieve their objective?

In genre fiction this is always the question. The character might be an alien, an inanimate object, an animal, a group, a fantasy creature depending on genre, but the underlying question stays the same.

A Worked Example

Let’s assume a mountaineering adventure where our heroine, who we will call Carole Lightfoot, has a lifelong ambition to climb Everest. The achievement of such an ambition is neither easy nor cheap, but Carole has worked hard on her fitness and to accumulate the funds she needs to make the trip of a lifetime. She’s on the mountain, in the death zone, against the clock but with the summit in her grasp, when a fellow mountaineer gets into difficulties and calls for help.

Here are the 5 elements for this story:

Character: Carole Lightfoot.
Objective: to climb Everest.
Situation: she is on the mountain within sight of her goal.
Opposition: the clock. She has limited time to get to the top and return to safety.
Disaster: another climber calls for help.

Creating the pitch:

Using the character, situation and objective, create a sentence: Carole Lightfoot sells everything to fund a single attempt to climb Everest, and is within sight of her goal.

Now use the opposition and disaster to create a question: Will she lose her only chance when a stranger calls for help? Putting together the sentence and the question gives you a short sharp pitch that encapsulates the key elements of the story.

Does It Work?

I started using this idea to pitch my novels in the 1990s. I never once had a straight rejection when using it. I always got a request to see more. Sadly, at that time, my pitches were better than my novels and it was some years later that a publisher took me on. When they did, they took the basis of my original pitch and used it in the blurb on the back of the book, amalgamating the sentence/question into a single entity.

When Not To Use The Elevator Pitch

In an elevator! Don’t ever use the pitch in an elevator. I have met agents at conferences who will struggle up numerous flights of stairs to avoid being peppered with elevator pitches as they ascend. ‘It might be the best pitch in the world,’ one told me. ‘But save it for an email or a letter. From a stranger in an elevator, it’s just creepy.’

Experiment with different characters and situations. Sometimes a less dramatic moment in the book will become a perfect pitch. It’s not only a concise outline of the key elements of a story, it demonstrates that you can stand back from the many thousands of words you’ve written and see the overall picture.

It works for me. I hope it works for you. Happy pitching!