This is the magic formula for pitching your book.
Pitching your novel doesn't have to be complicated.
When I was a kid, asking me what the book I was reading was about was kind of a “proceed at your own risk” deal. I would basically sit there and ramble on about everything: the backstory, the protagonist, every single plot point. It’d be faster to just read the book yourself.
If I’m being honest, not much has changed. I just finished watching season one of Severance and while I know what the short pitch for that show is, if you ask ME for a description, you’d better pull up a chair.
But it’s different when it comes to the books I write.
Being able to pitch your book concisely is really important, regardless of genre or target audience. While I know sometimes it seems like “high concept” is all publishing is interested in, I don’t think a good elevator pitch is something only a high concept novel can possess. If your novel and quiet and introspective, if it’s big and complex, if it blends genres, if it’s unlike any other story you can think of—I think you can still come up with a solid pitch.
It’s just a matter of knowing what specific parts of your story are important enough to include in the pitch. That proves to be a challenge for most writers. ALL the components are important, of course! That’s why we included them! But you can’t cram them all into a few sentences.
Enter the tried and true query formula (if you’ve been following me on YouTube the last few years, you saw this coming)…
[CHARACTER] was [STATUS QUO] until [INCITING] happens, and [HERE’S HOW THAT AFFECTS THE MAIN CHARACTER’S LIFE].
Now [CHARACTER] must [GOAL] despite [CONFLICT] or else [CONSEQUENCE].
First of all, when you do this, don’t try to be voicey. Don’t even try to be grammatically correct if it holds you back. You’re going to pretty this thing up later, but for now, you’re going to have a few ugly run-on sentences. Let’s try the first one and talk a little bit about why each part is important.
Character
You need to start with a character. I know that sounds pretty duh, but authors often get so caught up in the awesome worlds they’ve built or the amazing premise or exciting inciting incident that they start there. But readers connect with characters, not premises or worlds. And agents are readers! Start with a character and a brief description.
Examples help, right? So I’ll pitch a book I’m never going to write: JACK VERSUS THE ALIENS. My character is a shy loner named Jack.
Tip: If you’re writing a book with an ensemble cast and multiple POVs, either choose the protagonist who gets the most page time or has the most to lose in the story, OR describe your group as a whole, like the only survivors of a plane crash on a strange island.
Status quo
This is what’s going on in the protagonist’s life right now. If possible, try to show that their situation needs to change, they can’t go on the way things are. Harry’s not just living the good life with the Dursleys. Katniss is facing the Reaping again. In Gone Girl, Rachel’s alcoholism has cost her her job. Your character may or may not know it, but their life needs to get shaken up.
My status quo for Jack...he’s working up the courage to ask the girl he’s had a crush on for years to a dance.
Inciting
This is the earthquake, the new kid moving to town, the letter from Hogwarts. It’s the moment that sets the story into motion. For Jack, that’s going to be aquatic aliens crash-landing in his small town’s lake and kidnapping Jill because they think she’s the long-lost heir to their planet’s sovereign power and they need her help because they’re under attack by rival aliens.
Told you it’d be long and rambling! And this sentence isn’t even over yet...
Here’s how that affects this main character’s life
What does this inciting event mean for your protagonist personally? We can imagine what an alien invasion means for the world. But what does it mean for Jack? Well, the aliens kidnap Jill, so it kind of throws his plans for Homecoming King and queen in peril. Poor guy.
So there’s the first sentence done. Now the second.
Goal
We already know the character, so what’s his goal in light of everything that just happened? For Jack, that’s obviously saving Jill, which means he’s going to have to convince the aliens she isn’t really their queen.
Conflict
Buuut there’s conflict, of course. Every goal needs an obstacle or fifty. Now, your protagonist probably has a ton of obstacles to overcome. Here, you want to pick the one that’s most relevant to the stakes—and even better, the most relevant to the protagonist’s personal stakes.
So Jack will have obvious obstacles, like the fact that these aliens are aquatic and he can’t, you know, breathe underwater, or the fact that unless they speak English he’s going to have a hard time convincing them of anything. But what matters most to Jack in this story? Jill. So the conflict I include in my pitch is going to be Jill-related, to show how much this matters to Jack. And that’s going to be increasing proof that Jill might be a little less human than he thought. See, right there, you can imagine how gut wrenching this is going to be for Jack. Is this girl he thought he knew really someone or something else entirely? Is a happily ever after even possible?
Consequence
Last up is the consequence, which again, are the stakes of the story. Agents want to see stakes, because stakes tell us why all of this matters. And again, big plot stakes and personal character stakes are ideal if you can squeeze both in—and if you’ve done your job as an author, the two are going to be intrinsically tied together by the climax of your book. In this case, the aliens would take Jill away from Earth forever and Jack can kiss his Homecoming Court dreams goodbye.
So what does this look like once we’ve plugged it all in?
Shy loner Jack is working up the courage to ask Jill to go to the Up the Hill dance until aquatic aliens crash-land in their small town's lake and claim Jill is the long-lost heir to their planet's sovereign power which is now being challenged by a rival family, throwing Jack's plans for Homecoming King and Queen in peril.
Now Jack must prove the aliens have the wrong girl despite increasing proof that Jill might be a little less human than everyone thought or else they'll take her from Earth forever and Jack can kiss his Homecoming Court dreams goodbye.
Messy? Rambly? Yup! But all the key components—the beats of my story that agents and editors need to see—are there. From here, playing with it and giving it voice and style is fun. The stressful part is done.
This formula is flexible. Let’s say you’re writing an epic family saga that spans generations. Which character do you choose? Well, if there’s one whose journey is the greatest and whose transformation is the biggest, go with them. But you might also try treating the entire family as the character.
If narrowing in doesn’t work, think more broadly. I think sometimes the way story structure is described makes it seem like something that only works for fantasy or action-adventure stories. The Hero’s Journey uses phrases like Call to Adventure or the Meeting with the Goddess. Save the Cat talks about Bad Guys Close in and High Tower Surprise. Story Structure by James Scott Bell has Doorway of No Return and Final Battle...and all of these ways of describing structure definitely apply to quiet stories, to literary stories, to stories with no paranormal or fantastical elements at all. It’s just that, to me at least, it’s often easier to see how they apply to big epic adventures. Your novel’s antagonist might not be a mustache twirling villain, but your protagonist’s inner demons. The stakes might not be life or death, but life with or without purpose.
If you struggle to fill out that formula, try zooming in on one character and the heart of their journey. If that doesn’t work, try zooming out. What do the characters of your novel stand to lose in broad terms?
If you use this formula to pitch your story, I’d love to hear it in the comments below!
The posts I publish here will remain free. But I have a new series called Ask the Editor, which will publish every Friday. The short pitch: Dear Abby for writers.
The longer pitch: paid subscribers ($5/month or $50/year, cancel anytime) will receive a link to a form where they can submit pretty much anything within a two page limit. Things like…
Queries
Synopses
Pages from their novel
Questions about writing or traditional publishing
A current problem or situation in their writing journey (ie: trying to decide if an agent is a schmagent, disagreeing with beta feedback, etc)
A rant about this whole “trying to get published” endeavor to a sympathetic ear
Every Friday, I’ll respond to/critique as many submissions as I can and publish them together in one post. Because they’ll be behind a paywall, there’s some privacy—your query, pages, or rant about that one really horrible rejection won’t be online for editors to discover when they Google you.
That’s it! I hope to see you over there. :)
Michelle