Pitching an Agent
By Eugene Orlando
The pitch means that you describe the key elements in
your book in thirty seconds or less. The elements of a good pitch are three:
1.
The Setup: Set
the stage for your story. Who are your main characters? What is the setting?
What's happening in your story?
2.
The Hook: What
changes happen in your story? What circumstances or obstacles happen of
interest?
3.
The Resolution:
How are things wrapped up without giving away the ending?
A
successful pitch:
The Last Days of Camelot: The Legend of the Black Satin Knickers is Walter Mitty
meets Betty Frieden in that a female high school nerd
runs headlong into glass ceilings, job discrimination, and the usual teenage
problems of the early 60s: bigotry, prejudice, sexual pressures, and idol
worship of the “Camelot” Kennedys. Dodging a pushy,
bigoted father, pesky punk gang, and an insensitive school counselor, the girl
enlists the aid of an even “nerdier” best friend, and
a “together” female British foreign exchange student to emerge safely on her
own two feet.
Another
successful pitch adding expertise information:
I
would like you to consider my 70,000-word young adult, historical fiction novel
(targeting girls 11-14) entitled Growing Up
Victorian, which can be best described as Pollyanna meets Anne of
Green Gables. Intended to be a series of six books, it is a story that pits
a poor, English Victorian girl against her male-dominated household. Besides
facing the difficulty of coming of age in a society that frowned on empowered
women,
Having
taught trainable mentally handicapped children for over twenty years; and
having reared an adopted mentally handicapped girl, I found it intriguing to
create a situation in which a concerned individual would attempt to give a
mentally handicapped child a chance at normalcy in a society that preferred
they be locked away under lock and key.