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Pitch Perfect

A new coaching/evaluation service from Storyfix.

 

I’ve been a little scarce here lately, my apologies.

I’ve just returned from a wonderful writing conference in Denver, with the Historical Novel Society.  I taught two sessions amounting to an all day experience, and had a blast with 150 new friends and fellow writers who were as hungry for craft as any group I’ve seen.

With the decks cleared, I’m all set to move forward with more content here on Storyfix.  I hope you’ve enjoyed my guest posters while I’ve been away.

Read me on The Kill Zone blog.

Speaking of content… I have a new post up over at The Kill Zone, where I’m honored to be a new member of this team of esteemed thriller and mystery authors who post some of the best content on writing on the internet.  I’ll be posting every other Monday, with this latest entitled: Essential Answers the Mystery/Thriller Author Must Have.

My first post two weeks ago is available HERE.

Click on over and enjoy the read.

My New Coaching Service

This idea clarified for me this weekend as I worked with those historical authors on the pitches they were about to deliver to agents later in the weekend.

The message was clear: there’s a good, better and best way to deliver a pitch… and there’s an all-too-common way to have it go off the rails.

The solution is structuring the pitch with a solid intro that’s short and concise, defining some combination of concept and premise, with a summarized “this is why readers will love this story” positioning statement, usually highlighting what is unique and fresh about the story they – the agent or editor – is about to hear.  From there you launch into the story, but in a certain way that keeps the agent from nodding off.

The reason this works is the simple fact that agents who attend conferences aren’t usually at their first rodeo, they’ve heard hundreds if not thousands of pitches, and after a while – especially within a given genre – the stories begin to sound the same.

The thing they want to hear more than anything, the reason they came, is to find a story that is indeed fresh and unique, with a sense of craft-savvy oozing from the pores of the writer doing the pitching.

The new service I’m offering is simple.

I’ll read your pitch for $49.  Keep it to one page (I’ll send you a sample/model upon sign up), if for no other reason than this is what agents want to hear in a first pass, either written or face to face.  If they want more they’ll ask… and that’s the point, to give them a reason to want more.

My feedback will be straight-forward relative to the strategy and structure of the pitch, as well as the quality of the presentation (written as a query letter, which easily translates to live delivery for conferences and the occasional hotel elevator), as well as the chops of the story itself.

It’s so easy to tell too much, to go off topic even when you think you’re still telling the story, with certain hot buttons and structural points becoming essential elements.

Feedback will include solutions as well as critique, and includes my read and commentary of your revision based on the initial feedback.

If this sounds timely for you, just use Paypal to enlist, sending $49 to this email (or request billing from me).  I’ll put a Paypal button up on the Storyfix home page soon… for now, just contact me directly.

Wishing you a great writing week.

Larry

Denver crowd

A few minutes before the first session in Denver, as the folks are still arriving.

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