Fun with DIAMOND
So we recently had to come up with solicitation copy for our DIAMOND PREVIEWS advert. By "WE" I mean "ME" because Kevin hates this kind of shit as much as I do and enjoys watching me squirm.
Seriously though, I HATE writing summaries. In school, I always lost points on essays and term papers because I flat refused to write conclusion paragraphs. If the reader couldn't get my point by reading THE ACTUAL PAPER, it wasn't my problem. Besides, said reader was clearly an idiot and not worth the effort.
I suck at one-sheet pitches too. If I weren't shamed into tears every time I think about it I would post the first draft of my GH pitch. Kevin stopped reading it 1/3 of the way through because he was "beginning to doubt my ability as a writer."
In my experience, it's not possible to describe a complex idea or story line in a single paragraph WITHOUT sounding like a Ron Popeil infomercial. Flip through an issue of PREVIEWS, you'll see what I'm talking about. I'd feel less dirty if they just printed "GEARHEAD: Buy the book and we'll suck you off!" Oh well, you can't win if you don't play...
GearHead #1
Shelby Cooper lives just outside a world of spandex politicians and
electric cars - but FUCK them and their world. She's a hot chick with
a hotrod. She drives fast, talks trash and hurts people with a big-ass
wrench. What does any of that have to do with super powers? Well...
On a mission to find her brother and in search of the destiny she
never knew she had, Shelby's life is about to get interesting. Join
her on a 4-issue road trip that leads from the drag strip all the
way to the White House. Like her father before her, she is GearHead.
-Hopeless
Seriously though, I HATE writing summaries. In school, I always lost points on essays and term papers because I flat refused to write conclusion paragraphs. If the reader couldn't get my point by reading THE ACTUAL PAPER, it wasn't my problem. Besides, said reader was clearly an idiot and not worth the effort.
I suck at one-sheet pitches too. If I weren't shamed into tears every time I think about it I would post the first draft of my GH pitch. Kevin stopped reading it 1/3 of the way through because he was "beginning to doubt my ability as a writer."
In my experience, it's not possible to describe a complex idea or story line in a single paragraph WITHOUT sounding like a Ron Popeil infomercial. Flip through an issue of PREVIEWS, you'll see what I'm talking about. I'd feel less dirty if they just printed "GEARHEAD: Buy the book and we'll suck you off!" Oh well, you can't win if you don't play...
GearHead #1
Shelby Cooper lives just outside a world of spandex politicians and
electric cars - but FUCK them and their world. She's a hot chick with
a hotrod. She drives fast, talks trash and hurts people with a big-ass
wrench. What does any of that have to do with super powers? Well...
On a mission to find her brother and in search of the destiny she
never knew she had, Shelby's life is about to get interesting. Join
her on a 4-issue road trip that leads from the drag strip all the
way to the White House. Like her father before her, she is GearHead.
-Hopeless
posted by Hopeless at 11:10 AM
4 Comments:
I'm hardly an expert at the topic, here's one of the things I started doing to help my pitch-writing skills.
I wrote the pitch, not just before writing the script, but before even FULLY THINKING OUT the script. Write it as soon as you get the idea. This helps you emphasize what's important or not important, and because you haven't thought actually thought of the details yet, you never get bogged down into them.
This has led to a semi-regrettable circumstance where my pitch made the story seem a lot better than the actual script was *laughs* whoops.
Looking at your pitch, I'd probably start with the "Shelby Cooper drives fast, talks trash, and hurts people with a big-ass wrench." Apparently the first things you read in a pitch tend to be the most important in determining whether they'll stick with it or not, especially with the notoriously short attention spans of editors.
err, brainfart, suddenly remembered you're not writing it for an editor, you're doing so for PREVIEWS. But still I think it applies.
You could use the one that I wrote for the book.
dustin, we'll use anything you write for the book...
hell, we let you flat a page, we might as well let you write some tasty dialogue and draw some raddy tatties on some shiatt.
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