What It Takes To Sell Your Pitch, Part 2

[LeeNordling]

Welcome to another piece of the pitching pie-that’s-not-in-the-sky.

“But I’m still working on the first piece,” you say, spraying crumbs.

“That’s fine,” I reply, with my transparent face-shield in place, “but once you’ve set the hook, you’ve got to start reeling in the fish…er, editor, and that’s where this second column comes in handy.”

“So this part is about writing the actual pitch, right?”

“That’s right,” I respond, “and it’s another first step towards learning to write with intention,” introducing a phrase I conjured since these articles were first published.

“Writing with intention?” you repeat, your face scrunching.

“Let me just say that there is no greater feeling for me as a writer than to have somebody respond to what I wrote exactly as I’d planned for them to respond.” I elaborate, “Crafting language in that fashion is writing with intention. Since most writers aren’t first-draft wonders, getting this right requires you to be able to step back from your story and read it as if you hadn’t written it…but we’ll get back to this many columns from now; I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“What else have you figured out since first writing this column?” you ask.

“Well,” I respond, having to face the music, “I’m sorry to say that a couple aspects of this article haven’t been received as clearly by readers as I’d hoped.”

“So somebody didn’t respond to what you wrote exactly as you’d planned for them to respond?”

“Yes,” I admit, “lots of somebodies.”

“What didn’t come through clearly?”

“Well,” I answer, now in humbled self-flagellation-mode, “when I wrote my example of how a short portion of a pitch could be reconceived from a longer one, a lot of writers took my example as a representation for how far the entire story needed to go in a pitch--in this case the first act--so I started seeing a lot of single paragraph pitches that only set up the first act of the story and didn’t tell the rest. I’d criticize this, and often read, in response, ‘But that’s how far you went in your example.’

“They’d picked up part of the point, but also taken a completely different, unintended point from it.”

“So you’re ‘fessing up to stop that from happening with this new batch of readers,” you conclude.

“Yep,” I continue. “It’s vitally important that your pitches tell some broad-strokes version of the entire story, otherwise it’s difficult for editors to tell whether the ending is worth the journey.

“Also,” I add, fully shamefaced, “writers took my ‘shorter is better’ declaration to mean that a full pitch should be the smallest possible length, something that would make a TV Guide summary feel like War and Peace, when what I simply intended to impart is that good, short writing that covers the important bases is better than longer plot-filled writing that obscures your intentions.”

“So you screwed up.”

“Yep. It shows just how hard it can be to write with intention, and there’s no more valuable help setting things straight than finding out how what you thought you wrote differs from what you actually wrote.”

“Hmmm,” you ponder.

“This is why,” I clarify, “it’s important to pay attention to people’s reaction to your writing, then recognize, if they don’t understand what you intend, it’s your responsibility, not theirs. In short, if they don’t like something, it’s entirely possible you haven’t yet explained it well.”

“So it’s always on me?” you ask, feeling forced into a corner we’ve all spent time in.

“It’s at least on you to find out whether somebody who doesn’t like your story actually perceives what you intended, and if they do, then they simply don’t like your story. But if they don’t perceive what you intended, then you have another chance to make your writing match up to those intentions.

“You should also try this interview process with folks who like your story. It can be of real value to ask them whether they perceived important aspects you intended. This can involve a lot of Q&A, but it’ll be worth it.

“And when the work comes out well, you get most of the credit,” I conclude.

“Guess that’s not a bad tradeoff,” you say, considering the potential for great success over a long career.

Glad you see it that way. So let’s get back to work.


“WHAT IT TAKES TO SELL YOUR PITCH”

PART 2

This is the second in a three-part series on various ways you can improve your hitting percentage with editors.

Have you noticed that when you show your pitches to editors/producers/friends/relatives, they can’t see the potential for what you envisioned?

Remember having to explain the nature of that potential?

Remember promising them that the finished story will fulfill that potential?

Remember that look of patronizing encouragement or doubt?

Remember that you felt you (to quote Butch Cassidy) “have vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals”?

Pitches are roadmaps for where you’re going with your stories. They are also the promises of things to come.

This column is about not saving your good writing for later…but writing the most compelling pitch you possibly can, and for that you need to…

“SELL, DON’T TELL”

All writing is selling.

All of it.

Every last word.

Whether you realize it or not, through the process of writing and communicating, you’re selling ideas…and you’re selling yourself as the purveyor of those ideas.

If you’re a technical writer, you’re selling accuracy or process.

If you’re a non-fiction writer, you’re selling an interpretation of facts.

If you’re a columnist, you’re selling a perspective…just like I’m doing now.

If you’re a writer of fiction, whether the medium is comics, film, prose or plays, you’re selling your vision of what’s happening to characters that don’t exist in places you may have never been to. You’re selling us on any number of things: that a character is a sweetie or an asshole, that he or she is motivated to behave or change in a particular way, that an image or setting looks or smells or feels a specific way. And you’re selling us the idea that these things all mesh together.

You’re selling us on your vision of an ordering of events that never happened, and you want us to become completely immersed in the story and its world.

So, should the selling of your vision begin with the finished manuscript?

Obviously, it shouldn’t.

Selling—or communicating what’s important, if the word selling somehow offends you—needs to begin at the earliest possible moment that you’re trying to get somebody to read what you’ve written…or ask you to write more.

That’s the purpose of pitches, right?

I know writers pour their hearts and minds into writing pitches, and I’m not questioning their effort. However, when a publisher’s guidelines indicate that writers should deliver a one-paragraph, one-page or two-page pitch/synopsis, most of the pitches read like a laundry list of events with over-long paragraphs, run-on sentences, smaller type faces, crowded margins, and twenty-pounds of story stuffed into a two-pound bag.

“Don’t you think a pitch should tell what happens?” you say.

Yes…and no.

Your pitch is a roadmap, but it shouldn’t show every street, or the reader could make a wrong turn and get lost. The map should simply indicate the ones that will get the reader to end up where you want them to be.

When pitches are presented as packed-together sequencing of events, editors have to cull through them to find the emotional arcs of your story, and they’ve got a better-than-even chance of missing the diamonds you planted in your story’s heart.

So what are you selling, the sequencing of events…or your story?

You can’t sell both…not without a lot more space. Ultimately, that’s what the comic/film/novel/play is for.

The complete sequencing of events for your story is important, but not at the pitch stage. At this stage, you’d be surprised how little beyond the concept and the arc of the story is important.

The art to writing a pitch is remembering that your primary goal is to sell the reader on why the characters are doing what they’re doing, and that the story is evolving in a natural and compelling manner. Too much detail in a pitch obscures these larger concerns, and the reader can get lost.

You may think that these charming nuances add depth to your pitch and help sell it, but this is rarely the case. An abundance of detail throws off the perceived balance of what is and isn’t important about your story.

For example, imagine you’re in a room that’s completely empty of furniture, and there are five huge diamonds lying at different locations on the floor. They’re not too hard to see, right? Those signify the important parts of your story, the aspects that determine its uniqueness and arc.

Now, imagine you’re in the same room, and the room is three-inches deep in rubies, emeralds, sapphires and opals, along with those same five diamonds. How easily do you think you can find those diamonds now? Yep, it’s pretty hard…and there’s a really good chance that two, three or four diamonds could be missed completely.

This is what a reader has to sort through to find and identify the important aspects of your story…ultimately to determine whether they want to see a longer version.

Why make it hard on them? Why put in stuff that gets in the way?

What are you selling?

What follows is an example of the kind of over-writing I’ve seen in pitches and treatments, all because the writer couldn’t bear to leave out events he or she was certain would help sell the story.

Version #1: “Harry is fired from his job. He’s been fired a lot. He’s depressed. He trudges out of his office, takes the elevator to the ground floor, then steps out onto the street, buys a gun from a local crook, and drives home. When he sits down, he tears his pants on a chair spring, but he’s so depressed he doesn’t notice. He’s decided to commit suicide and puts the gun to his head. He pulls the trigger and is sprayed with water. The gun is a water pistol.”

Version #2: “Harry comes home from work, disgusted that he’s reached a new low and been fired after only twenty minutes on the job. He eases into his favorite chair, barely noticing the spring that thrusts at him through the upholstery and tears his pants. He contemplates what may or may not be ahead…and sees nothing. With clenched teeth, Harry picks up the pistol that he just bought from a local thug, sets it against his temple, pulls the trigger…and squeals as the pistol erupts with a squirt of water.”

The first version is flatly written, and it utilizes little in the way of voice or tone. Until we see that Harry tried to commit suicide with a water pistol, there was little in the writing that suggested this was a comedy. This is a critical mistake in a pitch, as there’s no reason for an editor to believe that the writer who wrote this could write a comedy.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a writer say, “But I’m really a good writer. Just wait and see.”

Don’t save the good writing till later. If you can write comedy, horror, superheroes, whatever, the tone of your writing in the pitch should convey this. If it doesn’t, then we can’t tell what kind of writer you are.

The first version tells the story. The second sells the story…and it sells you. It evokes the tone of the story, using language that sells it as a comedy, and it sells you as the person who can write it.

Sell, don’t tell.

Write your pitch so that the reader will have the appropriate emotional response, and you’re halfway home. Now, let’s take you the rest of the way.

The second version may have been better at evoking the tone of the story, but is that enough? It is probably fine for a treatment, but it’s not good enough for a pitch. You want to grab the reader by the throat and not let him have a chance to wiggle free.

This is where we discuss the idea that less is more.

Version #3: “Harry is a nowhere man who’s floundered in life and failed at everything he’s ever attempted, even suicide.”

Version #2 may or may not be amusing…but Version #3 is written in broad-strokes and immediately propels us into the character and his dilemma.

Let’s continue the story about poor Harry, and I’ll spare you the flatly written version: “Harry packs everything he has of value into his bag. It’s a small bag. He stands in the doorway to his bedroom, which he’s kept spotless for nobody besides his goldfish to notice—but goldfish don’t notice much, do they? He sighs. Then he walks down the hallway one last time, sighing continuously. Finally, he stands in the open front doorway to his house and closes it with an even bigger sigh. He sighs on the way to his car, and is interrupted only by his neighbor’s dog, as it manages to catch him and tear the other leg of his pants as a going-away present. Once safely inside his car, Harry turns the key in the ignition, and hears the clicking of a battery that’s nearly expired. More sighing. Harry opens his bag, takes out the Crest-encrusted toothbrush, slips it into his shirt pocket, and walks away from his bag, his car, his house and his life. He’s going to walk the sidewalks of suburbia, like Caine, in search of new failures.”

Back to the broad-strokes Version #3, which now encompasses the entire story as we know it: “Harry is a nowhere man who’s floundered in life and failed at everything he’s ever attempted, even suicide, so he leaves behind every trophy of his failure, determined to walk the sidewalks of suburbia, like Caine, in search of new failures.”

Conceptually, there’s nothing missing from the broad-strokes Version #3, so the editor/producer/relative/friend can immediately tell what’s important about the story.

They can immediately spot your diamonds on the floor.

The expanded version may be fine for a more detailed outline, which would come later in the process of story development, but when you’re trying to sell somebody on what’s compelling about your story, shorter will always be better.

Shorter is better.

Less is more.

What you’ve read about Harry Walks Like Caine is only the premise and inciting incident.

When this needs to be a one-page or two-page pitch, you’ll have plenty of space to tell us what happens when Harry walks the sidewalks of suburbia, like Caine.

If you use the Version #2 style of writing for a two-page pitch, you’ll quickly run out of real estate and several situations could occur.

You could end up rushing the middle and ending, and the focus of the pitch will be out of balance, with the weight all at the front.

You could run five pages too long, and then you’ll start cutting words and phrases, rather than re-conceiving the pitch as a whole, and the pitch will have a chopped-up feeling.

You could reduce the text from 12 pt. to 7 pt. type, extend the margins, delete the spaces between paragraphs, combine paragraphs, and hope the editor doesn’t notice…and I kid you not that this happens.

This is what happens when you try to fit your entire plot into too little space.

“Well, sure,” you say, “You wrote the premise, which is the easy part. Try doing that for the rest of the story!”

Sure. Here’s the entire second act (which is approximately half the story): “Not once in 237 attempts, has Harry Who Walks Like Caine successfully stopped the serial pie-thrower known as the Crazed Clown from splattering a pie company executive. However, at the scene of the last splattering at Acme Pies, he discovers a meringue-spotted driver’s license that reveals the true identity of the masked clown. The name on the license is his. Armed with this knowledge, he’s determined to stop himself, and it’s going to be a battle to the death!”

The trick to conceiving your story in broad strokes is remembering the purpose of each of your acts, and, for the sake of convenience, I’m going to only deal with the three-act structure.

Act One: Problem.

Act Two: Complication.

Act Three: Solution.

Leave out the detail and you’ll be fine. Write even one line that involves a character actually completing an action then you’re already taking your pitch into the red zone of over-complication.

Write in arcs, not in events, and you’ll clearly convey the elements that are driving your story.

This applies to defining your characters, too.

You have a pretty good idea about the nature of Harry, right? So you don’t really need to know more about him, do you? No, you don’t, not for the pitch. Save Harry’s upbringing in a circus sideshow till later.

There is a line about character motivation I learned from Robert McKee: Nobody does more than they think they need to do to get what they want.

I find this works for people, too.

Translation: People don’t extend themselves beyond what they think is necessary.

When I worked at DC Comics in the mid-‘90s, I was Group Editor of Creative Services, and I saw all the pitches that were being distributed for executive approval.

One pitch, whose writer I won’t identify, read something like this: “In this series, I’m going to keep doing what I did in the (insert character name here) mini-series.” That was it, the entire pitch, and it sold.

Why? Could it be that a popular writer wrote this pitch, and the DC Comics editorial staff knew exactly what it would be getting from him? Absolutely.

There needs to be a body of work before an editor or producer can have this degree of confidence about what they’re going to get.

If you’re writing a pitch, never presume that the person reading it is going to give you the benefit of the doubt…about anything.

Nobody’s going to believe you if you tell them you can do it, just as they’re not going to buy off on a story that simply tells what happens.

It’s your job to instill a sense of confidence, and to do that you have to sell them on your story…and yourself.

***

Lee Nordling is the owner and founding partner of The Pack (the-pack.biz), a comics-related content provider for the publishing industry. He is also author of “Your Career In the Comics,” an overview of the newspaper comics syndication profession and industry.

If you wish to contact Lee separately from Comics Pro Prep, please write to him at lee@projectfanboy.

[MichaelRoberts]

Great stuff here. It's so hard to kill off those details that you like, but it makes a tremendous difference in the pitch. Thanks for the info!

[ScottWilliams]

Scott likes this column. It makes him want to take another stab at finishing/rewriting his "novel". :D

[DVS]

Real cool stuff your putting out, I do enjoy the info.

[drgerb]

I came across this article on accident. Turns out I already read these first 3, but hey. Rereading never hurts. So I was trying to fill the Steven Forbesless void in my heart when I came across this new article. After a few blind mindless clicks, I realized, dude. This Lee Nordling guy taught Steven a ton! He can teach me a ton too! So while at times I curse Steven D. Forbes for leaving us to pursue greener pastures, I realize maybe good things do happen in the end.. But anyway.

Just gonna say welcome to the crew (assuming you weren't part of it before, like before I was.. If I am... Erm...), great first couple of posts, and I'm DEFINITELY looking forward to reading them weekly to take the place of logging on every Tuesday to read's Steven's Bolts and Nuts articles. As much as I learned reading Bolts and Nuts, I'm excited to learn anything I can from Comics Pro Prep. So woohoo. You've already got a handful of eager listeners and aspiring creators, so I'm pumped. Anyway..


Come on people! Lee said we should try something in week one. He said we should try writing pitches to famous books / movies we have already seen. I figured it's worth a shot. Let's all try some pitches for some famous movies and see who can come up with the best ones. And if you come up with a great from for Star Wars, or Space Balls, or whatever... Let's just see if someone else can come up with something better. And if they can, then we all can learn something.. On TOP of what Lee has already taught, and will continue to teach us.

I figured I'd take an easy route out, and pitch a movie that has SUCH an awesome premise, you couldn't fail at pitching it:


A guy who cannot make new memories has to use the tools available to him to find and kill the man who killed his wife. --Memento

I left out the ending and such, as the movie is all so out of order that you can't *REALLY* pick up on the rising action, the 3 acts, all that sort of stuff. Is that a sign of a good movie? Who knows. When you watch that movie, the ending was GREAT, and I loved it but a friend of mine hated it cause he realized every character in that movie was basically, in one way or another, using another character. There was no true love, no true beauty, just me using you, you using him, him using me, all that. Which is interesting in it's own right. But you get to the end and you realize (spoiler, if you've not yet seen it) the main character will do anything to FEEL as though he succeeded in his quest. He even openly admits that it's not about whether he succeeds with his quest or not, it's about whether he FEELS, or see's himself succeed or not. And when you can't make new memories... Well? Interesting movie, and anyone who hasn't seen it really should.

Anyone ever see Mean Creek? Good movie. Can anyone pitch it? I can't. The first thing I imagine is 'Some boys ______, only to accidentally ________, which leads to ________...' I just can't fill in the blanks. A great movie in my opinion, just so hard to come up with a pitch. Can anyone explain why? I can't. That's why I'm asking.

Say, if you look at two great stories (or movies), and you go to pitch them in one sentence, or one paragrah, and you find one story SO EASY to pitch, but the other story so hard, and you don't even know where to begin... What causes that? Is there a common attribute to stories that can have easy pitches? As opposed to GOOD stories who seem to be hard to pitch? In week 1, Lee mentioned The Sixth Sense. Such a great movie, but it has that big idea, and that alone WAS the pitch. The good enough pitch to get anyone interested. I guess Memento almost had that too, just the crisp, detailed, inciting idea that makes *almost* everyone ask, 'what happens?!' Whereas other movies, maybe more plot based, and story based, more on developing characters, watching the action rise, fall, seeing the twists, the plot changes, all that... Seem harder to pitch for. That *one great theme* or one interesting idea can pitch itself. But when you're missing that, what do you do?

Like the Lord of the Rings or Star Wars (I guess looking at a 3 or 6 movie series may be hard).. But neither of them had that "ONE GREAT PITCH" waiting to be told. I guess LotR kinda did... The idea of one ring ruling everything... And what must be done? But Star Wars was so all over the map, what do you do with that? I was going on the recent flicks, the new trilogy, thinking, hypotheticaly, 'If you could teach a man (Anakin) how to utilize this force, but he is destined to fall to the dark side, would you?' In hopes of him succeeding in "his destiny," but knowing there's always that chance? What if he NEEDS to fall to the dark side in order to his son to aspire to right what he wronged? I guess that's an interesting enough pitch. But still... Bleh. I dunno.

Anyone got any pitches for the movies I mentioned? I'm so interested in seeing pitches we came up for movies I've seen, or can see. Come on, all, let's give it a shot. Take a couple minutes and try to write a pitch for your favorite movie. I'm eager to hear your take on things, in perspective to my take on things. Kk.

And thanks again, Lee, for joining the crew. Eagerly awaiting every new article.

[LeeNordling]

Thanks for keeping this discussion alive, Roberts.

SPOILER NOTE: Nobody should read a word further into any of my columns or the discussion if they don't want to read how stories end...because Rosebud was a sled, and we need to discuss that in order to get to the heart of the intent of Citizen Kane.

Memento is a great one with which to work, and it's one I've never created a hook for, so here goes a glimpse into my process.

My first stab tried to figure out how get the whole loses-his-memory-intermittently thing into a story told backwards.

In short, I got caught up in wanting to tell too much, then suddenly I had it, a hook that would be so compelling that somebody would HAVE to read more (and find out the other cool stuff that makes this one of the great films of the last 20 years):

This is the story about an amnesiac who's searching for his wife's murderer, only for us to discover that he's already killed him.

Now, I changed "for him" to "for us," because our amnesiac never comes to realize that he killed his wife's killer; the revelation is for us alone. It's a minor alteration, but it sets the hook and doesn't get a nitpicker to say, "But HE never does realize that."

Now let's smooth it out some more: This is the story about an amnesiac who's searching for his wife's murderer, even though he's already killed him.

The paradigm helps us keep the what-goes-where aspect of the sentence, but don't be afraid to clean it up...as long as you keep the reveal for the latest possible place in the sentence.

--Lee

[CalvinCamp]

Unfortunately, when it comes to writing hooks based on the paradigm, I have a tough time doing it. I've read and re-read (and re-read) the article. I've had Lee (and Steven) personally try to beat it into my thick skull. And it still doesn't entirely make sense to me. But it's worth another try, I guess.

Hot Fuzz:
This is the story of an heroic cop who is disappointed to find himself reassigned to a quiet little town, and his bumbling new partner who dreams of being a hero, only for the two of them to discover that they can be heroes anywhere.

To me it would work much better as:
Nicholas Angel is an heroic cop, disappointed to find himself reassigned to a quiet little town. Danny Butterman, Angel's bumbling new partner, has only dreamed of being a hero. Together they discover that they can be heroes anywhere.

But that's probably what Lee means about the point being more important than the paradigm. Or I might have messed it all up completely (again). :)

[LeeNordling]

Let's play question and answer.

Is that the coolest thing about your story, Calvin? Two cops learn to become heroes?

I get something like that as a log line/one line TV Guide summary, but isn't there some real surprise that occurs in this story that spins it on its head?

If so, then what is it?

If not, then how else does the story surprise us?

--Lee

[drgerb]

Nice Memento pitch. To work it so quicker than mine. I had no idea just to use something like, 'Wife's murderer,' instead I was using 'the man who killed his wife.' Like duh. Not only did you condense it but you left that tiny bit of a bombshell of what if it DID already happen? And, in the movie, that can go both ways. Cause the first death you see is of that cop, of the Leonard's version of who must have killed his wife. So you are kind of witnessing it happen along with Leonard, who is seeing this as his epiphany, as 'I finally did it!' When in the end, the cop is trying to make Leonard understand that he already got his man. Whether that's true, or whether the cop is just playing Leonard as a tool to do his dirty work, to keep him around as long as possible is besides the point. But regardless:

Yeah, I gotta go with Lee here (duh), Calvin. While that pitch sounds (I haven't seen the movie, so bear with me) like it *could* be the major plot to a good movie, it's missing that bit where it kinda slams you over the head.

I just saw Zombieland (great movie that's helping in bridging the gap between the coolness of zombies and the rest of the world that doesn't realize that, hah), and I'm kinda stuck where Calvin may be with Hot Fuzz...

And maybe it's not our pitch -telling abilities, as much as it's the movie not having that big bombshell waiting to be revealed. Zombieland was just a straight up good movie. There wasn't a huge bombshell / plot twist or anything. It was just a GOOD zombie movie and I can't even think of a pitch other than, 'zombie movie.' or something. Hah. I guess maybe something like...


A young kid scared of the world becomes ready to live in it when it is overrun by zombies.

And even that doesn't touch on the big issues, cause he finds friendship in this world, he finds the theoretical family he never had, and he finds love. He's not just a kid scared of the world outside his living room window. I dunno. Great discussion though.

[CalvinCamp]

Is that the coolest thing about your story, Calvin? Two cops learn to become heroes?
Well, it's not my story. It's a movie.

And I didn't say it was about them learning to become heroes. What I said was that they "discover that they can be heroes anywhere."

One was already hero. He was such a hero he made the other cops look bad, which was why he got shoved off to the middle of nowhere. And he didn't think he could be a hero in the middle of nowhere. The other was just living up the low expectations for a cop from a nowhere town, and dreaming of being a big city hero. But he didn't think he could really be one. It was both of them learning that they could be heroes, regardless of where they were, that was the point. Danny didn't need to dream of being a hero, he could really be one, right in his little rural home town. And Angel didn't need to be in the city, tackling big cases and racking up commendations, to be a hero. He could also be a hero, on a smaller scale, right there in the same little rural town.

I don't know if you've seen the movie, but that last scene... where Angel and Danny are peeling rubber and sliding around corners, tearing up the streets like they're in hot pursuit, but it's over something completely innocuous...just having fun and being small town heroes... THAT'S what the whole movie is about. All the weird antics and adventure building up to that moment (setting up the situation, making friends, solving the mystery, stopping the bad guys, Danny stepping up and being a real cop, Angel lightening up and learning to be something besides just a cop, etc), is just getting us to that moment. At least that's what I got from it.

There is a "big twist" (in the plot). So I suppose I could go with that and have something like...
This is the story of a big city cop who is reassigned to a quiet little town, only to discover that the quiet little town is really just an artificial facade propped up by conspiracy and murder.

Is that catchier? Probably. And it's accurate enough, I guess. But, to my mind, it isn't what the movie is really about.

I don't know. Like I said, the paradigm doesn't entirely make sense to me. It always seems like it's too little space to do more than highlight a single element of a story. And how many stories have only a single element? So I looked for the over-arching theme that the elements support. The problem is that over-arching themes don't generally have twists.

[LeeNordling]

The paradigm is pretty simple, if hard to utilize.

The first half of the sentence sets up the twist, making us think it's about one thing, then the twist in the second half of the sentence reveals what the story is REALLY about.

No twist, and it's boring.

Your revision: "This is the story of a big city cop who is reassigned to a quiet little town, only to discover that the quiet little town is really just an artificial facade propped up by conspiracy and murder."

How does the back end of that sentence specifically spin on the first half? It doesn't, so there's no connection, and it flounders.

You're just putting too many layers in it, not finding the heart of the ironic twist.

This is a story about a cop who runs away from big city crime, only for him to discover that small town crime is more horrible than anything he could imagine.

Nope, I don't know if that's quite right, but the irony is there, and should continue to be there when it actually reflects the story.

Naw, he doesn't have to run away (if he doesn't in the movie), but it's more interesting to see a character driven away from something to have to face an even worse incarnation.

This is no easy exercise.

I've known ONE person to ever get it out of the gate.

But then again, how many people do you know who have mastered poetry, prose, playwriting, or screenwriting first time out of the gate.

Make no mistake, this is a new form of writing to you, and if was easy then everybody would be doing it, just like they'd be all selling screenplays, and out-Shakespearing Shakespeare.

--Lee

PS. I reread your line this morning, and I was wrong; there IS a twist in your line. The town is supposed to be quiet, but it's really an "an artificial facade propped up by conspiracy and murder." So, something is quiet, but it's really not is the best twist this story has? I doubt it.

Another weakness in this pitch, which is revealed by the light of day, is that it twists on the town, not the cop. Apparently he doesn't change at all as a result of this story. If he does, as I prompted, try putting HIM at the center of the twist; I promise it'll be more compelling.

[drgerb]

Good point, Calvin. The good news is, I've never seen Hot Fuzz, and seeing your slowly evolving pitch for it is actually making me wanna go see it. Hah. That's cool, and that's the whole point to pitching right there.

While the first pitch gave me the feeling that it has the potential to be an interesting movie, it did seem kinda... Like after reading the pitch, going about and writing the movie, the final movie could have taken so many different turns. Like reading the pitches says it could be a mystery movie, an action movie, a comedy, a drama, what have you.. And while it's kinda cool to leave that open, I think it'd drive a potential editor / publisher crazy, HAD that original one (and even the following ones) been for one of your own stories. That vagueness and ambiguity that doesn't really get down to the nitty gritty of what the movie IS, I think... But yeah. Maybe it's just the movie. This process is slowly showing me that pitching is damn hard. And this is for movies. Pitching your own project, where as Lee mentioned in the article, you don't wanna leave anything out.

But that one analogy with the diamonds in the room was a great metaphor and I think I'm slowly learning about that. Take Star Wars and zoom in on the biggest issue. The originals; Boy wants to save the world, but the enemy turns out to be his father. All of a sudden the floodgates are let loose. If George Lucas threw in references to Boba Fet, and the pit in the desert, to Jabba the Hutt, and ALL those awesome secondary aspects, that really played a MAJOR role in his movie, he mighta been laughed outta the office building. Hell maybe he was laughed out of a few. But somewhere, the right pitch meeting up with the right movie maker person led to the biggest movie event in the last 30 years. Probably more.

Anyone ever hear about Sly Stallone, and the story behind Rocky? SO many people turned him down, saying the movie was too cliche, they knew what was gonna happen, it just didn't work. So many people turned him down as the actor, saying he looks funny, he isn't hot, not famous actor material.. And even the producer who DID end up producing it; They offered him $250,000 for the script if they could hire their own lead. He wouldn't budge and finally he accepted $30,000, along with the leading role. The movie ended up making millions and made Stallone into a star.

I think comics has that same element, albeit in much a smaller scale. Editors are keeping their eyes peeled for that next big thing with that much potential. If they can edit it, and have their name on it, then if it IS that great and does get big, there'll be SO MANY more aspiring creators willing to pay them. Every colorist is keeping his eye open for a job, and he may accept on because the inker has crisp lines, and he may deny another cause the story is garbage. He'd get paid through both stories, but maybe he'd take one cause the potential is there. And if it's the next Watchmen, boom, everyone knows his name as a colorist and it's that much easy to find the next job.

And even on a company / creator standpoint. The companies / professionals want us aspiring creators to succeed, with the hopes of us having that next best idea, and us signing to them / their brand. We hit it big, we break out, and they do too in a small way. If the creator succeeds and breaks out, every other creator, every other publisher has their eye on him. If the creator fails, the publisher cans him and it's back to square one. But it's a mutual party here, like a relationship. The better OUR story is, the happier the publisher / editor is. And the more they'll do THEIR job to help us make the best story, to help us promote our work, all that. Cause the more they help us (even in the form of online columns), the more potential we have, and the better the chance that we, collectively, can further the horizons and potentials of the comic book medium. Wow, tangent.

And pitching is almost the basis of it all. Like another metaphor Lee used, fishing. Baiting the hook. One bite and you know you're in the right place, just waiting for that big ass fish. Fishing is a whole hell of a lot of sitting, waiting, and beer drinking. But that one small nibble gets you in the zone, in the game, ready for the beast to come in. And comics is the same exact way.

A great pitch is that nibble. Maybe the finished story becomes that great beast, maybe it fails and is canceled. But even a failed project is better than never even pitching to begin with. Anyway... Guess that's my two cents. So thanks for reposting these pitching articles, Lee. One can really learn alot.

[CalvinCamp]

The paradigm is pretty simple, if hard to utilize.

The first half of the sentence sets up the twist, making us think it's about one thing, then the twist in the second half of the sentence reveals what the story is REALLY about.

No twist, and it's boring.This is one place where I have trouble with the paradigm.

The paradigm has to be about the big twist in the story. It's basically a bait & switch. That much makes sense.

The trouble is that a given story (to my mind at least) may not always be all about the big twist. And the twist (if there even is one) isn't necessarily what makes a story special. And if the twist isn't what the story is about, what makes the story special, then the hook isn't really about the story. And if the hook isn't really about the story, then it's selling a different story than the one it should be. So it seems like a bait & switch hook only makes sense for a bait & switch story.

Of course some stories are all about the twist, so I can understand how it works there. Like Sixth Sense - that movie is all about the twist, and everything in the story is there to support the twist. But not all stories are like that. Some don't really have a twist to speak of, and some stories have so many twists they'd tie a one sentence hook in knots. So how do you deal with stories that aren't about the one big twist?

Now it does occur to me that I'm interpreting the twist in the hook as a plot twist in the story - which may not be the right way to think about it. I'm not sure where that thought is leading me, yet, but it seems like something worth pondering some more.


Your revision: "This is the story of a big city cop who is reassigned to a quiet little town, only to discover that the quiet little town is really just an artificial facade propped up by conspiracy and murder."

How does the back end of that sentence specifically spin on the first half?
The first half of the sentence sets up the quiet little town. The second half shows that the quiet little town is something else entirely. Of course I suppose that could just be flipping the back on the middle, because the town wasn't the first thing mentioned.

I could go farther back for the flip (to the character and his disappointment at being reassigned, and flip that)...
This is the story of a big city cop who is disappointed to find himself reassigned to a quiet little town, only to discover that, when he's finally given the chance to go back to the city, he's found a home in the little town and doesn't want to leave.

That almost works as a decent description of what the story is about, though it doesn't really do it justice. It also doesn't address that the story isn't just about the big city cop. Unfortunately it always seems like it breaks down whenever I try to address more than one protagonist with it (unless their motivations and goals are nearly identical). Maybe that just means multiple protagonists need multiple hooks?


Naw, he doesn't have to run away (if he doesn't in the movie), but it's more interesting to see a character driven away from something to have to face an even worse incarnation.
In this case, he's driven to something that ends up being better than what he had before. But that's just swapping a positive message for a negative one, so I don't see it as a less compelling premise for a story.


This is no easy exercise.

I've known ONE person to ever get it out of the gate.

But then again, how many people do you know who have mastered poetry, prose, playwriting, or screenwriting first time out of the gate.

Make no mistake, this is a new form of writing to you, and if was easy then everybody would be doing it, just like they'd be all selling screenplays, and out-Shakespearing Shakespeare.

--Lee
Then with the way I have to struggle and fight to learn new things (at least the ones that don't make sense right off the bat), it's going to be a long, hard road. But I'll keep beating my head against it. Something's got to give eventually. Hopefully it won't be my head. :D

[CalvinCamp]

Good point, Calvin. The good news is, I've never seen Hot Fuzz, and seeing your slowly evolving pitch for it is actually making me wanna go see it. Hah. That's cool, and that's the whole point to pitching right there.You should check it out, if you get the chance. It's one my all-time favorite movies.

It's a great comedic send-up of the buddy cop genre. It's also (surprisingly enough, given what most parodies are like) a really good buddy cop movie in its own right, with a lot more depth than you'd think at first glance. So, if you happen like both of those things, it's a major win-win.

[LeeNordling]

"I could go farther back for the flip (to the character and his disappointment at being reassigned, and flip that)...
This is the story of a big city cop who is disappointed to find himself reassigned to a quiet little town, only to discover that, when he's finally given the chance to go back to the city, he's found a home in the little town and doesn't want to leave.

"That almost works as a decent description of what the story is about, though it doesn't really do it justice. It also doesn't address that the story isn't just about the big city cop. Unfortunately it always seems like it breaks down whenever I try to address more than one protagonist with it (unless their motivations and goals are nearly identical). Maybe that just means multiple protagonists need multiple hooks?"

Calvin, these two paragraphs pinpoint the sum of your disconnect with what we're trying to do. Your final suggestion is to question whether we need to add more story, which is exactly what we don't want to do with a hook, per everything I've written about it.

But, you also identify the REASON for the disconnect, even though you didn't realize it when you wrote it. You wrote: "That almost works as a decent description of what the story is about, though it doesn't really do it justice."

"...though it doesn't really do it justice."

You are wanting the hook to tell the whole damn story, exactly what it is NOT supposed to do. It's supposed to HOOK the reader into wanting to actually READ the story.

Do you believe my hook for Citizen Kane does that film justice? Of course not. All it does is identify a core aspect that drives the story, as do all the other successful hooks.

THIS revamp you wrote is almost there: "This is the story of a big city cop who is disappointed to find himself reassigned to a quiet little town, only to discover that, when he's finally given the chance to go back to the city, he's found a home in the little town and doesn't want to leave."

Let's clean this up: This is the story of a big-city cop who gets a crummy small-town assignment, only for him to discover that when he has a chance to return home a hero, he'd rather stay.

See? You DID find the heart of this story, and it works better than before.

--Lee

[CalvinCamp]

But, you also identify the REASON for the disconnect, even though you didn't realize it when you wrote it. You wrote: "That almost works as a decent description of what the story is about, though it doesn't really do it justice."

"...though it doesn't really do it justice."

You are wanting the hook to tell the whole damn story, exactly what it is NOT supposed to do. It's supposed to HOOK the reader into wanting to actually READ the story.Mmmm... I'll think on that, but I'm not sold on that being the problem.

I think where I'm stuck is that I want the hook to wow me like the movie did. And I'm not sure there's any way it can (where we've gotten it to so far certainly doesn't). So I've been asking myself what good it does it to have the hook be technically correct, if it doesn't grab you by the collar and shake you, screaming, "This is the best freaking movie ever!"

But that's probably just expecting too much of the hook. I guess all the hook is really supposed to do is get you to read the next sentence in the pitch, and then it's the pitch's job to do the grabbing and shaking and screaming.


Your final suggestion is to question whether we need to add more story, which is exactly what we don't want to do with a hook, per everything I've written about it.

When I asked if multiple hooks makes sense for multiple protagonists, it's not because I want to cram more story into the hook, it's because I don't know how to address (in the hook) that it's really more than one guy's story.

I can't just plug two guys into the hook we've got. It doesn't work, because their stories aren't the same.

"This is the story of a big-city cop who gets a crummy small-town assignment, only for him to discover that when he has a chance to return home a hero, he'd rather stay."

That's Angel's story (more or less). Danny's story, even though it's completely intertwined with Angel's, travels through the same plot, and ends up in the same place, is a whole different journey heading in the opposite direction. They're both growth stories, but the growth is from opposite ends toward the common middle.

Danny's hook might be something like...
"This is the story of a small town cop who dreams of being a hero, only for him to discover that he already is one."

They're both major players, both pivotal to the story(ies), and deserve equal billing. The movie is about the two of them, so it seems like the hook should be about the two of them. But I don't have a clue how to fit them both in the same hook (without going back to something like I had in the first place).

And speaking of what I had in the first place, I also can't help but thinking I'm artificially changing the story (or at least what aspects of the story I'm focusing on) as we go along, in an attempt to make the hook fit a template. And that just doesn't feel right.

I know I'm probably over thinking the heck out of this (as I have a tendency to do), but I'm hoping that thinking "out loud" like this might help me sort it out. I've got to run out right now, but I'm going to give the two-character hook another shot, later.

[LeeNordling]

For a well-conceived concept, there's always a way of dealing with teams or groups, as long as you step back from them as individuals.

48-Hours: this is the story of a cop and a crook who have to work together to solve a murder, only for them to discover that the hardest part of working together is not killing each other. (THIS was the good part for this story, so it just needed to be stated well-enough to imply the crime/comedy mix.)

The West Wing: This is the story about a group of White House professionals who work to do the right thing, only for them to discover the "right thing" usually involves compromise.

I've never seen the movie you're working with, Calvin, but believe me when I say that you're trying to do too much...and, in so trying, are watering down what's potentially compelling.

Your hook needs to get somebody to want to really know what the story's about, not to read the next line (though that's a start).

To be able to do this, with other work and eventually your own, you need to be analytical about stories, and especially be able to figure out what made them tick.

Look to my Memento example; I left out a lot...but still cut to the heart of our protagonist's quest.

Twists, or surprises, can be large or small, but if there's NOTHING in a story that surprises somebody then it is not a story worth reading or watching.

Since there's USUALLY something to engender interest, the trick here is to find it, cut out practically everything else, then set up a sentence/hook with a one-two punch.

--Lee

[CalvinCamp]

For a well-conceived concept, there's always a way of dealing with teams or groups, as long as you step back from them as individuals.It looks like it's pretty easy to step back too far.

Your 48-Hours hook... that doesn't describe 48-Hours. What you've laid out there is the common premise for an entire sub-genre of movies (and books, and tv shows). All it says is, "this is one of those variants on the buddy cop movie, where one of the partners is a lovable crook instead of a cop." It describes any number of different movies, each with its own unique story that the hook doesn't even touch on.

That's kind of where I am with Hot Fuzz. It seems like, if I step back far enough for a single sentence to cover both character's stories, then it's so vague it could apply to almost anything. Heck, even with one character it's so vague it could apply to almost anything.

Maybe that's not a problem. Maybe it doesn't need to suggest what it applies to, just that it might apply to something interesting. I don't know.

I do agree that I need to work on looking at stories more analytically, and try to zero in on what makes them tick.

However...

Twists, or surprises, can be large or small, but if there's NOTHING in a story that surprises somebody then it is not a story worth reading or watching.I'm sorry, but I can't agree with that. Not unless you're using a ridiculously broad definition for "surprise" (like making it synonymous with intrigued, entertained, informed, disturbed, or any of the other things a story can do besides surprise). I certainly don't read books or watch movies for the surprises. If I did, I wouldn't keep going back to them, and enjoying them over and over.

It's usually the stories that rely too much on the surprise that I find shallow and lacking in value. For instance, I have no desire to ever watch Sixth Sense again, because I already know the surprise, and it was entirely about the surprise, so there's nothing there for me to bother going back to.

So I'm with you when you say to look for something that "engenders interest" and then set up the "one-two punch" based on that, but you lose me when you insist that only a surprise can do the job of engendering interest.

Still, having said all that, I guess I can't argue with the idea that a surprise twist probably has more commercial appeal to a publisher. And the hook/pitch is about marketing, not about what makes the best story, so...

[drgerb]

This is a really interesting conversation going that originated from the idea of pitching. That's cool.

While I agree with Lee, in that the surprises are what *get* me, I do understand Calvin's point... And look at Forrest Gump. Was there one big shocker? Not really. I guess that he's a dad. Gah. Okay, bad example. Another Tom Hanks movie, Castaway. Dude crashes in a plane, stranded on a tropical island, and eventually finds his way back home. There was no real plot twist (unless you count the plane crash, but the title itself already would give away the twist, in that case).. Dude's stranded, talks to a beach ball, and eventually gets rescued. What else is there?

You could probably list off a few minor surprises / twists (IE talking to a beach ball like it's a person maybe?) but I don't think there's a real twist anywhere. What would the pitch for Castaway be?

But yeah. While I understand Calvin's point, and there probably are a lot of examples out there of great stories that have no major plot twist... I find myself striving for them in my own stories. I'm always trying to wonder what'd make the reader go, 'No shit!' way more often than just casually turning the page.

Yeah, after typing this, I really don't even know what to think anymore. I understand the purpose of pitching is to bait your reader / editor, get him excited about it, but there are some good comics out there without a real huge plot twist.. Bleh, I dunno.


Okay, so I just reread Lee's quote, and now I gotta say I fully agree with him.


Twists, or surprises, can be large or small, but if there's NOTHING in a story that surprises somebody then it is not a story worth reading or watching.



He said large or small. If you think small enough, you can find a surprise or twist in any story you look. I already mentioned one in Castaway. I think you're putting too much emphasis on the plot twist element, Calvin. He didn't say every story needs a Sixth Sense'esque style twist. Just that there needs to be some surprises, some things to keep you guessing, a few smaller twists along the way. If there aren't ANY of those, then what's the point in continuing to watch the movie? Anyone would get bored if they could see everything coming from a mile away. And with no surprises, that's basically where we'd be.

And it's not about how many times you rewatch a movie (I understand your Sixth Sense bit, about not rewatching it), but it's about whether you finish the movie, or not. I'm a forgiving person and I pretty much finish everything I start. But every now and then there are those movies that I go out of my way to turn off before finishing. Was that because there weren't ANY surprises at all, I can't tell. I don't remember. But no surprises at all = boredom, and boring your reader is the biggest travesty of injustice (just wanted to use that term) of all.

Can something *OTHER* than a surprise / twist be there to hold your reader's interest? Are there other terms / words that we could substitute for 'surprise' that'd keep a story interesting? Maybe style / mood? If a movie doesn't have one surprise, maybe the mood, or two combinations of genres nobody's thought of before would be enough to hold a reader? I dunno. Just trying for the sake of discussion. After rereading Lee's bit, I totally DO agree with it. I think you do need surprises. Maybe not major ones, maybe not even big ones, but you do need some. Even not "surprises" but just things happening out of the ordinary, unexpected events. Anyway..

[LeeNordling]

48 Hours was one of the early examples of the buddy sub-genre, so yep, it was built on many times, but at the time it was released, that hook WOULD have gotten (and did get) somebody to pay attention.

And yep, Forest Gump has surprises, as noted. At the end we discover he's a dad AND his lifelong love has AIDS AND he's going to be raising his kid. These are surprises that can be utilized for a hook. Waiting for the bus to go see her is why he's been sitting at the bus stop the whole movie, and, if I remember correctly, it turns out it's short walk to her apartment. I also think him going from cripple to long-distance and fast runner is something to play with. Forest has so many twists and turns in it it would be hard to find the right way to approach it, but I suspect it would need to be something about an ordinary man who's clueless about the extraordinary events of the time in which he participated, and somehow, perhaps only implying the ordinary part, it was to do with an innocent in an age of lost innocence. Anyway, you can see, as I ramble, how I'm turning the story around to find my way into it.

I don't want to get caught up in whether you disagree with me, Calvin; it's fair if you don't. I simply want to make sure I've been clear in my points.

If you don't believe that stories need to surprise at some important level, that's fine.

Just to be clear, as Roberts points out, I am not saying every story needs a Rod Serling, Sixth Sense- or Memento-like shocking story twist. I don't want to digress from the broader point, though.

Go back to my first example from Marv Wolfman in article one: This is the story about a man who falls in love with a woman who's doomed to die.

And then we all said, "Ooooooooooo." In the actual pitch, I think the man found out the woman was going to die halfway through the story, so the twist of the hook doesn't need to be a twist at the end of the story; it simply needs to be the important aspect on which the story hangs.

I'd like to put our eye back on the ball here; the point of the hook paradigm is to get you, the writer, to find a "before and after" aspect that sums up what's important about your story.

I understand this paradigm is tough; it's real work. I promised it would cost blood, and for those who want to learn it, that's a likely payment.

I can say that when you crack the code, it gets simple-easy. Complex stories like Forest Gump are the tough ones, and even then they can be cracked by simply looking at the beginning and the end, then asking how, conceptually, they connect.

For those who want to consider Forest Gump a love story, perhaps "this is the story about a boy who falls in love with a girl who's doomed to die" is all we need to hook the reader.

Whatever you do, though, it needs to feel fresh.

I'll help by offering further examples and criticisms.

--Lee

[CalvinCamp]

To be clear, I'm not saying that I don't like plot twists. And I'm not saying a few twists and surprises won't make a story better. What I'm trying to get at is this...

The hook is supposed to be about the most important aspect of the story, right? Well, to me, the twist is seldom the most important aspect of the story (the exceptions being with things like Sixth Sense). And while any story may have some nuggets that could be construed as surprises, how often is it really the most important aspect of the story? And if it's not the most important aspect of the story, what is it doing in the hook?

To me, a good story is about the journey taken, the character's growth, the lesson learned, the feelings evoked... not the plot twist. That's probably why I've been having trouble with the idea that the hook has to be about the twist.

But this...
so the twist of the hook doesn't need to be a twist at the end of the story; it simply needs to be the important aspect on which the story hangs.... is reassuring. If the "twist" in the paradigm isn't really a twist (in the plot twist sense), if it's just the important transition or change that takes place over the course of the story, then that opens things up so it makes more sense to me. And it should make the paradigm a lot more flexible.

I'll have to think on that awhile, but it sounds promising.

[LeeNordling]

Yep, Calvin, that's what the "twist" means, in the context of creating the second half of the sentence that's the hook.

We're not talking about O. Henry plots as the end all...and if I hadn't been previously clear about this before, then I really flunked the "writing with intention" measure.

To be as clear as spring water, the second half of the sentence in the paradigm needs to twist on the first half of the sentence...and the use of the word "twist" is only intended to refer to the contrast that the writer has to craft.

So, here's one that doesn't twist:

This is the story about two cops who go after a killer, and kill him.

Here's one that does:

This is the story about two cops who go after a killer, only for them to discover that they've killed an innocent man.

--Lee

[CalvinCamp]

So, if I'm finally getting this right... the hook is really a reflection of the beginning, middle, & end segments of the story itself. The beginning sets up the status quo, and the end shows us what has changed. Which means, to find the "twist" (or middle), I just need to look for what caused the change. Does that sound about right?

And I wouldn't say you've flunked the writing with intention measure. I'm just a really, really tough student. I always have been.

To see if I've got this, let's try a variant of your non-twist example ("This is the story about two cops who go after a killer, and kill him."), to try and show a change in the status quo without an actual plot twist.

This is a story about a cop who kills a murderer, only for the cop to discover that he has to deal with the fact that he's the murderer now.

Or to streamline it... A cop kills a murderer, and then has to deal with being a murderer himself.

To me that seems like something that could be a good story (a journey, a lesson learned, feelings evoked) that doesn't rely on a "surprise" plot twist. But is it a paradigm hook?

[drgerb]

I'm just a really, really tough student. I always have been.


Just as Steven.

The only thing I can quickly say about the cop pitch you mentioned lastly, Calvin, is that while it does sound good, it's a bit unbelievable. In that being a cop to begin with, one knows going into the job that the possibility of being the murderer is always there. And understanding it's there shouldn't end up resulting in the biggest twist / reaction to the idea of being a murderer as the main point to the story. Cops kill, and villains kill. Like cowboys and indians kill.

While I said the premise seems good, I think it'd be that much more impactful if we put somebody else into the role of murderer, struggling to cope with the fact that he's now a murderer. Somebody who doesn't go into his life / work with the idea constantly in the background that one day there's a very good chance he'll end up a murderer. I dunno. Just my two cents. Gotta run to work. Yay.

[CalvinCamp]

Just as Steven.
Yes. I'm sure Steven would be happy to attest to the pain in the butt I can be when I'm having trouble trying to get my head wrapped around something.

But this isn't Lee's first time at this either. I owe both of them a lot, for what I've learned and for what they've put up with to help me learn it. And they just keep letting me run the tab higher. They're good people, and I'm lucky to know them.


The only thing I can quickly say about the cop pitch you mentioned lastly, Calvin, is that while it does sound good, it's a bit unbelievable. In that being a cop to begin with, one knows going into the job that the possibility of being the murderer is always there. On this, I beg to differ. Being a murderer is not "a possibility that's always there" when you're a cop. There's a substantial difference between killing and murdering.

A cop may be forced to kill in the line of duty, but that is not murder. That's something he does when there is no other choice. But that the cop is a murderer... that means he chose to kill even when there was another choice. That's why the cop would have to deal with being a murderer, not just with having been forced to take a life. Of course it would clarify the hook if it were changed to...A cop chooses to kill a murderer, and then has to deal with being a murderer himself.

But, even with all that said, I'd still argue that just following a cop as he deals with the aftermath of being forced to kill, with the resulting IA investigation and the feelings about what he's done and about being under the microscope for it, and the impact of all that on his life, could make a pretty good story all by itself. Just because it's a possibility he's tried to prepare himself for, doesn't mean it wouldn't still be a harrowing experience to deal with.

[LeeNordling]

Hey, Calvin, to quote Professor 'enry 'iggins, I believe you've got it.

The cop becoming a killer versions do the job well, and here's why I don't find it unbelievable: I think somebody would wonder why a cop killing a killer would feel like a murderer...and THAT would make somebody want to read how that can be...and THAT is a hook.

You might want to play with the word "murderer" in there, somewhere to replace "killer," but this is all tweaking; the key is that the second half twists on the first, and it resonates.

Roberts' questions are about story believability, not the nature of whether or not the hook is compelling...so let's leave that for another day.

This said, there are hundreds of stories about cops murdering killers they couldn't bring in, so I don't find that at all unbelievable as story fodder, and, as always, the trick is to make it believable.

--Lee

[StevenForbes]

I'm here. I'm watching. I'm learning. I'm thinking.

I just don't have that much to say (yet).

Is Calvin's learning style a pain in the ass? You betcha! Does it come from a pure place of wanting to learn and getting better? Most assuredly. It's really a two-way street. Simply put, if he wasn't honestly willing to learn, people wouldn't put up with him. It doesn't get any easier than that.

What do we get out of it? ('We' being the 'teachers'.) We get to look at ourselves and see if we can bring light to a particular form of darkness, allowing the person to see. It allows us to look at our own processes and see if we can refine them even more, so that we can say things with crystal-pure clarity.

Anyway, back to the LNP (Lee Nordling Paradigm).

One of the 'weaknesses' of the LNP is that, as a writer, you MUST know your story. If you've reached a stage in your career where you're not going to write without knowing you have a publishing deal in place, you'll write up the pitch and send it, hoping it resonates with the editor and thus, get the job.

If you're not yet in that place, at that stage in your career, then more than likely, you'll have to write the script first (or at least a damned detailed outline) in order to know the story you want to tell, and then write the pitch to match.

The problem is, as writers, we don't know what our stories are about. (I wrote about this in the Pitching week of B&N.) We OFTEN don't know what our stories are about until after we write them, and that is the main 'weakness' of the LNP.

How many of you sit down and truly think about your story? And I don't mean as a laundry list of actions, either. I mean, sit down, and think about what it is you're trying to say in your story? Because every story says something, whether you believe it or not. (And don't fall into the trap of trying to say something 'new.' More often than not, 'new' doesn't sell. There's a reason there are an infinite number of the same story being told time and again.)

I have a story idea about spirits. I was watching a movie (Dragonwyck, starring Vincent Price), and in it, the female lead ate something with alcohol in it, but didn't know what it was. Her extremely religious father tasted it, and said it had spirits in it. I cocked my head to the side and said, "That's right! Alcohol is also called spirits! Interesting..."

That's just the idea of the story. I know I'm going to wrap some sort of story in the idea of alcohol, using the word spirits. Plotting it out is the easy part, though.

The hard part is, what am I trying to SAY with the story?

Most of the time, when we get an idea, we can only think about how to move the story from point A to point D, and hope we have interesting points B & C to go along with it. But all of that is easy compared to knowing what the story is about, and then trying to put it into something like the LNP in order to get the story sold.

And to do that without writing the script first? The bulk of us cannot do that yet. We're still too caught up with the idea of the story to think too much about what we're saying in the story--what the story is about.

And then we blame the LNP, saying that it doesn't work. (Basically because the damned thing is difficult to master.) We're often WAY too close to the story to effectively write a pitch for it, because wee know all the cool things we want to tell about the story. It's like Superman Blue, when he had electricity powers: he had to learn how to emulate his usual power set. The junior scientist in all of us thinks of all the cool things that can be done, and we want to share that information right now! C'mon! It's cool!

But we're missing the forest for the trees.

The LNP is there to show us the forest. The rest of the pitch is to show us the dimly lit path. It's only in actually writing (and publishing) the story that we get to walk that path in the sunlight, touching the trees, seeing how the sunlight filters through the leaves, smell the air, hear the birds and the bugs, and lead the reader through the story the way we want.

Once I realized this about myself and the stories I want to tell, I write out the idea of the story, and I may even start writing out the plot, but once I get over the initial excitement of having found yet another story to tell, I sit back and ask myself what my story is really about--what I'm trying to say with it.

(This touches on 'themes', and I know that Lee's going to get there eventually [probably soon], but pitching isn't just about the theme, although it IS a part of it. It's about encompassing the entire story, and boiling it down to its most important components, and talking about THEM in an interesting manner in order to sell your story. All the pitch does is sell your story, which we come to in Part 3. Once you've done that, let your training take over, young padawans.)

Whew! And I thought I didn't have much to say!

[drgerb]

Woo! Three cheers for Forbes! Hah.

I honestly dunno what to say in response to Steven's post. Other than I agree with it. Hah, takin' the easy way out. I liked the whole forest / trees analogy. And looking at myself as a creator, I guess I'd like to do some pitches / synopsis, and see if any one idea does get the chance. And if anything does get greenlit, in a way that'd "set me free" as a writer / artist, but like a newborn baby bird, I almost think I'd be destined to jump out of the nest and fall flat on my face. Like now that I can try using my wings, and I've got ALL this air and sky to fly around in, I wouldn't know where to go or where to start. And I'd fall. But it's not about falling, it's about getting back up. Anyway...

I also have that problem with regards to my stories. I never know what I want to TELL in them, or if I do know that, or the moral, or the point, I never really know how to get there. I write in bits and pieces; A particular scene, conversation, speech or internal monologue will jump out at me, so I think I should focus or elaborate on that.. But focusing on such a tiny piece to the puzzle I don't see as being the right way to go about things either. Who knows, though? You'll never know what works FOR YOU until you start trying a few different routes. Anyway.

And yeah, my bad about the pitch Calvin. At first I didn't realize he'd see himself as a murderer. I imagined him just sitting at the dinner table with his wife and kids, saying, 'Oh yeah. At work today I killed somebody. He had a gun and was firing at us, there was a shootout, and he got hit by the cross fire.' or something totally arbitrary... Now that I think about it it does have merit. Just the idea of anyone struggling over killing someone, or losing someone is interesting, and with the right twist, could be awesome.

I think on route might be to also focus on the guy the cop kills. I understand it'll be a story about the cop, but maybe show the murderer he murders before the death.. Maybe elaborate on him as a person. I read The Texas Seven quite a while back (true story about 7 guys who broke out of a maximum security Texan prison), and was constantly rooting for "the bad guys." It was probably written like that. But the second it mentioned in the book that during their escape, they killed a cop who had a wife and two kids, then I started disliking the guys. I know they're probably in prison for a reason and are probably really bad guys, but the idea, and the adrenaline gets pumping imagining yourself in their shoes, breaking out of prison. But the second you realize they kill a man who has a wife, has some kids, is a husband, is a father, a son, a brother... It really puts you into a place where you can't tell if you should be cheering the main characters or despising them. Anyway.

I like those sort of stories. The Killing Joke was awesome cause the villain, the Joker was the main character, and he was almost *the good guy.* When you bridge the gap between hero and villain, I think it gets awesome. I could be totally off, and maybe it's just my cup of tea.. Maybe other readers want to be able to KNOW who they're supposed to be rooting for / cheering on. But that's what sports is for. If you wanna wonder who's really good and who's really bad, then you read something. Bleh. At least in my opinion. I just love getting the reader to think one thing of a character, then flip that misconception on it's head. Some people might feel jipped, or cheated that I went out of my way to GIVE them that misconception in the first place, and to then totally flip their perceptions around... But if done well, I think those kinds of stories have some nice potential. Blah, rambling again.

[CalvinCamp]

Hey, Calvin, to quote Professor 'enry 'iggins, I believe you've got it.
*dances a little jig around his chair* :D

Now let me ask another question, Lee, just to confirm some other thoughts:
If I've got a complex story, with multiple plots weaving around each other, multiple protagonists with differing agendas, whatever... that actually doesn't matter for the hook does it?

When the hook says, "This is a story about THIS", it doesn't matter if the story is really about THIS, that and three other things... as long as it is, at some major level, about THIS, and THIS is compelling. Am I right?

To phrase it another way, it doesn't matter if Hot Fuzz is about Angel and Danny, and the hook is about Angel, as long as the hook makes you interested in seeing what Hot Fuzz is all about?

Okay, two questions:
Does it matter if the hook could as easily apply to a different story? I complained that your 48-Hours hook was too vague because it could apply to any number of stories. But that probably doesn't really matter either, does it? Because the hook tells me this is a cop/crook buddy movie and I'll know if those appeal to me. If they do, then I'll be interested and I'll read the rest of the pitch, so the hook has done its job. Would you agree?

[CalvinCamp]

Is Calvin's learning style a pain in the ass? You betcha! Does it come from a pure place of wanting to learn and getting better? Most assuredly. It's really a two-way street. Simply put, if he wasn't honestly willing to learn, people wouldn't put up with him. It's so nice to be understood. :)

[drgerb]

Please allow me to fill the shoes of Lee Nordling, and reply to your questions, Calvin. Lmao. Gotta admit, nice try, eh?

I gotta say the WHOLE point to the pitch is, always has been, and always WILL be to get somebody hooked. Whether it be a trailer for a movie (telling a 2 hour movie in 30 seconds), a blip on the TV screen (explaining to a non-fan of a show why to become a fan), or a comic book pitch... The entire reasoning for a pitch is to grab someone; In our case the editor / publisher who's willing to work with us (had we been able to deliver a successful pitch).

Whether the final story adds in some minor details, some secondary characters (or in, the hopeful *my case*, some major main characters), all you wanna do is get them hooked enough to want to learn more. And them, in learning more, will *hopefully* (at the right pace, as you reveal more, after the pitch) wanna publish it even more.

The hook is your step into the room, through the door, nothing else. You won't sell an additional million copies if you have a good enough pitch. Your pitch is just there to BE ABLE to sell ANY copies. And at this point, where we are as creators (assuming me and you, if you take offense, then just me, lol), we just gotta get our feet into the room. If we can do that, then the sky's the limit. And the whole idea of the pitch is just to grip somebody. I'll admit, don't say your story is gonna be THIS, when it ends up being THAT. But as long as that main theme / pitch is there, in the final story, and if that original pitch is good enough (along with the story), then boom. You've got a foot in the door.

If the things don't match up, try again next time. That's my whole perspective atleast..

So as long as the hook is a PART of the final project, then boom. You got it going. If the hook is somehow UNRELATED, or unconnected to the final project, then you gotta figure something else out. With all that said...

I do think there's a point where a pitch isn't good enough, even with the best idea ever. Like you mentioned, eventually you can zoom out far enough to where the pitch for YOUR story could be the pitch for a hundred others. And that's where you gotta learn how to, and figure out how to separate yourself from the rest of the herd. Yeah, there might be a millions stories about a man who's struggling to cope with the fact that he killed another man. What makes YOUR Story special? There's a million scripts for Lee's earlier pitch of Forrest Gump:


"this is the story about a boy who falls in love with a girl who's doomed to die"

Which, in essence, is the story of EVERY straight male ever to have existed. Every girl (every human, every *living* THING) will die... And thus, that's a pitch for anything, really. My whole point is, the pitch has to have enough individuality of it's own to hook the potential editor / publisher.

You look at movie viewers, and sure, maybe they're hooked easily. Maybe after seeing the line of a boy falling in love with a girl who'll die, maybe that's enough to get a heart felt young girl on her knees... But the truth is every editor isn't a horny young teenage girl (luckily)... And we gotta figure out how to break through that (the young horniness? Yes!) and get the *real* pitch, get to the real point.

And the whole point of the pitch is to BAIT your editor. Not to tell him the whole story, every element, every detail (or even every other main character, in this case). It's to be enoug, and JUST enough, in the fewest words possible, to get your editor to care. And once you do that, boom, you're in the game and you're just waiting to mess it up. Anyway... My two cents. Peace.

[LeeNordling]

Welcome to the classroom, Steven.

You are absolutely correct about the paradigm only being an effective pitching tool once a writer knows the story.

But let me twist this around for a second: What writer is going to pitch a story to a publisher WITHOUT knowing the story...or at least knowing the A-to-Z of the plot?

Answer: nobody worth the keypad he types on.

So, maybe the paradigm is a starting place for a writer (though I mostly doubt it) and maybe it's the last thing to write for a publishing proposal.

When do we write the pitch?

I expect to write about this in a future column, but the answer depends on your most effective writing process.

Some people NEED to write the script, polish it, makes its gears work together...and even then they don't know what the story is "about." Their brains don't work that way; they're not analytical. (Charles "Sparky" Schulz wasn't analytical at all; he was simply brilliant.)

Other people figure out what the story is when they get to the end, then (if they're good) revise what came before to fit. These people can spend months on one story idea before it's what they want it to be. These people write the pitch, whether it's LNP or not, last.

There are people who can write a broad-strokes overview of what the bigger version will be about, then simply fill in the holes to make it work.

Then there are the ones who start by saying, "This is what my story is about," and write something that's consistent with that idea.

There's no best way; there's simply what works for you, and, more importantly (don't lose sight of this, folks) there's what works toward making the best possible finished book.

I mostly work the last two ways.

Recently, I was asked by Chris Stevens to contribute to the Digital Webbing anthology; I was honored, didn't have much time, mulled it over the next morning, fixated on Goldilocks (because nobody else has tackled this source material), and asked myself ONE question: how can I twist the story?

So as not to confuse this use of the word twist with the one in the paradigm discussion above, this time I DO mean "How can I turn the children's story on its head?"

I immediately came up with a twist, then wrote a beat-by-beat outline of the story, culminating in the surprise ending.

One contributor felt I'd written too long a pitch, that I'd exceeded the assignment of it needing to be a short pitch, so I wrote the short version (that's on DW) in about fifteen minutes...which was simple, because I knew how the story was going to go, and just needed to re-conceive it in a shorter version.

I have other stories I'm writing for children's publishing, and for these I'm making much of it up as I go, with only a vague idea of how they're going to end...but sometimes I'm just trusting that I'll figure them out somewhere along the line.

When writing these, I reach many forks in the road, trying to figure out where to go next; I usually have five or six problems like this per story, where I have to creatively solve tough stuff...but I know that I will, and I do.

Now, for these stories, I KNOW the appeal of the stories, I know the REASON for each journey, but trust in my ability to connect the story dots to get through them.

We each have strengths as writers, and that's one of mine: to be able to connect story dots, as long as the plot points I'm connecting aren't too far apart.

Eventually, I have enough worked out so that I can write a pitch/introductory sentence for the story; it just comes later than with the other process.

This brings this particular discussion full circle to Steven's good point: you can't write a LNP for a story without knowing the story.

However, you can make them up without HAVING a story, if you're the kind of writer that can build a story on a sentence; most aren't.

It would be an interesting creative writing assignment though, to begin a LNP with a sentence, then have folks come up with their own endings. Wonder if it'll accomplish anything.

Let's see.

This is the story about a man who likes playing with fire, only for him to discover...

This is the story about a woman who loves men, only for her to discover...

This is the story about a child who wants to be a hero when he grows up, only for him to discover...

Now, if in reading those you instantly looked for opposites to the first parts of the sentences, then you're already in tune with the LNP, and maybe this is or isn't a good way to generate ideas for stories, not that it was created for that purpose.

It's not a bad way to develop springboards, though.

--Lee

[StevenForbes]

Thanks for the welcome, Lee.

Using the LNP as a story springboard is a decent idea, but I don't think it will work for most, simply because I don't think that most writers are able to write that way. Definitely not budding writers, anyway. It takes time to exercise those muscles that allow you to write to order.

To answer the question of what writer will pitch a story to a publisher without knowing it--I'd say that you'd b surprised, but I don't think it's easy to surprise you anymore. I will say, however, that it wouldn't surprise me, simply based on the amount of scripts I've seen come through The Proving Grounds.

As to when to write the pitch, for newer writers, I suggest writing it twice: before you write the script, and then after. I think it helps to hone writing muscles, and will help writers learn what their stories are about faster. (That is assuming, of course, that they follow good writing practices and have story ideas that are worth following to publication.)

I think that, even though we're writers and we're used to breaking things down, I don't think, as a group, we're used to thinking analytically about our own stories.

Pitch writing sucks in general, because it's somewhat alien to us. We want to tell the story, not sell the story. Actually, I don't think that most of us really know how to sell the story, even if we're good pitchwriters.

Different muscles, and I think I'm with most writers in that my "selling" muscle is severely underdeveloped. Being a good pitchwriter is a great first step in that direction, but really, for traditional print comics, selling the idea and producing the comic are really the easy parts. Getting noticed on the stands and having decent sales numbers? Totally different.

Selling starts with the pitch, folks, and beating your head against something like the LNP in order to gain an understanding of it in order to start mastering it is a worthwhile effort. If you learn how to sell (yourself and the story), you're only doing yourself a favor.

Becoming a good pitchwriter is a great first step.

[CalvinCamp]

Please allow me to fill the shoes of Lee Nordling, and reply to your questions, Calvin. Lmao. Gotta admit, nice try, eh?
Yeah. Not a bad effort. :)

And your answers match my own conclusions, so that's a good sign. I've just had enough trouble wrapping my head around this paradigm (and this isn't the first time I've tried) that it's good just to hear someone else say the same thing I'm thinking.

[drgerb]

And yeah.. Both Steven and Lee seem to know what it's like to be a not so hot writer. Not that you are, but that you once were. Steven hit the nail on the head a few times about aspiring / novice writers not really knowing what their stories are about. If you don't know what it's about, it's really hard to cut to the *true* core of the story. It might be easy to (once you learn how to do it) figure out the best possible pitch to sell it, which would be a win-win situation, but it'd suck to sell your idea, then send your script and they're totally different so you get red lighted after being green lighted.

And reading those 3 beginning pitches by Lee, it's like I was just WAITing for something to come to me. Those 3 beginnings look so good, it feels like the endings could write themselves, but I was hitting my head against the wall dumbfounded as to what to add to them.

My brother and I were having discussions about potential stories, and what seemed to get the brain moving was for one of us to write 5 quick couple sentence paragraphs, or just one hypothetical sentence of, 'What if we had a character who...' Then send those off to the other, they elaborate on all 5, or whichever he likes more, sends them back, and it's kinda of a constant conversation adding, 'But what if we did this, instead of that..' or 'what if this happened, THEN that happened..' and while they probably weren't the kinds of ideas good enough to stand on a comic book shelf, they did get my head working and wondering about how to add to something that's already there.

Going back to Lee's mentioning of him being a good writer at connecting the different dots of his story... Right now that's all I feel like I have; Some dots, a general feel or theme for any given idea / story, and trying to figure out how to connect the scenes, the events, that seems like the hardest part. Especially while constantly keeping the meaning / moral / point of your story in the back of your mind. I dunno though. I can almost say I've got different scenes, characters, moods, events, and things in my stories, that it's like looking at a half done puzzle. You've got some of the border done, some of the key images / events put together in 5 piece chunks, and you have a vague idea of where these characters / scenes are meant to be, in respect to the border, and the surroundings of the puzzle / comic... So that's good. And the more I write and add to my ideas, the more those little pieces seem to just fall into place, and the more the bigger chunks seem to move a bit to the left or the right, and snap onto little bridges I had no idea even existed.. And that's the most fun right there: Watching a story come together like puzzle being put together.

[JohnLees]

Sorry I'm late to the party.

I think I'm the only other person in the thread, aside from Calvin, who's actually seen Hot Fuzz, and as such, I can definitely appreciate his conundrum. It is a VERY hard film to pitch. Why? Because I think very little of the film's appeal comes from the plot, as such, but rather from the execution.

SPOILER ALERT!

Why the film is so great (in my opinion), what really gets to the heart of why it makes for an enjoyable moviegoing experience, is because for the first two acts of the story it starts out as a comedy, a parody of the 80s Hollywood action movie. The joke is that you have a cop who is essentially an 80s Hollywood action movie hero, but he's stuck in this dreary rural community where nothing interesting happens. But the film's REAL hook comes in the third act, with an abrupt change in the film's genre. Suddenly, the film changes from being a PARODY of an 80s Hollywood action movie, to actually BEING an 80s Hollywood action movie, complete with insane gun fights, mass murder and awful one-liners.

As such, I think any one-line opening gambit for a pitch, following Lee's paradigm, would have to somehow reflect this drastic change in tone, rather than explaining the details of the story.

Okay, here's another film that could be a real tough nut to pitch: Moon.

Calvin talked earlier about how it can be hard finding a "twist" in a film, but here's the opposite of extremes - what about a movie that is built upon an intricate chain reaction of game-changing twist after game-changing twist, each bigger than the last but dependant on the ones that came before for context. How do you pitch something like that? What one twist do you pick out as THE twist?

[LeeNordling]

Hot Fuzz: Yep, based on this description, the focus needs to reflect the satirical tone of the material, which probably requires some funny use of language.

This is the story about a couple of big-city '80s-action-style cops who bring their big city ways to a quiet small town, only for them to discover that the small quiet town will kick their big-city asses if they can't get their act together and match bullet for bullet.

Now, that's just a rough first draft of the idea, but the use of extraneous & humorous language needs to be there in a similar manner.

Moon: another story I don't know, but in this case, I'm sure the twists reveal an ultimate twist that pulls it all together, so the way to approach this is from the broadest possible viewpoint.

--Lee

[CalvinCamp]

Suddenly, the film changes from being a PARODY of an 80s Hollywood action movie, to actually BEING an 80s Hollywood action movie, complete with insane gun fights, mass murder and awful one-liners.
This is a movie that sets out to make fun of 80s Hollywood action movies, only to discover that making an 80s Hollywood action movie is even more fun.
:D

[JohnLees]

This is a movie that sets out to make fun of 80s Hollywood action movies, only to discover that making an 80s Hollywood action movie is even more fun.
:D

It might be a bit "meta" to fit Lee's paradigm, I don't know, but I think that - in terms of capturing the appeal of the film - this is actually the single best one-line pitch for Hot Fuzz I've read in the entire thread. So well done you!. :D

[drgerb]

This is the story about an amnesiac who's searching for his wife's murderer, only for us to discover that he's already killed him.

Wow, holy late reply, eh? I'm assuming nobody'll reply to this, no big deal. Every time I log onto a forum and see a 2 year late post, I think, 'Gah. Bastard.' Anyway... So I was rereading these forums to get a better understanding of comics when I hit that above quote and started asking myself things...

Spoiler, in case nobody's seen Memento. If not, go watch it now. And then get back here. Anyway...


only for us to discover that he's already killed him.

I must say, Memento, as great as it was, the ending was a bit lame. I hit the ending, and I thought, what the--? The pitch, which dwells on something that he did, but that we didn't see, was the clenching of the fists. I mean--

I can't tell if the pitch is weak, which it's not, but moreso the movie has that weakness factor... In that the final resolution of the pitch is a scene that we never witnessed in the movie. It's a flashback to a scene we haven't seen. We've seen a polaroid of it. It's a flashback / an explanation from another character... Which, I guess, from the perspective of the narrator, is understandable, in respects to; He can't make new memories, so in a way, we can't either... But still. We're a third party viewer here. We should see the entire story, THEN make our judgements on it.

'for us to discover he's already killed him.'

That's like saying 'Oh yeah, Mario saves the princess in the end, but you're still gonna play through the game.' Doesn't that somehow, leave somebody with an upset stomach?

I guess when I read 'story,' I read 'everything the reader experiences' or goes through. Sure, glancing at a polaroid in a story is part of the story, but it's kind of a cheap way out. We need to see the story unfold. If that scene, of Lenny killing the killer would have somehow been introduced somewhere in the story, and worked, the ending would have been that much bigger. I dunno.

Last side though. I feel I've got nowhere to go for advice / creating comics talk. Anyone somehow browzing here know of any other good forums / websites? I'm running out of places to go. Gah!
.peace

[LeeNordling]

Wow, holy late reply, eh? I'm assuming nobody'll reply to this, no big deal. Every time I log onto a forum and see a 2 year late post, I think, 'Gah. Bastard.' Anyway... So I was rereading these forums to get a better understanding of comics when I hit that above quote and started asking myself things...

Spoiler, in case nobody's seen Memento. If not, go watch it now. And then get back here. Anyway...



I must say, Memento, as great as it was, the ending was a bit lame. I hit the ending, and I thought, what the--? The pitch, which dwells on something that he did, but that we didn't see, was the clenching of the fists. I mean--

I can't tell if the pitch is weak, which it's not, but moreso the movie has that weakness factor... In that the final resolution of the pitch is a scene that we never witnessed in the movie. It's a flashback to a scene we haven't seen. We've seen a polaroid of it. It's a flashback / an explanation from another character... Which, I guess, from the perspective of the narrator, is understandable, in respects to; He can't make new memories, so in a way, we can't either... But still. We're a third party viewer here. We should see the entire story, THEN make our judgements on it.

'for us to discover he's already killed him.'

That's like saying 'Oh yeah, Mario saves the princess in the end, but you're still gonna play through the game.' Doesn't that somehow, leave somebody with an upset stomach?

I guess when I read 'story,' I read 'everything the reader experiences' or goes through. Sure, glancing at a polaroid in a story is part of the story, but it's kind of a cheap way out. We need to see the story unfold. If that scene, of Lenny killing the killer would have somehow been introduced somewhere in the story, and worked, the ending would have been that much bigger. I dunno.

Last side though. I feel I've got nowhere to go for advice / creating comics talk. Anyone somehow browzing here know of any other good forums / websites? I'm running out of places to go. Gah!
.peace

Roberts, you're reacting to so much that takes place beyond a film you've already seen without recognizing the inherent HOOK--not pitch--that I was intending with that set up.

It wraps up the entire story for an editor to see...and that's the point of much of what I wrote about: tell the GOOD part.

Okay, you think it's lame...but it was a truly unexpected twist to the story; it's the thing that had been set up from the beginning.

It's okay that you didn't like it, but that wasn't the point, and I hope you can see that.

The POINT is that THAT WAS THE TWIST FOR THAT STORY...and the hook delivers that.

Rather than concern yourself with the work of others, I suggest you concern yourself with producing something better by applying what you've been learning.

Just constructive criticism to try and keep the intended point intact, rather than having it devolve into a "I like"/"I hate" memento discussion. That CERTAINLY wasn't my point, which is something I hope you're aware.

Thanks.

--Lee

[drgerb]

Thanks for the swift reply. Any thoughts on bringing this topic back? Gah, do I miss it. Anyway.

I do understand that now. It's funny how easy something is to understand in hindsight. My issues were with the story itself, not the pitch. And to judge a pitch based on element within the story is the wrong way to look at it; Missing the point.

[drgerb]

Bleh, just a quick attempt, if anybody ever gets around to reading it... Since nobody else tried...

'This is the story about a man who likes playing with fire, only for him to discover...'

...he can control fire?

Or that fire was what took his own life?

'This is the story about a woman who loves men, only for her to discover...'

The human she truly fell in love with was another woman.

That men are slaves.

'This is the story about a child who wants to be a hero when he grows up, only for him to discover...'

That every hero is somebody else's villain.


I think the final one was where I got anxious. The first two were kinda, random... But in doing them, I *did* realize the whole... Build you hook on the premise. Make point 1 relate to point 2; Or more importantly, make the final point kinda come back to the first. Like, bring it all back together.

Dunno if I'm making progress, rereading all these old posts, heh. Once again. I hope I am. Anyway. If nobody reads this / replies, no big deal. As long as I *feel* I'm still learning. Thanks again, Lee, for all of your articles. Very great information. Though the one thing I'll say is lacking, is you don't have a conventional 'Week 1,' 'Week 2,' kind of calender system. Sometimes I'm guessing which file is the next week. But that's only a minor concern. Anyway. Thanks again. Peace.

[LeeNordling]

For those who wish to read these threads in the "correct" (or originating) order, simply sort them in the order they were started. There's the sort option toward the bottom on the left.

Re. your recent attempts at creating the hook, Roberts, when you finish writing a hook ask yourself the following question: Does the last half of the sentence PERFECTLY spin the first half of the sentence in a different (and preferably ironic) direction?

If yes, it works.

If no, then it doesn't .

--Lee