Your Elevator Pitch
You are standing in an elevator and have two minutes to tell someone about your book. Today we’re going to talk about crafting that one-sentence summary, also known as a logline, a hook, or a one-sentence (elevator) pitch. This is not your book’s tagline!
What: About 25 words that capture your novel, memoir, or non-fiction book.
Why: To get someone interested in reading your book.
When to use it: The start of a query, or anytime someone asks you, “What’s your book about?”
What it does: A one-sentence summary takes your complex book with multiple characters and plotlines and boils it down into a simple statement that can be quickly conveyed and understood, and generates interest in the book.
What it should include:
→ A character or two
→ Their choice, conflict, or goal
→ What’s at stake (may be implied)
→ Action that will get them to the goal
→ Setting (if important)
Tips:
→ Keep it simple. One plotline, 1 or 2 characters.
→ Use the strongest nouns, verbs and adjectives.
→ Make the conflict clear but you don’t have to hint at the solution.
In your one-sentence summary, try not to pitch a theme. Pitch what happens. Examples of themes:
This book explores forgiveness.
This book looks at the thin line between right and wrong.
This book explores the meaning of independence, and asks if it’s really possible.
Here is Nathan Bransford’s simplified formula for a one-sentence pitch: “When [opening conflict] happens to [character(s)], they must [overcome conflict] to [complete their quest].”
Examples of one-sentence summaries:
Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
• A boy wizard begins training and must battle for his life with the Dark Lord who murdered his parents. (Thanks Randy Ingermanson for this one.)
→ Character=boy wizard
→ Conflict=battling the Dark Lord
→ Stakes=his life
→ Setting=none
→ Action=wizard training; avoiding the same fate as his parents
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
• In the south in the 1960s, three women cross racial boundaries to begin a movement that will forever change their town and the way women view one another.
When Faith Awakes by Mike Duran
• Chaos is unleashed on a quiet coastal town when an unassuming crippled woman raises a young boy from the dead, unlocking a centuries-old curse.
Medical Error by Richard Mabry
• Identity theft becomes fatal for a patient and puts a young doctor’s reputation and medical practice in jeopardy.
Chasing Superwoman by Susan DiMickele
• A successful attorney and mother of three battles discrimination, exhaustion, and a clueless boss while balancing a career, a family, and a life of faith.
NOW IT’S YOUR TURN. Leave your one-sentence summary in the comments.
68 Comments
President & Literary Agent,
Gardner Literary Agency
[…] Whether looking for an agent or going it on your own, you will at some point have to write a synopsis and elevator pitch for your book. Rochelle Deans lays out how to edit your synopsis, and Rachelle Gardner explains how to create an elevator pitch. […]
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Why is Darkness capitalized? The Devil! Very intriguing. Or is it the dark recesses of her mind?
Perception is reality…
Hi Amanda, it is something very much of both. The Darkness is the mixture of an evil that lies condemned in a place called Erebus and it is also the darkness that harbors deep within her subconscious. This evil tempts my characters moral judgment and uses his sympathetic façade of her suffering to pull her onto a dark path in attempts to trigger the darkness within her; using her gifts and naivety for his gain. Trials and tribulations.
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This seems a really good example. And exciting
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Well done! Makes me want to read.
Thanks, Ellen. This is the first book in a new cozy mystery series set in France. My first mystery series, also set in France, is already published.
This is definitely a book I would read. What is that secret? Does he reconnect with betraying fiance?
Thanks, Amanda. The secret is about a murder, which the protagonist begins to research, along with his new love interest and the elderly woman. I’m working on edits now and hope to get an agent and big publisher for this book. I have five self-published novels, three of them set in France, one in Germany, and one in the U.S.
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Sounds like a great thriller.
Thanks Amanda. Salutary. Shows how badly I’ve written the pitch. Although there is stalking, it’s not a thriller although could make one. Back to the drawing board. Since you’d made that comment it’s blindingly obvious thriller is what I’ve made it sound like.
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Jon, I like it!
Thanks, Peter 🙂
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