writing

A Writer’s View: Pitches And Product

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

Lately Serdar was commenting on the use of pitches in our writing.  I tend to love making them, and he calls out my current work, “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet” which I summed up as “A sorceress, an engineer, and a priest on a planet-hopping road trip with the owner of a mysterious collection of holy books.”  As amusing as such pitches/summarites seem, they’re actually powerful tools for writing – not just marketing.

The way I use pitches/summaries comes from a mix of my own research into resumes (which are a kind of writing), Agile Product Ownership, the theories of Joel Orr, and the must-read Snowflake method.  They’re not just a way to sell your book – they’re a way to help you write your book.   Stick with me here – let me walk you through an exercise.

Go and take a communications project and sum it up in one sentence.  Such as:

  • Superintelligent whales end up in a religious war over the controversial theory they were created by beings called “humans.”
  • A no-nonsense guide to building your writing career by setting, measuring, and meeting goals.
  • A song parodying internet memes by calling out as many as possible in alphabetical order.

OK, we’ve got three summaries – which are also pitches.  I’m sure at least one might interest you and one might horrify you, but let’s go on.

Now, imagine someone doing any of the above projects takes the summary and then begins to outline the project, figuring what’s really going on in it.  That pitch, summary, acts as a seed and gives you something to aim for – and also an idea of what the boundaries of the project are.  The summary helps you focus (or in some cases, realize the summary is bunk and start over).

But, somewhere in that outline, you may find the summary should change a bit.  The deeper you get in touch with the work, the more you find that one sentence may not communicate it.  So, perhaps you change it.  The summary defined the goal, the work on the project made you rethink it slightly, and so on.

  • Superintelligent whales disagree over the theory they were created by “humans,” which plunges them into a species-threatening religious war with an unsure outcome. (Changed because it gives a better idea of the plot).
  • A practical, step-by-step guide to a writing career with measurable goals and milestones that anyone can use. (Changed as it focuses the goal more)
  • An electronica song that parodies the most enduring internet memes – in alphabetical order. (Describes better, more clear goals).

It’s a dialogue. You have a summary, then an outline, which may influence each other.  Then as you flesh out your work you may change the outline, or the summary, and vice versa.  The ability to write summaries and pitches gives you the ability to create a dialogue among all levels of your work so they stay coherent – because it all comes back to making sure the summary is accurate.

If you can get an idea of what your work is about on all the different levels, from a summary to a scene, from character arc to story arc, you have a much better idea of what’s going on.  In turn, you’ll make a better work because all your work, at all levels, keeps reinforcing what you’re doing.

Plus you get a great sales pitch that’s been well-honed!

 

(Remember I do all sorts of books on creativity to help you out!)

– Steve

A Writer’s View: Audience Interest

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

One of the things I always worry about my return to writing is “will people want to read my work?”  My friend Serdar has analyzed this in one of his blog posts (with the winning title “If I Had More Time, I Would Have Written a Shorter Novel“).  He focused on novel length in many cases, and asked himself why some large works are worth the time and others are not.

What’s interesting is his next book is 230k words.  “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet” is probably clocking in around 110K.  But we both ask ourselves “Why do people care.”

We have to make it worth their time (and money), it must engage them.  I can think of two ways we may do this off the top of my head:

Something To Care About

Serdar hits on one by noting:

. . . the trick, I guess, is to package them up and offer them in a way that other people can pick up on, in their own way, what the interesting things are. Anime and manga have whole subgenres that revolve around the mastery of a skill (a sport, a game) or the deep investigation of a mundane everyday occupation. They take something that to an outsider would be meaningless and they invest it with the urgency of The Great Work Of Life And Death. It makes a striking contrast to stories that involve casts of thousands and the fate of nations but evoke little more than a gurgling snore.

You have to write about stuff people care about or make them care by getting them invested in the characters, the setting, etc.  If you can connect people to the work (often through characters) then they will buy into it.  They will give a damn.

For my own example, let’s take Yuri On Ice, the gay romance men’s figure skating drama you didn’t know you wanted, and that is a runaway hit.  I have watched it twice because I like the characters, I like humor, and I like all the substories.  I felt like things were happening to people, and thus was engaged on a subject that I frankly didn’t care about – skating.

OK I didn’t like Chris, he’s a creep, but anyway.

Something To Learn

I am a very detail driven person – which makes sense as I write books on Worldbuilding.  I love bits of revelation and backstory as the world comes into focus, as we learn more about the characters.  Even if the details aren’t relevant to the story, they help you understand things.

You can also get interest if you’ve got plenty of things revealing and being found out and pace yourself.  If people keep learning, keep finding out new things – plot-related or not – they’ll be interested.  The best things of course are revelations that tie to the plot, but having fun little details also just makes the story and characters real.

An example I’ll give from this is the under-appreciated military-sf-horror film Spectral, which I strongly recommend (warning, link has spoilers).  You get slow revelations over time, and only truly get the full story in the last five minutes.  Each little bit, each finding about the horrors the characters face, each choice to fight back, each revelation as they try to out-think the forces against them, kept me hooked.

Keep People Engaged

You can make a 10 page short story a slog and make a 500 page novel that people loose track of time reading.  It’s all how you can get them engaged.  And it determines if it was worth their time.

(Remember I do all sorts of books on creativity to help you out!)

– Steve

A Writer’s Life: The Second Principle

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

This week I rewrote part of the plot of my book.  I had a great idea that would make the book deeper, improve character, explore the world!  Best of all it didn’t require me re-plotting major elements or the ending, while it made the ending more powerful.

It’s just I didn’t want to do it.

I had this gut-level resistance to re-plotting.  In retrospect it was a dumb attitude to take, and I think it was just that I don’t like to change plans.  I always fear things will never get done.

Then I recalled the Second Agile Principle, which states:

Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.

I’m using Agile to manage my life and my writing, and if you’re not familiar with Agile, it’s worth studying up on. Agile is a philosophy of good organization that has inspired and taken guidance from many business processes.  Adsorbing and leveraging change is a big part of Agile (which is kinda the reason for the name).

When I thought of that principle, it struck me how stupid my resistance to change was.  Change was inevitable, so you should find a way to use it.  As I thought it over I realized how beneficial change was:

  • Feedback inspires change.  So being willing to change lets you incorporate feedback.
  • Changes lets you fix problems, perhaps even before they start, making something better (or making something you don’t need to improve later)
  • Change lets you learn.  A changed requirement, the need to edit a story, a new plot idea teaches you something.  Change lets you learn.
  • Change means review, so as you adapt to changes it requires you to review and stay intimate with what you’re writing.
  • Change keeps your mind limber so you adapt.

Notice that most of these relate to the quality of the work.  The ultimate goal of change is to make sure what you’re creating gets better.  If you don’t change, if you aren’t open to change, then are you really sure your work is going to be the best it can be?

What’s interesting is, after I admitted I had to replot part of the story, the new outline is not only better, I had all sorts of insights on improving the story further (most of them far less invasive).  I was also much more aware of the story and it felt more alive because I’d let it change.

I may still have to fight the urge to “write not replot,” but I think this experience has helped me embrace change better as a writer.  Perhaps I’ll have more insight on this in the future.

I probably will, as change is inevitable . . .

– Steve