Five Promotion Tips for the Shy Writer by Lindsey Bell

For those of you who don't know, next week is the Romance Writers of America (RWA) Conference in NYC. This is the biggie, the grand poo-bah, the conference we romance writers start countdowns for the minute the last one ends. It's basically four days of non-stop awesomeness--workshops, book signings, parties, and best of all hanging out with writers/industry professionals from all around the world.

If you've never been and you write anything with a romantic thread (including you YA-ers), you should make a point to get to this conference one year. 

So anyway, this means that next week I will be too busy to blog. (Though I will be tweeting from the conference, so be sure to tune into that.) 

But since I won't be around, I've hooked you up with a week's worth of awesome guest bloggers. Yay! And I'm actually starting the guest blogging a little early. The fabulous Lindsey Bell sent me this post and I told her I had to put it up early because for those of you going to the conference (or any place where you'll have to pitch or promote yourself). This is great advice. 

So take it away, Lindsey...

How to Promote When You’re Too Shy to Promote

by Lindsey Bell

If there’s one thing you need to know about me, it’s this: I’m shy. I’m an introvert at my core. Public speaking makes me nervous. Talking to editors intimidates me. My voice even gets shaky when I talk to other authors. I guess there’s a part of me that still wonders if my writing is any good. You’d think getting published would alleviate these fears, but for me, it hasn’t. I’m still shy. But…I’m learning to manage it.

Last fall, I did something I’ve avoided for years. I pitched my book to several editors and agents at a writing conference. Yes, I was petrified. Yes, I was drenched in sweat by the time the pitches were over. (Seriously, I should have brought an extra shirt.) But it was worth it. I met my agent at one of those pitch sessions, and we’ve been working together for the past six months to get my manuscript polished and submitted.

As a writer who has finally learned how to manage shyness, I feel obliged to pass along some tips to other nervous writers.

1. Dress the part. I try to wear professional-looking outfits when I talk with editors, agents, or other authors. I’m telling you, it works. Just as wearing a fancy new dress makes you feel pretty, wearing a professional outfit makes you feel like a professional (even when everything inside of you is screaming that you’re not).
2. Come prepared. When you go to a writing conference and plan to promote your work, be prepared. Bring your book proposal and sample chapters. (In fact, I’d bring several copies of your proposal, just in case you run into another editor who likes your work). You should also bring business cards.
3. Perfect your pitch. The pitch should be a couple of sentences long and include the title, theme, and basic story line of your book. Once you’ve written your pitch, practice it. Have it so well memorized that you can say it without even really thinking about it.
4. Remember that they are people too. Editors, agents, and other authors are just like you. Try to take them off the pedestal and view them as normal human beings. It’s also helpful to remember that they are rooting for you. They want you to succeed.
5. Believe in yourself. So what if you’re a first-time author? So what if you are young . . . or old . . . or whatever thing you think makes you less qualified? Believe in your writing, and believe in yourself. Because when you do, you’re a lot more likely to find someone else who will believe in you as well. J

Good luck, and happy pitching!

Lindsey Bell is a nonfiction author, stay-at-home mother, wife, and blogger. She is working with the Blythe Daniel Agency to find a publisher for her parenting book entitled “Searching for Sanity.” When she’s not writing or chasing after her two-year-old son, Rylan, she’s likely spending time with her husband, Keith. Or then again, she might be taking a nap.

Contact Information:

Author Blog:

www.lindsey-bell.blogspot.com

Miscarriage Blog:

www.livingwholeagain.blogspot.com

Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/AuthorLindseyBell

Twitter:

http://twitter.com/LindseyMBell

Thanks so much, Lindsey!

 So are you shy like me and Lindsey? Does the idea of pitching make you want to curl into the fetal position? What things have helped you get through conferences or pitch sessions? And who is going to be at RWA next week?

Tweet All content copyright of the author. Please ask permission before re-printing or re-posting. Fair use quotations and links do no require prior consent of the author. ©Roni Loren |Copyright Statement|

Pitch It! Pitch It Good!*

This weekend I get the privilege of going to one of my favorite things--a writer's conference! : ) This will be my third DFW Writer's conference. For those of you anywhere close to this area, you should look into this one each year. I've been the last two years and I always walk away with a great experience and information. And for you guys, I'll be sure to take great notes for blogs and will try to tweet some from the conference  itself. :)

But today, in honor of the conference, I'm re-running Heather Long's guest post on pitching. I'm not pitching this weekend but I know many are, so hope everyone finds this helpful! Have a great weekend!

Photo by Will Folsom

Today, I have the pleasure of introducing you to author Heather Long. She and I "met" as bloggers first (she has a terrific blog right over here), and then found out we were in the same local RWA group. :) Heather also attended RWA nationals and she had a great experience pitching in person.

I am such a huge chicken about in-person pitching that I could sprout feathers just thinking about it, so this is a topic I thought best covered by someone who has had the guts to actually do it. So Heather, take it away...

Pitch it!  Pitch it Good!

Good morning and thank you Roni for allowing me this opportunity to drop by and chat!  Pitching is never fun. For some people, pitching means a racing heartbeat, sweaty palms and the fear that their breath will smell of coffee, garlic and onions even if they haven’t been near any of those items.  For others, pitching isn’t something to sweat or worry about. You just show up, say your piece and go home. You probably aren’t going to get anywhere with the pitch session, but you say you’re doing it so others will consider you as serious about your craft as they are about theirs.

Well, honestly – while I have found attitudes that cover all ranges of the above, the truth is – a good pitch session can really change the direction of your career. It can also be the litmus test for how serious you are and how much you think of your own work.

Professional Litmus Test

Pitching takes practice. I’ve walked into pitch sessions and gibbered like a gibbon before. I’m not proud of it. But it’s happened.  For example, not all that long ago, I went to a writer’s conference where we spent the majority of the day in a workshop. It was a terrific workshop. I learned so much that I thought my head would split open from the details.

But when it came time to pitch, just after lunch, I realized that the story I was pitching was crap.  And yes, that’s exactly how the thought occurred to me. I said, “This is crap. Total crap. I could make it so much better.”  I walked into that pitch session without an ounce of confidence about my own work because the workshop showed me so many ways I could be better.

The agent listened with half an ear, a faintly bemused smile on her face and I could tell that my half-halting descriptions flavored by my own disbelief weren’t selling her on the story anymore than I was.  I walked out of the pitch session feeling like an idiot.

Why had I even bothered?

Don’t Stop Believing

I bothered because I had a good story idea.  I bothered because I had great characters.  I bothered because before that workshop, I really believed in that story.  The problem was, I learned so much that I began to over think the process. Sure that story could be improved, but the heart of it – the meat of the story – that remains essentially the same.

By failing to believe in myself, I failed that pitch. I also ended up shoving the book on the backburner where it sits to this day. I’ve added back into my rotation as a book I will tackle after Christmas. But that’s a tale for another day.

Now that’s the bad side of pitching. The side everyone has experienced at one point in time or another. It’s a miserable feeling, but shake it off. Because good pitches do happen and I want to tell you how you can make it happen for you.

I Do Believe in My Story, I Do! I Do!

Do you remember the Peter Pan movie from a few years ago: the scene where Peter is trying to save Tink and everyone in the film begins chanting “I do believe in fairies! I do! I do!” – this is what you need to remember when it comes to pitching.  In July, I was attending the RWA National Conference in Orlando, Florida. I wasn’t going to pitch because all the sessions with editors and agents were taken in May while I was on a road trip.

Several people encouraged me to go for the walk in, because so many weren’t showing up for their pitch sessions.  I hesitated, because while I had finished a book and I really liked it, I hadn’t “prepared” for pitching.

Saturday morning, I woke up early and decided that after looking at the workshop schedule and not seeing one I absolutely had to get to, that maybe I’d go take a look at the pitch room. I walked in, I talked to the registration folks and I said, I wanted to sign up to wait – when they asked me who I wanted to see, I said anyone would be fine.

I lucked out. One of the Harlequin editors had some cancellations, so I was able to book a very specific time.  I thanked the registrar, darted out of the hall and back up to my room. I changed into a smart skirt, a fun shirt and dressed up my smile with a touch of makeup and then darted back downstairs.

I had just a few minutes before it would be my turn.  I waited patiently as we lined up and when they called time, I walked down to where the editor was waiting. 

Here it was, the crucial moment – would I bomb it? Would I stutter? Would I forget everything I’d written?

I held out my hand, introduced myself and grinned.  My nerves weren’t there.  Maybe it was the combination of a great conference experience where I was meeting new people every hour, discussing writing, love for books, romance and sharing those experiences with other writers who “got it.”  Maybe it was Nora Roberts’ terrifically inspiring bullsh*t keynote address about how hard it was to break into the business 30 years ago and that sweating for the job was part of it.  Maybe it was Jayne Ann Krentz’ highly anecdotal and hilarious tale of blowing up her own career because she wanted to tell her stories her way.

Who knows how much all of that contributed to my sense of inner calm, but I knew that I believed in my book. I loved the story that I told. I loved the characters. I loved the fun, sexy, twisty humor and I loved the fact that it was so utterly different from anything I’d ever written before.

So I pitched it.   Can I remember the words I used, exactly? Nope. But I do know it was conversational, I said “Imagine this…” and I told her what my hero and heroine were doing when they met, how they were drawn together and why they needed each other. I described the misunderstandings and added the element of suspense.  The more I warmed to the topic, the more engaged the editor became.

She asked me two questions.

I answered them without hesitation because I knew how I’d handled it in the book and then she smiled.

She smiled and said it sounded like a great story and that it gave her chills.  I think my heart started playing a drum line in my ears then, but she told me to send in the partial, the synopsis and the query, to pitch it exactly as I hard to her and to mention that she’d told me to do it in the letter.

I thanked her.  Said I would get right on it when I went home and I floated out of the hall.

I wasn’t floating just because she asked for the partial (but that was part of it), I wasn’t floating just because I hadn’t managed to flub the pitch (but that was part of it too), and I was floating because my faith in this story was there. I was confident in it even after all the workshops and all the great writers I met.  I didn’t feel small. I didn’t feel like I had to rewrite it.

Do I think it will need editing? Absolutely.

Am I confident that it will sell? Yes.

Am I happy that I pitched?  Hell yes.

Believe in yourself. Believe in yourself to share your story with the editors and agents out there that want to hear it.  If you are engaged by the book you wrote, by the story you told, then you can bring that level of investment to the editors and agents.

Don’t stop believing and you’ll find them believing right alongside you.

Have you ever pitched a story in person? What was your experience like? If not, what's holding you back from doing so?

About Heather

Heather Long lives in North Texas with her husband, daughter and their menagerie of animals. As a child, Heather skipped picture books and enjoyed the Harlequin romance novels by Penny Jordan and Nora Roberts that her grandmother read to her. Heather believes that laughter is as important to life as breathing and that the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus are very real. In the meanwhile, she is hard at work on her next novel.

Contact Info:

Website: http://www.heatherlong.net

Blog: http://dailydose-fantasyromance.blogspot.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/HVLong

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/HVLong

**Today's Theme Song**

"Hey Man, Nice Shot" - Filter

Want to Get High (Concept)?

Go to any writer's conference and you'll hear the following two words ad nauseum: High Concept.  Agents, publishers, your Uncle Bernard--everybody wants your story to be high concept. And as I judge contest entries, I can tell you the high concept can be quite elusive. So what exactly does that mean?

High concept is an intriguing idea that can be stated in a few words and is easily understood by all. --James Bonnet

Okay, great. Sounds easy enough. Movies and tv shows use this all the time. It's just a log line, right? Well, not really. Let's look at a few log lines from today's tvguide.

Swingers--Warmly amusing story about the do's and don'ts of dating, centering on six friends who go looking for love at hip LA hotspots.

Definitely, Maybe--On the eve of his divorce, a jaded Manhattan ad exec tells his ten year old daughter how he met her mother.

*Shrug* Both good movies, but based on those descriptions I could take 'em or leave 'em. They tell you in general what it's about but there's no real intrigue. That's not to say they don't have high concept, but these loglines don't speak to it.

Now let's look at a few examples that are considered "high concept.

Speed--A cocky cop must find a way to save people stranded on a city bus that will

explode if is slows below 55 mph. (source)

Double Jeopardy--When a young wife discovers the husband she’s convicted of murdering isn’t dead, she escapes custody to track him down and kill him. (source)

The Hangover--After a wild bachelor party in Vegas, three friends wake up to find the groom missing, and no one has any memory of the previous night.

Back to the Future--In 1985, Doc Brown invents time travel; in 1955, Marty McFly accidentally prevents his parents from meeting, putting his own existence at stake. (imdb)

Ooh, now I don't know about you, but those grab me. Why? What are the differences between a straight logline and a high concept.

High concept stories have...

1. A unique premise

This doesn't mean you have to do something that's NEVER been done before. Let's face it, that's hard. But put a twist on it. In Speed, we've seen bomb/terrorist plotlines before, but wait, let's put it on a bus, oh and let's make sure that the bus can't slow down. In New Moon, we basically have Romeo and Juliet with vampires and werewolves.

2. Universal appeal

If your idea is unique (#1) but so bizarre that no one can relate to the premise, then you've lost your high concept. In Double Jeopardy, being betrayed by a spouse is something most people can connect with. No, maybe not everyone has been betrayed by their husband/wife, but we can imagine what that would be like. And certainly everyone has been betrayed at least once in their life by a friend, family member, etc.

3. Instant emotional connection

If we don't connect emotionally with a story, then what's the point of reading it? In Speed, we can connect with the idea of being an innocent bystander on the bus caught in that life or death situation. Or the cop whose trying to save everyone. In The Hangover, we can imagine the panic we would feel if we woke up and had no memory of the previous night and our friend was missing.

4. Obvious Potential (Can be visualized immediately)

When you hear a high concept pitch, you instantly start imagining what could occur. This doesn't mean a predictable story necessarily, but it gets our mind working. In Twilight, we can imagine what problems might arise when a vampire falls in love with a girl whose blood is absolutely irresistible to him. Clueless goes to Harvard Law (guess the movie). We can imagine the funny antics that will ensue.

5. Only one to three sentences (preferably one)

If you can't cover it in this amount of time, your concept made need a shot of heroine--sorry, I can't resist making lame puns--your concept needs to get high.

A few things to help you create your high concept...

• Create a compelling character with a desperate desire

• Give the character a flaw related to their job or situation

• Have a life-altering, inciting event

• Insert a quirk of fate or irony

--source

Alright, so I hope that helps. I know that we all want to be able to do that "elevator pitch" if ever given the right opportunity. And we certainly want that one liner in our query that is going to get an agent or publisher excited. I'm terrible at this, so this post is as much for my benefit as everyone else's. I'm bound and determined to have my high concept pitch before I jump into my next novel.

Here are the sources I quoted from, check them out for more info:

Conquering the High Concept

High Concept Defined

Got High Concept (from RWA)

What's all this talk about high concept? (from the Knight agency)

If you want to see examples of loglines (some high concept, some not) and taglines (i.e. hooks), go to imdb.com and enter any movie. They offer one line plot summaries and the hook for every movie. It's awesome.

So have you done this? What's your logline or high concept pitch? Do you think your current WIP fits these guidelines? What are some great high concept books that you've read or movies that you've scene lately? What would be there logline?

*Repost from October 2009

Pitch It! Pitch It Good!

This week we're continuing with the parade of awesome guest bloggers. Today, I have the pleasure of introducing you to author Heather Long. She and I "met" as bloggers first (she has a terrific blog right over here), and then found out we were in the same local RWA group. :) Heather also attended RWA nationals and she had a great experience pitching in person.

I am such a huge chicken about in-person pitching that I could sprout feathers just thinking about it, so this is a topic I thought best covered by someone who has had the guts to actually do it. So Heather, take it away...

Pitch it!  Pitch it Good!

Good morning and thank you Roni for allowing me this opportunity to drop by and chat!  Pitching is never fun. For some people, pitching means a racing heartbeat, sweaty palms and the fear that their breath will smell of coffee, garlic and onions even if they haven’t been near any of those items.  For others, pitching isn’t something to sweat or worry about. You just show up, say your piece and go home. You probably aren’t going to get anywhere with the pitch session, but you say you’re doing it so others will consider you as serious about your craft as they are about theirs.

Well, honestly – while I have found attitudes that cover all ranges of the above, the truth is – a good pitch session can really change the direction of your career. It can also be the litmus test for how serious you are and how much you think of your own work.

Professional Litmus Test

Pitching takes practice. I’ve walked into pitch sessions and gibbered like a gibbon before. I’m not proud of it. But it’s happened.  For example, not all that long ago, I went to a writer’s conference where we spent the majority of the day in a workshop. It was a terrific workshop. I learned so much that I thought my head would split open from the details.

But when it came time to pitch, just after lunch, I realized that the story I was pitching was crap.  And yes, that’s exactly how the thought occurred to me. I said, “This is crap. Total crap. I could make it so much better.”  I walked into that pitch session without an ounce of confidence about my own work because the workshop showed me so many ways I could be better.

The agent listened with half an ear, a faintly bemused smile on her face and I could tell that my half-halting descriptions flavored by my own disbelief weren’t selling her on the story anymore than I was.  I walked out of the pitch session feeling like an idiot.

Why had I even bothered?

Don’t Stop Believing

I bothered because I had a good story idea.  I bothered because I had great characters.  I bothered because before that workshop, I really believed in that story.  The problem was, I learned so much that I began to over think the process. Sure that story could be improved, but the heart of it – the meat of the story – that remains essentially the same.

By failing to believe in myself, I failed that pitch. I also ended up shoving the book on the backburner where it sits to this day. I’ve added back into my rotation as a book I will tackle after Christmas. But that’s a tale for another day.

Now that’s the bad side of pitching. The side everyone has experienced at one point in time or another. It’s a miserable feeling, but shake it off. Because good pitches do happen and I want to tell you how you can make it happen for you.

I Do Believe in My Story, I Do! I Do!

Do you remember the Peter Pan movie from a few years ago: the scene where Peter is trying to save Tink and everyone in the film begins chanting “I do believe in fairies! I do! I do!” – this is what you need to remember when it comes to pitching.  In July, I was attending the RWA National Conference in Orlando, Florida. I wasn’t going to pitch because all the sessions with editors and agents were taken in May while I was on a road trip.

Several people encouraged me to go for the walk in, because so many weren’t showing up for their pitch sessions.  I hesitated, because while I had finished a book and I really liked it, I hadn’t “prepared” for pitching.

Saturday morning, I woke up early and decided that after looking at the workshop schedule and not seeing one I absolutely had to get to, that maybe I’d go take a look at the pitch room. I walked in, I talked to the registration folks and I said, I wanted to sign up to wait – when they asked me who I wanted to see, I said anyone would be fine.

I lucked out. One of the Harlequin editors had some cancellations, so I was able to book a very specific time.  I thanked the registrar, darted out of the hall and back up to my room. I changed into a smart skirt, a fun shirt and dressed up my smile with a touch of makeup and then darted back downstairs.

I had just a few minutes before it would be my turn.  I waited patiently as we lined up and when they called time, I walked down to where the editor was waiting. 

Here it was, the crucial moment – would I bomb it? Would I stutter? Would I forget everything I’d written?

I held out my hand, introduced myself and grinned.  My nerves weren’t there.  Maybe it was the combination of a great conference experience where I was meeting new people every hour, discussing writing, love for books, romance and sharing those experiences with other writers who “got it.”  Maybe it was Nora Roberts’ terrifically inspiring bullsh*t keynote address about how hard it was to break into the business 30 years ago and that sweating for the job was part of it.  Maybe it was Jayne Ann Krentz’ highly anecdotal and hilarious tale of blowing up her own career because she wanted to tell her stories her way.

Who knows how much all of that contributed to my sense of inner calm, but I knew that I believed in my book. I loved the story that I told. I loved the characters. I loved the fun, sexy, twisty humor and I loved the fact that it was so utterly different from anything I’d ever written before.

So I pitched it.   Can I remember the words I used, exactly? Nope. But I do know it was conversational, I said “Imagine this…” and I told her what my hero and heroine were doing when they met, how they were drawn together and why they needed each other. I described the misunderstandings and added the element of suspense.  The more I warmed to the topic, the more engaged the editor became.

She asked me two questions.

I answered them without hesitation because I knew how I’d handled it in the book and then she smiled.

She smiled and said it sounded like a great story and that it gave her chills.  I think my heart started playing a drum line in my ears then, but she told me to send in the partial, the synopsis and the query, to pitch it exactly as I hard to her and to mention that she’d told me to do it in the letter.

I thanked her.  Said I would get right on it when I went home and I floated out of the hall.

I wasn’t floating just because she asked for the partial (but that was part of it), I wasn’t floating just because I hadn’t managed to flub the pitch (but that was part of it too), and I was floating because my faith in this story was there. I was confident in it even after all the workshops and all the great writers I met.  I didn’t feel small. I didn’t feel like I had to rewrite it.

Do I think it will need editing? Absolutely.

Am I confident that it will sell? Yes.

Am I happy that I pitched?  Hell yes.

Believe in yourself. Believe in yourself to share your story with the editors and agents out there that want to hear it.  If you are engaged by the book you wrote, by the story you told, then you can bring that level of investment to the editors and agents.

Don’t stop believing and you’ll find them believing right alongside you.

Have you ever pitched a story in person? What was your experience like? If not, what's holding you back from doing so?

About Heather

Heather Long lives in North Texas with her husband, daughter and their menagerie of animals. As a child, Heather skipped picture books and enjoyed the Harlequin romance novels by Penny Jordan and Nora Roberts that her grandmother read to her. Heather believes that laughter is as important to life as breathing and that the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus are very real. In the meanwhile, she is hard at work on her next novel.

Contact Info:

Website: http://www.heatherlong.net

Blog: http://dailydose-fantasyromance.blogspot.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/HVLong

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/HVLong

**Today's Theme Song**

"Hey Man, Nice Shot" - Filter

(player in sidebar, take a listen)

Who Wants to Get High (Concept)?

Go to any writer's conference and you'll hear the following two words ad nauseum: High Concept.  Agents, publishers, your Uncle Bernard--everybody wants your story to be high concept. So what exactly does that mean?

High concept is an intriguing idea that can be stated in a few words and is easily understood by all. --James Bonnet

Okay, great. Sounds easy enough. Movies and tv shows use this all the time. It's just a log line, right? Well, not really. Let's look at a few log lines from today's tvguide.

Swingers--Warmly amusing story about the do's and don'ts of dating, centering on six friends who go looking for love at hip LA hotspots.

Definitely, Maybe--On the eve of his divorce, a jaded Manhattan ad exec tells his ten year old daughter how he met her mother.

*Shrug* Both good movies, but based on those descriptions I could take 'em or leave 'em. They tell you in general what it's about but there's no real intrigue. That's not to say they don't have high concept, but these loglines don't speak to it.

Now let's look at a few examples that are considered "high concept.

Speed--A cocky cop must find a way to save people stranded on a city bus that will

explode if is slows below 55 mph. (source)

Double Jeopardy--When a young wife discovers the husband she’s convicted of murdering isn’t dead, she escapes custody to track him down and kill him. (source)

The Hangover--After a wild bachelor party in Vegas, three friends wake up to find the groom missing, and no one has any memory of the previous night.

Back to the Future--In 1985, Doc Brown invents time travel; in 1955, Marty McFly accidentally prevents his parents from meeting, putting his own existence at stake. (imdb)

Ooh, now I don't know about you, but those grab me. Why? What are the differences between a straight logline and a high concept.

High concept stories have...

1. A unique premise

This doesn't mean you have to do something that's NEVER been done before. Let's face it, that's hard. But put a twist on it. In Speed, we've seen bomb/terrorist plotlines before, but wait, let's put it on a bus, oh and let's make sure that the bus can't slow down. In New Moon, we basically have Romeo and Juliet with vampires and werewolves.

2. Universal appeal

If your idea is unique (#1) but so bizarre that no one can relate to the premise, then you've lost your high concept. In Double Jeopardy, being betrayed by a spouse is something most people can connect with. No, maybe not everyone has been betrayed by their husband/wife, but we can imagine what that would be like. And certainly everyone has been betrayed at least once in their life by a friend, family member, etc.

3. Instant emotional connection

If we don't connect emotionally with a story, then what's the point of reading it? In Speed, we can connect with the idea of being an innocent bystander on the bus caught in that life or death situation. Or the cop whose trying to save everyone. In The Hangover, we can imagine the panic we would feel if we woke up and had no memory of the previous night and our friend was missing.

4. Obvious Potential (Can be visualized immediately)

When you hear a high concept pitch, you instantly start imagining what could occur. This doesn't mean a predictable story necessarily, but it gets our mind working. In Twilight, we can imagine what problems might arise when a vampire falls in love with a girl whose blood is absolutely irresistible to him. Clueless goes to Harvard Law (guess the movie). We can imagine the funny antics that will ensue.

5. Only one to three sentences (preferably one)

If you can't cover it in this amount of time, your concept made need a shot of heroine--sorry, I can't resist making lame puns--your concept needs to get high.

A few things to help you create your high concept...

• Create a compelling character with a desperate desire

• Give the character a flaw related to their job or situation

• Have a life-altering, inciting event

• Insert a quirk of fate or irony

--source

Alright, so I hope that helps. I know that we all want to be able to do that "elevator pitch" if ever given the right opportunity. And we certainly want that one liner in our query that is going to get an agent or publisher excited. I'm terrible at this, so this post is as much for my benefit as everyone else's. I'm bound and determined to have my high concept pitch before I jump into my next novel.

Here are the sources I quoted from, check them out for more info:

Conquering the High Concept

High Concept Defined

Got High Concept (from RWA)

What's all this talk about high concept? (from the Knight agency)

If you want to see examples of loglines (some high concept, some not) and taglines (i.e. hooks), go to imdb.com and enter any movie. They offer one line plot summaries and the hook for every movie. It's awesome.

So have you done this? What's your logline or high concept pitch? Do you think your current WIP fits these guidelines? Also, what do ya'll think I'm my kinder, gentler new blog design? I'm on the fence about it, so let me hear it. :)

**Today's Theme Song**

"High Enough" - Damn Yankees

(player in sidebar--go ahead, take a listen)