In the past few months we've covered the synopsis and the query. Let's zoom all the way down to the elevator pitch.
When you tell someone you've written a novel/short story, they usually ask what it's about. Your answer should be one concise sentence. It should be a sentence you've worked on and memorized. You should be able to recite it on a moment's notice and you should sound excited about it with each telling.
This challenge will help you create that sentence. (if you haven't already.)
This challenge will run for one full week.
Multiple entries are encouraged.
Please vote (starting next MONDAY at 0:01 EST) for your top three favorite loglines, the ones that would most make you want to read that person's story.
Scoring will be 5 pts for first, 4 pts for second, 3 pts for third.
Voting is mandatory. Crits are optional.
Cited below are two examples. (Taken verbatim from "Write Good or Die" editor: Scott Nicholson)
-A young female FBI trainee must barter personal information with an imprisoned psychopathic genius in order to catch a serial killer who is capturing and killing young women for their skins.
-A treasure-hunting archeologist races over the globe to find the legendary Lost Ark of the Covenant before Hitler’s minions can acquire and use it to supernaturally power the Nazi army.
So, choose your favorite self-written story (or stories) and make us want to read on!
Axe
update:
I've decided to sweeten the deal for the winner.
You sir/ma'am have in me, a guaranteed reader for up to 50 pages of your MS and I will critique it to the best of my ability.
Now, I'm an amateur, so take it for what it's worth, but sometimes just knowing someone will be reading your work and soon allows you to look at it from a different perspective.
Get those 50 pages ready, for when you win, I'll expect them in my e-mail shortly thereafter!
.
[This message has been edited by axeminister (edited March 01, 2011).]
The next source for inspirational log lines is actually Netflix. Their tiny summaries for movies are really just logs lines. I've been browsing them deciding which I like or dislike and why.
posted
I propose a voting change. Instead of ranking them the traditional one, two or three. How about you just score each one as a yes or no. Meaning yes you would read the intro letter, no you wouldn't. The winner would then be the most yes votes. The rationale is this. We are determining if this pitch works, that seems the best criteria for whether or not it does.
Posts: 459 | Registered: Mar 2010
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While not completely up to me, I'm not sure if we'd have time for a consensus vote, so I'll give you my take on the idea.
A no is a rejection. We get enough of those when being serious, I'd hate to start throwing them around when we're not.
If someone doesn't vote for you, they liked someones idea more than yours, but perhaps they didn't dislike yours.
Even when we crit each other it's done in a fashion to help the writer improve, or explain what didn't work for each of us and why it didn't get a top 3 vote.
Saying no to someone's idea seems a lot more negative than simply not getting your vote.
posted
I agree that it's too late to change it. Besides, I'd be giving a yes to almost all of them--it might make judging impossibly close. The one or two who don't get many yes votes probably would feel very, very rejected.
Posts: 938 | Registered: May 2008
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posted
I agree that it is too late to change this and that tallying yes's and no's would be too complicated, but I'm not offended by no's - it is more helpful to know when and why something doesn't work.
All of these stories could be fantastic or really suck - we are voting on the quality of the pitch and not of the writing or of the story itself.
posted
I agree that it's too late to change. I think the crits (even though they're optional) will clarify what's strong or weak about the line and be the most help.
Posts: 1993 | Registered: Jul 2009
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posted
OK, it was just a thought that came to me as I was scanning the entries. I was just thinking that with 30 entries it will take a lot longer to weed it down to 1 through 3 than make an inital stab at what interested you. To me that's good information because if no one is really interested in the pitch maybe it's time to take a different tack. But I understand it's rather late in the game for a change.
Posts: 459 | Registered: Mar 2010
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posted
Just a side bar...will it become clear how to vote tomorrow morning? This is the first "writing challenge" I've been a part of...
Posts: 26 | Registered: Feb 2011
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posted
Just a suggestion. If we do do crits, could we create a separate thread called "What's your story about? -challenge crits-". That way the voting is easier to follow.
Posts: 789 | Registered: Aug 2007
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posted
Utahute, No prob. If I'd known there would be so many entries, I would have suggested we vote for our top 5 and go from there. However, keep in mind you are always welcome to comment. If you vote for top 3, maybe type out who # 4 was. Or just say which other entries you enjoyed.
Brendan, The job of tallying the votes falls to me. It's gonna be fun. I did count wrong on the last two I ran and Genevive had to correct me, so I should say the job of tallying the votes falls to me - then her.
Kevenwall, Voting begins at 12:01 Monday morning EST. I won't be up at that time, so how to vote is simple. Go to the ENTRIES thread and submit a reply. Simply type in your top three favorites. (You can look back at other contests for our style) You may crit, or not. Elaborate on what you liked and why you voted, or not. It's up to you!
posted
I've got completely lost on how we're voting here and whether we are givng crits or not, so I've removed my entry and vote.
Also, I'm not really comfortable with the multiple entry thing (just noticed reading the entries thread again). I've entered one and some people have put in three or more. Would you pitch three in a row in an elevator to an agent you just met?
Maybe next time.
[This message has been edited by pdblake (edited March 08, 2011).]
[This message has been edited by pdblake (edited March 08, 2011).]
The purpose of the contest isn't the voting or the winning/losing, it's if you've played the game.
It's just an exercise for you to get your novel/story down to a sentence in case anyone asks what it's about.
Multiple entries means that person has multiple stories - this is good.
Who knows what someone may ask you when the time comes. I mentioned in a different post that in movie script world "what else you got?" is a question you have to be ready for. You can't get your face time with a producer, say one sentence, have him/her not like it, then leave. You have to be ready to pitch your alien story immediately after your boy meets girl story.
I'm still curious what your favorites are. Why don't you vote in here and let us know what it is you liked about them. Remember, we're all here to improve, so comments are always helpful.
posted
axeminister I can do that but it could take me a day or two. There's seems to be a lot of them and I think a couple were added since the last time I read some. I need to get to some writing tonight and tomorrow I need to send out some stories. Way behind on that.
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