A Word in Your Eye

From https://writingexcuses.com/20-48-now-go-write-how-to-pitch--your-work

Key points: How do you, as a writer, talk about your own work in a compelling way? Pitching is a skill, you can train, practice, and get better at it. Be who you are. How does this fill some one's need? Comps and comp titles (like...). Content and presentation. Think about your audience. Conversations, first and foremost. Not distilled plot, but tone, vibe, what you're going to think about. Category, vibe, and why. Comp titles, and Venn diagram overlaps. Back copy: character, conflict, setting, hook. A keyhole peek at your book. 

[Season 20, Episode  48]

[Erin] Hey, everybody. This is Erin, and I've got a question for you. What have you learned from Writing Excuses that you use for your own writing? Now, we talk a lot about tools, not rules. Which means there are things that we're going to say that you're going to be like, yes, that is for me. That's the tool I'm going to use in my next project. And there are others that you're going to be like, uh,  I'm going to leave that to the side. And what we want to know is which of the things that we're saying have really worked for you? What's the acronym you're always repeating? What's the plot structure you keep coming back to? What's a piece of advice that has carried you forward, when you've been stuck in your work? Or that you've been able to pass on to another writer who's needed advice or help? However you've used something that you've learned from us, we want to know about it, and we want to share it with the broader community. Every month, we're going to put one of your tips or tricks or tools in the newsletter, so that the rest of the community can hear how you have actually taken something that we've talked about and made it work for you. And I'm personally just really excited to learn about those, because a lot of times, y'all take the things that we say and use them in such ingenious and interesting ways to do such amazing writing that I'm just like chomping at the bit to get in these tools and tips and share them with everybody else. So if you're interested, please go to our show notes, and fill out the form there, and be part of this project and just share with us what you're doing, what you've learned, and how are you using it so that we can share with everybody else. Really excited, again, to get all this in because, honestly, what we say is made real and important and meaningful by what y'all do with it. With that, you're out of excuses. Now go tell us what works for you.

[unknown] kimi no game system... [Japanese ad for Lenovo]

[Mary Robinette] This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.

[Season 20, Episode 48]

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon] Now Go Write - how to pitch your work.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[Howard] And I'm Howard.

[DongWon] And this week, we are continuing our series talking about our upcoming craft book, and this is another one of the business topics that we are getting into. I want to talk about one of my very favorite things to talk about, which is pitching. Which is fundamentally just how do you, as a writer, talk about your own work in a compelling way. Right? I think this idea of pitching can feel very stressful to writers for a number of reasons. I think there's a lot of pressure around it because it's an important skill. Right? When we think of pitching, we think of going to... Trying to find a literary agent, trying to find an editor, and writing up the copy for your book, and having your perfect elevator pitch, and all of those things. Right? These are stressful moments, and I'm not denying that, but also, I want everyone to realize (1) what a career skill pitching will be. That it's not just confined to these little moments, that it is something you will continue to return to over and over again as an important skill as you meet readers and try and convince them to buy your books, and as you talk to your publishing team about future books you want to work on. Those are simply the most obvious examples of when you'll be pitching. Before we started recording, Erin and I were chatting about even just going into a freelance job and having to say, yeah, here's the idea I came up with, here's what I want to work on here. And that is also a form of pitching. Right? Once you start to understand the principles of how to pitch, you'll start seeing it in a number of other places and start being able to apply that. So the first lesson I want to get across here is that pitching, like any other thing, is a skill. And because it's a skill, that means you can train it, you can practice it, and you can get better at it. Right now, you're probably pretty bad at it, because everyone is bad at it. It's really hard to do. Right? And right now, you just haven't done it before. It's not a normal way to talk. Sort of. And I'm going to get more into how you can start thinking of it and integrating it into your daily life. But what you're doing is figuring out some specific strategies and some specific processes to start talking about pitching.

[Howard] Um. I'm going to say a thing, and then I'm going to invite you to hear me unsay it. And that is that the skill set for pitching is 99%, it's like coffee coaster Venn diagram overlap, with the skill set for sales.

[DongWon] Yep.

[Howard] If you are a good salesperson, you already know how to pitch, you just need the right content. If sales terrifies you and makes you feel filthy and you don't want to be in sales, you don't even want to think about sales, then I'm now unsaying it.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] And you can pretend that pitching is a completely different skill.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] Because what you're pitching is something you made, not something someone else made.

[DongWon] Right.

[Howard] And invited you to sell.

[DongWon] Right. But at the end of the day, if you want to make your money from being a writer, you're selling your work. Right? At the end of the day, you are, to some extent, in sales. Because to get paid for your book, you gotta sell a lot of books. Right? So having that core skill of being able to pitch is sort of as a baseline how you're interacting with the world once you've written your thing. Right? So what is a good pitch is where I kind of want to start with. Well, actually, let's back up a second. For each of you, like, what was the place where you guys started when you were on your journey of, like, learning how to pitch your project? Like, that first query letter, that first talking to a friend about your book, what was the thing that you felt like was the first key where you're like, oh, wait, I'm starting to get how I'm supposed to talk about this?

[Howard] WorldCon Denver, I think it was 2007. We were trying to figure out how to hand sell Schlock Mercenary to science fiction fans. And we came up with epic science fiction, four panels at a time. That was the pitch.

[DongWon] Great.

[Howard] It is an epic, and four panels... What does four panels at a time mean? Well, that evokes thoughts of a newspaper comic, which says comedy without necessarily saying comedy out loud. Because declaring that something is funny is inherently unfunny and is a challenge. You're challenging people to believe you when you say it's funny. But if you say four panels at a time, they tell themselves it's funny. And yes, there's this whole strategy that goes into what you say versus the actual message that comes across. We sold so many books at that convention. We ended up printing slicks that said epic science fiction, four panels at a time on them, so that we could talk less and hand people things. And we moved a lot of books.

[DongWon] Well, to unpack why that works. Right? Is you tell people what the thing is very clearly. It's epic science fiction. Here's the category, here's how I think about it. Then you're giving me the thing that gives it texture and makes it interesting, which is a juxtaposition that's unexpected, which is the four panels at a time. I'm not expecting epic science fiction to be broken up that way. And you've structured the whole thing as a joke. And therefore, what you've communicated to me is that this is humor by the form of the pitch itself. Right? So the density of the information in that one sentence's incredibly high, comprehension, very easy. And I think that's one of the things that makes a great pitch, is getting as much information across as possible very quickly, and you're using all the tools in your kit to do it.

[Howard] And just so we're clear, that was the first pitch that really worked.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Howard] That was where we started to see traction. I don't remember how many other pitches we had, how many other conventions I did where the hand selling was just a chore.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Howard] But it was definitely iterative, and I...[Argh] one of those other things I may want to unsay... You don't want to hear that you're going to have to iterate this and work on it until you figure out that it works. But that's what I had to do.

[DongWon] No,  that's my opinion here, is you keep practicing it, you get better at it. Right? Your first pitch is going to suck, and then you try it on somebody and see how they respond, and then you find a better one.

[Erin] Actually, makes me think about karaoke.

[Chuckles]

[Erin] I don't actually think that I'm great at pitching. I just tend to... I have a hard time doing it in the world. But what I've learned about pitching is that, like, being who you are is helpful. Like, in some ways, like, you have to be able to carry off the pitch that you're giving.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] You give somebody else this pitch and it will feel, like, weird and wrong and off because it's not you. And I think about when you sing a song that you really like at karaoke, sometimes what will happen is, you'll try something in the moment. You'll be like, oh, I'm going to go up for that note instead of down, or, I'm going to try to, like, add this little flourish, and sometimes it lands and people react to it, and you go, ooh, that was good. And that was something I came up with on my own. I should try that again next time. And, like, over time, you build the best version of the song...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] In some ways. You still never know how it will go on the day, but you have a sense of, like, I've tried this and it works for me.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Because it comes somewhat organically from how I would do this, but I'm still adjusting to match what my audience is reacting to. Because a pitch only works if it lands, to a certain extent.

[DongWon] And it's still an expression of you. Right? When you're doing karaoke, you're making that song yours in some way, finding some way to add you, but you're doing it in a context where people can still easily understand what's happening and what the name is. It's recognizable. I know that this is science fiction. I know that this is fantasy. But also, this is coming from a person who has a perspective, and that's coming across. If you try to use Howard's pitch of epic fantasy, four panels at a time, it would  fall so flat because the cadence would be wrong, the delivery would be wrong, the type of thing you're doing is wrong. You have to find your own voice in it.

[Mary Robinette] For me, it depends on kind of what we're talking about when we talk about pitching, because I started with pitching puppet shows, and pitching them in person. All cold calls. And so there I was always trying to figure out how does this fill someone's need. And when people ask me which of my books they should read, the first question I ask them is what are you reading now? And then I pick a book that I... That seems most closely aligned with what I'm guessing their taste is. But when I'm doing the novels, like, hello, we're going to send them out to the world, I've found that if I can figure out what a tagline is for it before I start writing the book, that it helps me focus the thing. And I figured that out with Shades of Milk and Honey, which I described as Jane Austen with magic. And it... And every time I needed to make a decision, I would go back to it. It's like, oh, I want an evil overlord, but that's not Jane Austen. So it helped me there. Jane Austen writes Oceans 11 was the one that probably made me... That cemented that...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Oh, this is a very helpful thing to have in the world. The books that I have the hardest time selling and describing are the ones... And, honestly, the one that I have... Had the hardest time writing was Martian Contingency. I did not come up with any kind of tagline to it before I started writing. I love the book. But I have a hard time telling you what it is about. It's like, we're on Mars! [garbled]

[laughter]

[DongWon] Well, this is, I think, a real thing about as you get deeper into the series, the pitch is this is more of the series.

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[DongWon] Right? And I think it makes a lot of sense that, for Martian Contingency, there isn't like a clear  external pitch, because it's not a standalone. Right? It's this is a new book in the series. If you like the series, you're going to like this. The pitch that you have that's really specifically honed is for the series itself. Right?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Yeah, and that is... And that has shifted, also.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Because the available comps have shifted.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] I was writing it before Apples for All Mankind came out, so I was describing it as Apollo era science fiction with 100% more women and people of color.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] And that I... It begins with an asteroid hitting Washington DC in 1952. Which is not a particularly compressed pitch, but it's one of those things that gives people the sense of, oh, it's going to be hard science fiction, and, oh, I like the idea of destroying Washington DC.

[laughter]

[DongWon] And I think that's also an important thing, that a really pithy pitch can be helpful, that one sentence thing. But also, sometimes you're packing so much information into that, that it's hard to parse.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] You know? And so it's okay for it to breathe a little bit. You can have a little bit longer of a pitch, provided it's still engaging. Provided people are still excited and bought in on it. Then you have that space to talk about it a little bit more. And one thing I want to sort of emphasize is, as we're talking about in all of these, it's an iterative process. You're practicing it, you're trying it out, and you're doing all these different things over time to learn how to get better at it. But...I want to talk a little bit more about what that process looks like and how you actually do that. And we'll do that after the break.

[DongWon] For more than a decade, we've hosted Writing Excuses at sea, an annual workshop and retreat in a cruise ship. You're invited to our final cruise in 2026. It's a chance to learn, connect, and grow, all while sailing along the stunning Alaskan and Canadian coast. Join us, the hosts of Writing Excuses, and spend dedicated time leveling up your writing craft. Attend classes, join small group breakout sessions, learn from instructors one on one at office hours, and meet with all the writers from around the world. During the week-long retreat, we'll also dock at 3 Alaskan ports, Juneau, Sitka, and Skagway, as well as Victoria, British Columbia. Use this time to write on the ship or choose excursions that allow you to get up close and personal with glaciers, go whale watching, and learn more about the rich history of the region and more. Next year will be our grand finale after over 10 years of successful retreats at sea. Whether you're a long time alumni or a newcomer, we would love to see you on board. Early bird pricing is currently available, and we also offer scholarships. You can learn more at writingexcuses.com/retreats.

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[unknown] kimi no game system... [Japanese ad for Lenovo]

[DongWon] Okay. So, before the break, we were talking about, like, how people sort of came to learn how to pitch and a little bit about what that is. I want to start getting more into the nuts and bolts of it now, of how do you actually get good at it. And the  thing I really want to emphasize is we are surrounded by pitches all day long. Every commercial you hear, every movie poster, every book jacket, every... The copy on the back of that book... All of that is trying to convince you to engage with media. Right? You are watching video game trailers, your friends are telling you, hey, you should play this thing. You should go watch this thing. Right? And you are also engaged in this. You're trying to tell your friends about media you consume that you like, of, like, I ate at this restaurant, here's what I like about it. I watched this TV show, here's what I liked about it. Right? That's all pitching. You're already doing this every day to the people around you. All I want you to do is start noticing when you're doing that and noticing when you're consuming it, and start getting intentional about it. Right? Getting a little bit more focused about how do I convince my friend to watch this TV show I love.

[Howard] There are two aspects for me to the pitching skill set. And I just break them out as content and presentation. Content, what are the words that I'm going to say? How do I come up with epic science fiction, four panels at a time? How do I come up with... Is there a formula, a magic? No, there isn't a magic. I do have a formula, but it doesn't always work. And on the other side, how do I bring myself to say that thing in a way that's natural and convincing and conversational if I'm in an environment where that's appropriate versus when an agent or an editor has come up to me and said, pitch me your novel? How do I cold start that?

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Howard] I mean, because that's an opportunity that you may get once or twice. And if you're not ready for it, boy, you'll be reliving that moment for your whole life.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] And it's... For me, it has always come down to take whatever content I think works, and practice saying those words until I've memorized them, and then just bank it.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Well, I think one thing Mary Robinette was saying when you were talking about getting good at this in terms of pitching puppet shows, and when talking to a reader about which book should  he read, is thinking about your audience.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Right? And remembering that these are conversations first and foremost. Right? So even when an editor is coming to you and is like, pitch me your project, I think it is a conversation that you're trying to get into and making it feel like a personal connection. And what Erin was saying about karaoke, where are you in this, is really, really important for making that really effective as a pitch, and getting them really on board. So, when you're thinking about pitching... That's why I like this model of thinking about, oh, how do you tell your friend about something that you like? And now, you just need to do that for something that you wrote. Which is, I recognize, harder, but still is bringing that same energy to it, that same consideration of who's my audience. Right? What are they excited about? Why would they like this? Am I trying to get them to watch Star Wars? Or watch Andor? Oh, do they like Star Wars? Great, I'm going to go this way. Do they hate Star Wars? Oh, I'm going to be like, oh, you don't need to know a thing about Star Wars to watch Andor. It's about politics and revolution. Right? Like, how you're pitching that thing depends on your audience and knowing that can be really, really helpful to start honing in on how do we put english on that ball.

[Mary Robinette] You just reminded me of something that I was talking to an agent... No, or an editor? I think it was... Anyway, years ago, I didn't have a novel out in the world, and he wanted to know what I was working on, and I was like, oh, you know, this thing, blah blah... And he's like, no, no, no, no. You're telling me the plot.

[DongWon] Yep.

[Mary Robinette] I want to know what it's about.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And then he said, Andor, it's about politics and revolution. I'm like, yes. That's often the key is that we try to distill down to plot, but it's really about this is the tone, this is the ride you're going to be on, these are the things you're going to think about.

[DongWon] Yeah. The two... The three things I want to know when I hear a pitch are what  category are we in? Is this a science fiction/fantasy? Is this adult [garbled]? Right? That's like the baseline that I need to know. The second thing I need to know is what's the vibe? Like, what kind of tone are we going for? Is it comedic? Is it super serious? Is it really ethnic? I think getting that. And then the third thing is why did you write this? What's the why of the thing? Why are we talking about this? Why am I spending my time listening to you talk about this? And that has nothing to do with  who your protagonist is, and everything to do with who you are and what you brought to it.

[Dan] The thing that really changed the way I pitch stuff is something Mary Robinette already touched on with Jane Austen, is using comp titles. I remember when I first started pitching I Am Not A Serial Killer, first to agents and editors, and then eventually to audiences when it got published. And I have a pitch. It used to be long and kind of twisty and windy. But I've got it honed pretty much more better now. But my agent... I was with her while she was pitching to someone, and all she said was, it's teenage Dexter in an episode of The X-Files.

[DongWon] Yep.

[Dan] And that changed...

[DongWon] Perfect.

[Dan] The way I think about it. These days, just because time has passed, I usually say, teenage Dexter in an episode of Supernatural. Because more people are likely to have...

[yep]

[Dan] Seen it more recently. But that's one of my favorite games to play now, is how can I find the right things that this person is going to be familiar with that will let them know what is the vibe of this story? What... How does it feel to read this book? And comp titles are a really useful tool for that.

[DongWon] Thank you for the perfect segue, because this is the thing that I also want to talk about in this back half, is the importance of comp titles. Especially when you're talking to Industry professionals, and this is... If you're talking to science fiction/fantasy or publishing professionals, editors and agents, we think in comp titles. because when we are taking a project on... When an  editor's acquiring a book, they have to fill out a thing called a p&l, a  profit and loss statement. When they fill that out, they will say, I think this book will sell X copies. The way they make the argument for why that number of copies is they're saying, it's like these other books. So you've un... At the time of acquisition, when you fill out your p&l, you have to say, this book A is like book B and C. B and C both sold at this level, so reasonably, we can expect that book A will sell at the same level. Do not come to me about the logic of this...

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] There are many problems.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] And I will say that one of the things about this is that the comp titles that you use in Industry are very...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Different than the ones you can use out of Industry.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] So, for instance, I am working on a new book now, and I would comp it to you as Becky Chambers'  To Be Taught, If Fortunate meets Ray Nayler's Mountain in the Sea.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] But to someone outside of Industry, I would be like, it's when the Vulcans first arrive on Earth. It's optimistic science fiction. But the Vulcans are aquatic.

[DongWon] Exactly. You don't need to be using the strict form of comps in the way that we do in house. Right? But I am telling you that part so you understand why, when you talk to a publisher, they're always thinking in comp titles. Because it's literally baked into how we do our jobs. Right? The entire job, every part of it, comes down to a comp. What does the cover look like, what is the copy like, what is the... What are we editing for? All that is driven by the comps. And so, a couple of things I want to get across here. One is you can be way looser than your Becky Chambers and Ray Nayler comp. Right? Great comp, by the way.

[Mary Robinette] Oh. Yeah.

[DongWon] [garbled]

[laughter]

[DongWon] You can... You don't have to be that specific, because that's like inside baseball stuff. You can be looser in terms of... What Dan was saying is a great one, what your broader one was... The Vulcan one was also a great one. Right? One thing I want to get across, and the first mistake I see people make when they talk about comp titles is that they think it's about all of A and all of B.

[Mary Robinette] Right.

[DongWon] And it's not that. It's a Venn diagram, it's the overlap space, is defining what your book is. So what you want to do when you're picking your comps is pick two things that do overlap with each other in a way that's narrowly defined enough that I have a clear idea of what it is. Right? I think there's this idea of, like, oh, I shouldn't have Star Wars or Game of Thrones in a comp, because they're too big and I'll seem like I'm getting ahead of myself, I'm being cocky. It's like, no, no, no. That's not the issue there at all. The issue there is that every person on the planet has seen Star Wars, so if you say that, and then you say plus B, whatever the B is, is a subset of Star Wars. Right? Because we're also thinking about  audiences. So, the audience of A plus the audience of B, that defined overlap, is what we're looking for. So if your A is so big that anything else you say will just be a subset, it doesn't really add information for us in a useful way.

[Dan] Another really helpful tool that I think comp titles bring is, similar to what Mary Robinette said about  getting your pitch ready before you start writing...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Dan] I wrote a cyberpunk series in 2014, and I thought to myself, this is great. I love cyberpunk. There's not much out there right now. So maybe I can get some attention. And if I had taken the time to come up with a pitch beforehand, I would have realized that there is no recognizable comp title for cyberpunk for the majority of my YA audience. What am I possibly going to compare this to? Because the cyberpunk video game hadn't come out yet, all the cyberpunk that I read was 20 something years old. There's a handful of anime titles. But I can't rely on every member of my audience being familiar with Bubblegum Crisis or whatever. And so, that book was insanely hard to pitch to people, especially to a YA audience, because they had zero frame of reference for what cyberpunk was.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Dan] And I think that presages a little bit the fact that that series flopped really hard.

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] It can be really hard to be the only one out there. Right? And there's a big conversation around this about what does that mean for marginalized authors, what does that mean for innovation in genre, and... That's a separate conversation that I would love to have at other points. I'm just flagging... I see all the problems with comps as a system. It's deeply flawed. But this is how it works right now. The other thing I want to get across when you're thinking about comps is going back to kind of what we were saying about your sort of more narrative pitch, is it's more important to get across category, vibe, and why than it is plot. right? Where I see people get stuck on comps, they're like, oh, but it's kind of like this plot twist that happens in this movie. And I'm like, that's not what I think of when I think of that movie. What I think of is an overall energy and tone from that movie, and a genre category from that movie. So, when you're thinking about your comps, really think about, yeah, vibe and category and sort of like the why of the story.

[Howard] I mentioned there is no formula. But I have a formula. My back cover copy formula is character, conflict, setting, hook. And it's wildly flexible. If I have 20 characters in the book, I can't tell you about 20 of them. I mean, [garbled] 20 of them. I need to pick an interesting  character. I need to pick an interesting conflict. And I need to say it in a way that illuminates the setting and that sets me up at the end to deliver a hook. And, as formulas go, that's a little bit like the bear soup recipe. Step one, kill a live grizzly bear with your bare hands.

[DongWon] Yep.

[Howard] Step 2, make soup.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] The first part is really difficult. What is a hook? How do I illuminate the setting in 10 words while talking about the conflict? I don't know. You're a writer.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] You're good at that. You'll figure that out.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Howard] Because once you have this sort of a framework, and you can come up with your own, that sort of a simple framework... You can write half a dozen  pitches...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Howard] For your work that... And you realize, oh, gosh, I've just put a great big flag on this character's character arc and suddenly the book is more interesting to me.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] I have a formula that I use when I'm doing... When I have to summarize a thing for a query. But that is... That kind of pitching is so completely different than the kind of pitching that we're talking about here...

[DongWon] Yeah. I think query pitching is... I think you have, like, a really good structure there. I tend to invert it in terms of starting with the hook, but again, that's like a whole...

[Howard] Well, Yeah.

[DongWon] Separate conversation. And the thing that I want to get to, though, about what you were saying there is, so often when I'm giving critiques on a copy or on a pitch, what I'm saying is do twice as much and cut 30% of the words. Right? It's hard to overstate how efficient you have to be. And to be efficient, what I encourage you all to do is start thinking about what's the minimum thing I need to talk about here. Right? Don't tell me about your whole book. Don't tell me about all your characters. Think about the one thing you want me to walk away from, that I'm going to be like, damn, I need to know more. Right? And so, don't tell me about all your characters, don't tell me about all your world, all those things. Think of it as looking through a keyhole and letting me see one thing about your book. So when you're pitching, I encourage you, as much as you can, let go of plot, let go of the grand scope of the thing, and focus on what is so cool and compelling about the thing that you did. And with that, I think we're going to end it there. We could be talking about this for many hours. It's one of my favorite topics. But...

[Mary Robinette] Fortunately, people can pick up the book and read it in depth.

[DongWon] Exactly.

[DongWon] Okay. So I have a little bit of homework for you. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to write three pitches. two, three sentence things, just real quick elevator pitches for your book. I want you to write three of them that take wildly different approaches. Focus on different aspects, Focus one on sort of the world building, focus one on a character, focus one on a plot hook, whatever it is. Just riff in three different approaches. Don't let them overlap. And then practice them on another willing subject. Find a friend, find a partner, find somebody who's... A writing buddy. And just practice it. Say it out loud for them, and watch them as they hear it. Where do they get interested? Where do they get bored? Where do their eyes slide off? And where are they like, ooh, that seems interesting and exciting? Practice and observation are the things that are going to help you get better at this.

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[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.