Scenes: Main Plot, #Preptober Day 22

It’s Day 22 of Preptober, which means it’s high time we started plotting this story!

Let’s start small: What’s your story about?

Think about the main story you plan to tell, and put it into one sentence that will convey the gist to your audience. This is often referred to as the “elevator pitch” or the “logline.”

Your pitch should be:

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• Short
• To the point
• Part synopsis, and
• Part emotional hook

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What’s a synopsis? It’s a brief summary or overview. These can be formatted differently, depending on whether you’re submitting them to a publisher or agent for consideration vs. simply telling someone (possibly in an elevator!) what your book is about. For our purposes, we just want to condense down the idea of the book into a single sentence that conveys the gist of what the book is about. So, I usually just tell people I’m writing a ninja story. If they press further, I could say it’s a coming-of-age tale featuring a ninja-in-training who wants to be just like her parents.

And what’s an emotional hook? The hook is what grabs your reader and piques their interest enough to keep on reading. The idea of the elevator pitch is to deliver it to your audience and have them reply, “Tell me more!” The hook is what will get them to ask you for more. So, simply describing my book as a ninja story is not enough. But once I add in something about love, friendship, loyalty, and life or death stakes, that’s where the emotion comes in. And, of course, part of the hook is in your flair – how you actually describe this story, your attitude in conveying it.

For more info on hooks and how to work with them, check out this Writer’s Digest article, “10 Ways to Hook Your Reader (And Reel Them in for Good).”

I’m still working on my pitch, but here’s what I’ve currently got:

Ara Brown is a ninja. Or she wants to be a ninja, anyway – just like her parents. They’ve been teaching her how to throw shuriken (ninja stars) and fight with a katana (short sword) since she was a little girl, and now it’s time for her to put all of her skills to the test! Will Ara finally graduate from wannabe to actually?

So, what’s your story about? Pitch me in the comments!

Want to prep with me?

Share a one-sentence summary of YOUR plot in the comments, or post it on your blog, and be sure to use the hashtag #Preptober on social media so we can find each other.

Don’t forget to grab a free copy of my Preptober Prompts Printable, which you can print out for personal use.

See you tomorrow with a new prompt!