Hello friends! We talk a lot about pitching around here, so today I want to reshare a tried-and-true structure for writing pitches that, in my experience getting, sending, and reviewing pitches, typically works for most stories.
Before we begin, big caveat: This is just one of an infinite number of ways to pitch stories. There is no “correct” way to pitch; the only thing that matters is, “Does this pitch best serve the story and give it the best chance at selling?” That’s it! This structure is just a template, meant to be modified to best fit a given story. But, in this editor’s humble opinion, it’s a template that works most of the time.
Why I like using this: It takes a lot of the thinking out of the process, and it lets you show off your skills and personality. Similar to using a templatized structure for a story, using one for a pitch lets you focus more on the content and all the stuff going in the pitch, rather than worrying about how to organize all of that good stuff. And if you’ve ever attended one of my workshops on story structure, you’ll know I’m all about freeing up mental energy to focus on the goods.
So! What does this actually look like?
The basic structure is simple: show, explain, close.
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