Introductions

• Name
• What you write
• How you write it (e.g. genre)
• Why you write

News to Celebrate:

• Your Great News: Who queried? Got accepted? Published? Signed with an Agent?

Marketing and Community Engagement:

• Wordherders: Multi-Author Reading Event(s)?
  • https://twitter.com/TheStorySuite/status/1162154655217930240
  • https://classes.bainbridgebarn.org/event-3545627
  • … Wordherders? Bookwalter? Library? Water2Wine Cruise? …
  • … Possible themes? Appropriate events?

Announcements:

• Shut Up and Write! Tri-Cities Meetups – This group meets every Wednesday, from 5:15 pm to 6:45 pm, at different locations around the Tri-Cities to provide an hour dedicated to writing, in a social environment. Check their webpage for the location of the Wednesday Sept 11 Meetup.
• To keep our paper waste to a minimum when we print out discussion materials, I recommend installing the handy PrintFriendly extension for your browser. You can find it here: https://www.printfriendly.com. It streamlines webpages for printing, allows you to delete the chunks you don’t want to print, like illustrations and ads, and enables you to print the webpage or save it to a pdf.

Upcoming Events, Conferences and Workshops:

• 9/12 – 9/15/2019 PNWA Conference
• 9/20 – 9/21/2019 SCBWI Inland Northwest Fall Conference; Montvale Event Center, Spokane; early bird registration discount through July 15.
• 10/12/2019, 9:30 am – noon, Richland Public Library; Workshop on Revision Strategies with local PAL authors Maureen McQuerry, Steve Wallenfels, and Heidi Lang.  Look for more information and registration details on the SCBWI-INW website at https://inlandnw.scbwi.org.
• 10/15, 6:30 pm, Kennewick Library, 1620 South Union Street; Rosann Ferris: “Life in Iran Before and During the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79”
• 11/9/2019, 2:30 – 4:00 pm, Richland Public Library Gallery Tri-Cities Writers Social with Pie! Instead of our usual November Wordherders meeting, we will be partnering with SCBWI Inland Northwest, Shut Up and Write! Tri-Cities, and Randy’s Reel wRiters* to host a community social with any and all writers in the Tri-Cities. With pie.
  *I made this up. It refers to Randy LaBarge and other local screenwriters.

Discussion: Elevator Pitches

With the PNWA and SCBWI Inland Northwest Conferences coming up, it’s time to practice elevator pitches! Our discussion this month will be structured a little differently. For introductions, please come prepared with a 3 sentence introduction: 1. What you write; 2. How you write it (e.g. genre); and 3. Why you write. After introductions, we’ll cover some tips on effective elevator pitches and then have a chance to prepare, revise, and practice elevator pitches.

Before we can tell someone about our book, we need to introduce ourselves. Attending a conference like PNWA and SCBWI gives us a chance to meet lots of people, many of whom will be interested in what we do. Your first “elevator pitch” is likely to be introducing yourself. Having your introduction polished and practiced will help get to the next stage when a new person asks, “So what’s your book about?”

At Rivers of Ink, Elizabeth Fountain had participants write the three introductory sentences above. But then to introduce themselves, she encourages authors to put them in reverse order for a more compelling introduction. Try it with your three sentences!

Now, as for the elevator pitch about your book. Recommendations for what to include:

• Characters, setting, motivation, and main conflict
• Who, what, when, where, why, and how
• Why you wrote the book

In “How to Write an Elevator Pitch,” Harry Bingham suggests that an elevator pitch should convey what about the book is unique, striking, fresh, and compelling. In no more than 50 words, 20 would be better.

Bryn Greenwood has a helpful article about pitching and panic. In it, she makes (among others) two good points:

• One: a pitch is only a sales tool.
• Two: a novel is rarely about a single thing, [and therefore,] you don’t have to commit yourself to describing it the same way every time.

In fact, when you’re comfortable delivering your pitch, it can be helpful to emphasize the aspects of the story that may be of particular emphasis to the person or people you’re speaking to.

In her article, “Creating Your Book Talk,” Brunonia Barry suggests tips:

• When describing the plot, stay in the present tense.
• Refer to your blurb on your back cover or book jacket.
• Consider the audience.

Kathleen McCleary recommends: Take 10 or 20 minutes to write a paragraph telling the story of your novel, laying out the characters, the setting, the motivation, the main conflict. Then, turn on a timer (and either a video or voice recorder) and give yourself 30 seconds to summarize your story without looking at what you wrote. Compare your 30-second speech to the paragraph you originally wrote. Did you distill it down to the essence of what your character wants and what stands in the way?

Next Meeting:

• 10/14/2019