Tag: writing-tips

Authors: Polish that elevator pitch

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I was at a book event a while back, and as often happens when you get a bunch of authors together, the same question was asked repeatedly: So what’s your book about?

Seems simple enough. But as I listened to a few of my peers rattle on and on about their books, I wanted to gently point out that the fewer words they use in what is called an “elevator pitch” the better. An elevator pitch, is a brief description of one’s current writing project, one that might pass between the author and the president of a huge publishing house on the occasion that they find themselves in an elevator for 30 seconds or so. Obviously, this pitch is short. Very short.

Writers know that it is much easier to fill five pages than a 30-word paragraph. The latter is extremely difficult as every word must count. Though the above elevator scenario is unlikely to happen, the ability to define your work in a few sentences is important to you and any agents, editors, publicists, or media people who might be interested in your book. So the elevator pitch is a tool that every author needs to have ready.

The pitch should be maybe 20-40 words. It should identify the main idea and what the protagonists are seeking. For example. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory: “Two sisters, Anne and Mary, are driven to advance their family’s power by courting the affections of the King of England and a ruthless rivalry develops between them.”

Here are a couple more, like the one above courtesy of Reedsy.

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han: “When her secret love letters somehow get mailed to each of her five crushes, Lara Jean finds her quiet high school existence turned upside down.”

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown: “A murder inside the Louvre, and clues in Da Vinci paintings, lead to the discovery of a religious mystery protected by a secret society for two thousand years, which could shake the foundations of Christianity.”

The point of course is to make your book unique and compelling and to get that CEO—or whomever your trying to pitch—to say, “Tell me more!”

Developing an elevator pitch that makes someone’s eyes light up and request additional information is the goal. Your handful of words needs to be striking and memorable. So, be clear: Who is your protagonist? What do they yearn for? How do they plan to get what they want? What is standing in their way? Make sure not to include spoilers. Memorize your pitch and be prepared to deliver it in a conversational way. Smile and sound confident

It is ironic that of the tens of thousands of words authors put into their books, the few in an elevator pitch are perhaps the most important.

Your Forgotten Sons

Inspired by a true story

Anne Montgomery

Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares for the invasion of Europe in 1943. A chance comment has Bud assigned to a Graves Registration Company, where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose secretive nature and shadowy past leave many unanswered questions. When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva’s love be enough to save him?

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Apple Books

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Google Books

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Bookstores, libraries, and other booksellers can order copies directly from the Ingram Catalog.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

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Simple hacks to being a better writer

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Luckily, writing is a skill not a talent, which means authors can impove as long as they practice. Just for reference, a talent is defined as an innate, natural ability one is born with. Think swimmer Michael Phelps, with his massive feet and incredible wingspan. I mean the guy was born to be a swimmer. A skill, meanwhile is something we acquire which develops over time through education, dedication, and practice. Note that Phelps didn’t just have immense physical talents, he had the drive to spend tens of thousands of hours in the pool over his career, honing his abilities on the road to those 28 Olympic medals.

Even though I was not a good student when I was young—I’m a low-level dyslexic and hated to read—I have spent much of my life writing as both a reporter and an author. I only mention this because I believe that if I can be a competent writer, lots of other people can too.

There are some things you can do right now to improve your writing. Little hacks that make your prose more professional. One is to avoid the repetition of words. There are about 170,000 words currently in use in the English language. Americans typically use only about 5,000 when speaking and 10,000 when they write. While that seems like a lot, it’s not. Using the same words over and over is a bore, and we lose the opportunity to add richness to our writing when we don’t branch out. Now don’t go crazy and use words that seem pretentious or grandiose. Also try to avoid overused words like good, bad, old, beautiful, happy, sad. Learn to love your thesaurus app and check out options if you find yourself repeating the same words in a paragraph.

Because writers love their words, they are often tempted to use too many. As a former journalist, I had to learn to utilize my words sparingly, since I was often constrained by time limits or word count. That often meant eliminating any words that were unnecessary. For example. Here’s how I initially wrote a previous paragraph. I deleted the underlined sentence because it added nothing essential to the story: Even though I was not a good student when I was young—I’m a low-level dyslexic and hated to read—I have spent much of my life writing as both a reporter and an author. That I ended up making a living from words surprised some who knew me back then. I only mention this because I believe that if I can be a competent writer, lots of other people can too. (I will point out here that in this paragraph I overused the word “word”. Sometimes, there’s just no way around it.)

Good writers take their readers along with them right into the story. The best way to do that is to give readers the opportunity to smell, taste, touch, and hear the story. Warm cotton sheets. Birds chirping in the trees. Smells of toast and bacon. That first sip of coffee. That’s called painting a picture for your audience, one that touches their senses. Note, however, that writers sometimes add too much description to a scene, and this often bogs the story down. There’s a fine line between not enough description and too much.

Another way to make your writing more dramatic is to use fewer pronouns. Try of avoid he, she, his, hers, it, we, they, them and all the other pronouns since they add little in the way of description. Now this doesn’t mean you can never use pronouns, just think before you do and consider if there’s an alternative. Using proper nouns or linking two sentences together are good ways to eliminate pronouns.

Like anything else improving your writing involves practice, practice, practice. So go ahead and give it a shot.

Your Forgotten Sons

Inspired by a true story

Anne Montgomery

Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares for the invasion of Europe in 1943. A chance comment has Bud assigned to a Graves Registration Company, where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose secretive nature and shadowy past leave many unanswered questions. When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva’s love be enough to save him?

Universal Buy Link

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Bookstores, libraries, and other booksellers can order copies directly from the Ingram Catalog.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

Goodreads

Amazon

AI Editor: Part deux

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I named my AI editor Hal Jr. and I think he did a pretty good job.

A while back, I wrote about an experiment I agree to. My publisher asked if I’d like to try a new kind of editor. I have a book coming out in June—a historical fiction, World War II novel inspired by a true story called Your Forgotten Sons—and the idea was that I would work with an editor of the “artificial intelligence” variety.

I thought about that for a while, and when my publisher said I could switch to a human editor if I was unhappy with the results, in the interest of not being called old and technology averse, I agreed.

I recently sent the completed manuscript back, so here’s what I’ve learned about working with an AI editor, who I dubbed Hal Jr. First, since we authors have long been working remotely with our editors, the process didn’t feel all that strange. I received my document full of those red lines leading to comments I needed to consider. My job was to accept Hal Jr.’s fixes or not.

Almost universally, I said yes. He did a great job finding all those grammatical boo-boos I’ve made most of my life. You’d think that after writing nine books and having five published, not to mention my years working as a print reporter, that I would have figured out to spell compound words by now. But, no! Hal Jr. gently pointed out that corkscrew and curveball were single words, terms that have meant a great deal in my life and which one might think I would have no trouble spelling.

Then there were the homophones, which for those who don’t recall elementary school English are words that are pronounced alike but that differ in spelling and meaning. I have a serious issue with those, and Hal Jr. had his red pen out to illustrate my deficiencies: alter and altar, aisle and isle, and, rather embarrassingly, your and you’re.

I am also grateful that Hal Jr. sometimes identified words I misused, ones that were similar to what I wanted, but clearly wrong: resemble and reassemble, barley and barely, shuddered and shuttered, cheeks and checks.

And Hal Jr. did a damn good job at picking up those missing quotation marks and other errant punctuation, especially all those outdated commas. As a girl who grew up in a home where we debated comma use at the dinner table, I can tell you that the wee squiggle is no longer used as much as it once was. It’s all about clarity and flow, so I let Hal Jr. lead the way in the comma department.  

My AI editor and I then ran into one big argument. He kept correcting things that I thought were right. Turns out there was an issue with which English we were using. Hal Jr., it appears, is British and I’m American. Who knew there were so many disparate spellings between us: pummeled or pummelled, apologize or aplologise, humor or humour, ad nauseum. He and I agreed to disagree, and the American versions won out.

All in all, I think Hal Jr. did a great job, so much so that I wish he and I could maybe have a beer to celebrate the completion of the manuscript. I’m not sure if AIs drink beer, but if I had to guess, I’d say Hal Jr. would drink his warm, yet another difference between we Americans and Brits.

The manuscript is now out of my hands, so I hope it’s perfect, but I know that’s probably impossible. But should you find any errors please feel free to blame Hal Jr.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

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Amazon