Twitter Pitch Loglines Part 1: Key Ingredients

Logline Ingredients:
Character, Conflict, Choice
(Image Source)

With more and more Twitter Pitch Contests popping up, the ability to pitch your novel in a single, succinct logline is increasingly important. 

It's our hook.

But how do we write a twitter pitch?

At first glance, it's easy. All you need to do is provide a one-line intro to your storyline that grabs readers' attention. Sounds simple enough. But then you start to drill down and  realize just how complicated this can be. 

Sidenote: If you'd like a little entertainment while crafting 

your pitch, you might check out my Pitch Generators.

For those of us building a basic pitch from scratch, here are some key components:

    Key Ingredients of the One-Sentence Pitch

• Character 
• Adjective that succinctly describes the character and/or vocation 
• Age or audience (YA/MG/NA)
• MC Name (optional)
• Conflict: goal & obstacle
• Stakes:  choice & consequences

This provides a nice baseline formula for a logline or Twitter Pitch (see more pitch recipes here):

When [OPENING CONFLICT] happens to [MC], s/he must [ACHIEVE GOAL or MAKE A CHOICE] or else [CONSEQUENCES]

But, unless the plot itself is *the hook* it may be difficult to get people's attention with just this bare-bones pitch. It can be especially difficult to pitch literary/character-focused stories. In that case, we may need to add a little something extra:

   Spicing up your Novel's Twitter Pitch

• Setting: Worldbuilding Flavor
• Antagonist
• Vivid Visuals
• Character Arc
• Narrator Voice
• Tone (comedy, drama, high fantasy, horror etc)

Here are a few loglines snagged from IMDB that highlight these elements in different ways :

Worldbuilding:

Set in a future where the Capitol selects a boy and girl from the twelve districts to fight to the death on live television, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her younger sister’s place for the latest match. - The Hunger Games

Antagonist & Visuals, with a hint of Character Arc:

When her mom is attacked and taken from their home in New York City by a demon, a seemingly ordinary teenage girl, Clary Fray, finds out truths about her past and bloodline on her quest to get her back, that changes her entire life - The City of Bones

Eleven year old famous wizard, Harry Potter, is sent to wizarding school to learn magic, but ends up solving a mystery over life and death all with the most evil of wizards, Lord Voldemort, trying to kill him - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (found here)

Tone & Voice:

Tone and voice are two things that I find movie loglines don't do too well. Mostly, they're just trying to summarize the movie succinctly. So for examples of tone/voice, I'd recommend you refer to some of the winning pitches from PitMad this past January.

Final Advice?

Have fun with it. Write down a list of things that are interesting/unique about your book. Jot down favorite phrases your MC likes to say. Usually, you'll use more than one pitch in a contest (probably more like 10 or 20), play around with a bunch of them! There's really no rules here. In fact, you don't even have to include stakes.

Related Posts:

Pitch Generator ||  PitMad Winning Pitches Jan 2013 // Sept 2014 || #PitMad: What Did Agents Like? || Busting the #1 Twitter Pitch Myth

More Resources:

The Logline Blog (with book examples!) // Logline Examples - Melissa Dean // How to write a hook //
How To Write a One Sentence Pitch - Nathan Bransford //  Hooks, Loglines & Pitches -- Anne R Allen  // Writing a Logline for Your Book // Christina Farley - Twitter Your Way to a Perfect Pitch // Rachelle Gardner - One Sentence Summary // RG - Crits & Tips // Query Tracker - Loglines // Writer's Store - Writing Loglines that Sell // How to Twitter Pitch - Mina Vaughn //

Next time: Twitter Pitch Recipes

What do you see as the key ingredients of a Twitter Pitch? What are some good examples of pitches? Bad examples?