Pitching Yourself

As we continue this month-long discussion of pitching, let’s start with the hardest: pitching yourself.

We’re starting with the hardest form of pitching because it’s more likely that’s the first kind of pitching you’ll have to do. Here’s how it will work. An executive will read a script of yours and tell your agent/manager how much they liked it. In fact, they liked it so much that they want to meet you. They’re not going to buy it and they don’t have a job for you or anything, but they want to get to know you so that should their studio or company buy a magazine article or novel or whatever, and they need to find a writer for it, they’ll know you and the kind of writing you do.

But it’s a mistake to think this meeting—often called a general meeting or just a general for short, is just about your ideas, your work. Sure, it’s about that. But it’s also about you. Who are you? Where do you come from? What’s your background that could be mined in future stories you might write? What are your strengths—can you write horror or comedy or only drama and romance? But, again, it’s not just about your work and the genres you write.

The fact is, a large part of this meeting is them assessing your essential character. And the bottom line? They want to know what you’d be like to work with. Are you egotistical and full of yourself? Ding—they don’t want to be anywhere near you. Are you opinionated and entrenched in your particular way of seeing things? Ding again—they want someone who is flexible and will be willing to change a script at their direction.

So what do you do? How do you prepare for this general meeting?

First, don’t dress up. The normal writer’s uniform is jeans and a t-shirt. Seriously. Make sure you wear clean clothes and take a shower and wash your hair, but beyond that, you’re a writer—no one cares what you look like… so if you’ve any insecurities there, get over them because appearance isn’t much of an issue.

Second, practice telling some funny stories about yourself. And I don’t care if you’re a total drama writer or thriller writer, tell funny stories. This is a great way to humanize you and show that you’re fun to work with. And funny stories can relate to your writing—maybe you got the idea for your horror spec that they read by being locked in a basement at a party or something and remembering how creepy you felt. Or maybe you got an idea for the romantic drama you wrote when your boyfriend broke up with you via an email. Come up with a couple of self- deprecating stories that show you can laugh at yourself, and they’ll laugh too. And laughing with you is often the first step to liking you.

Third, be ready to talk about ideas you’re working on. And make them good. And most importantly? Tailor them to the company… we’ll talk more about that next week.

Copyright © Diane Lake

13May18

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com