Craft your personal elevator pitch
Or how lessons on being a better writer makes you a better networker.
This post is a continuation of last week’s post on the elevator pitch. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. Or just scroll to today’s post.
Everyone is a storyteller
Tell me about yourself. Give me a story, context, and all the side characters. Let me understand all the traits of the acting heroes and the reasoning for being where we are now. Put the whole story on the plate. Don’t omit anything. I want to hear all of that.
Treat it as a warm-up.
Then, change the topic. Tell me about your why. Same way as before. Lead me through the entire thought process of yours. Explain how questioning yourself formed your self-perception and the words you’re telling me now.
Man! It's going to take ages, drafting scrip pages as the tale unfolds in stages. Yes. Let’s have a book about you and your why! Got the image? Cool. Give me even more.
Wonderful! Now throw half of it away. Parts that are not necessary to understand the story. Repeat until it feels painful. Then push even further.
Is your bin full already?
Most probably, throwing words away on their own won’t do the trick. You’ll need to paraphrase. Change words and leave parts to one’s imagination. Pareto’s Principle is a nice North Star. 80% of the story conveyed using 20% of words. Without losing the point, morals, or values contained within.
Most probably this process will be bloody painful once again. Not uncomfortable. Painful. With you telling yourself “THERE’S NOTHING ELSE TO REDUCE” or “WITHOUT IT, NOTHING MAKES SENSE”. There is. It does. Find a way.
One of the most known modern authors, Stephen King, recommends cutting 10% off each consecutive draft for fiction writing. That makes you focus. That makes you keep the essentials.
“In the spring of my senior year at Lisbon High—1966, this would have been—I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I rewrote my fiction once and forever. Jotted below the machine-generated signature of the editor was this mot: "Not bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. Good luck."
I wish I could remember who wrote that note—Algis Budrys, perhaps. Whoever it was did me a hell of a favor. I copied the formula out on a piece of shirt-cardboard and taped it to the wall beside my typewriter. Good things started to happen for me shortly thereafter.”
Stephen King, On Writing
There’s also one more quote that’s attributed to Mr. King. The one I find even more appealing. Let me paraphrase it like I remember it. (Cannot find the exact source tho)
One of the hardest lessons the author has to learn is throwing away your favorite piece. The one you enjoy the most. Most probably it’s not as good as you think. And it will drag your whole writing down.
One sentence to rule them all
Three times a charm. Thus, I’d like to show you yet another parallel between writing and preparing your elevator pitch. Think about it as that one true sentence.
“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say.
Ernest Hemingway
(Also bear in mind your first drafts will be shite and you WILL need to rephrase it a couple of times. Even if you don’t think so. You’re wrong. Do it over.)
Now, get to work!
First, expand the story. Then, cut away unnecessary pieces. Finish with having just a single sentence.
Okay, we get it! Write, rewrite, reduce, and find the essence. But after we go through the whole process, we’re done with our elevator pitch, right?
Absolutely not. We’ve just started. Continue writing and rephrasing. Ask for feedback. Refine. Test it out in the wild.
So, what next?
We found our WHY and built the story around it. We reduced that WHY while maintaining the density of the message. That would be enough on a personal level. Hell. That would be wonderful on a personal level! The entire YOU contained within a single sentence. Imagine never being surprised or unsure of what to say when asked “Tell me about yourself”. There’s so much power to wield. So much that both you and I still go through the whole process. It seems to never end.
It’s a learning curve. We’re all learning. Hit me up with a comment/message so we can feedback each other.
But we’re going further! We need to pitch. We need to get the attention of our Dumpling Master.
Well. It seems like we still have something to talk about. Don’t we?