A writer’s life consists of
pitch after pitch after pitch.
Every new story is
a new product to pitch.
One thing is guaranteed
– any new project will face resistance.
There will be objections.
How do we deal with objections?
We try to anticipate them
as much as we possibly can.
“Think about what objections
they might have
and defuse them with
the “some people might think” strategy.
For instance,
if you fear that the producer
to whom you’re pitching
will object that a story about
a transgender protagonist might not play so well
in the Bible belt,
say something like,
“Of course some people might think
this kind of topic wouldn’t play
in the Bible belt
but, as you probably know,
there’s a lot of curiosity
about this subject everywhere.
The National Enquirer’s
best-selling issue of last year
was about transgender people.”
I made that up;
it helps if you can come up
with something that’s true.
Turn on that search engine
–somewhere on the internet
there’s a statistic that will support
just about anything you can say.
And did you notice how
“as you probably know”
was slipped in there?
First, it suggests that you assume
the person is well-informed.
Second, it makes it less likely
they’ll dispute it.”
Anticipate objections.