October 23rd Meeting
Dinner starts at 5:30 and speaker starts around 6:30.
From Premise to Elevator Pitch
With Mindy Halleck
A premise is the short answer to the question, “What’s your story about?” Its purpose, like a blurb on the back cover, is to make people want to read the book.
A story’s premise is the foundational idea that expresses the plot of your story (the central idea) in simple terms and communicates the story’s essence in a one or two-sentence statement.
It also does double duty as a powerful ‘elevator pitch’ for a story. Imagine, a successful literary agent steps into an elevator with you––you have 90 seconds to get her excited about your idea––those two carefully crafted sentences are your elevator pitch.
So, when people––ultimately publishers and agents––ask what your story is about, you’ll be able to hook them in less than 90 seconds.
Participants will––
· Learn that a solid premise keeps writers from drifting too far from their initial concept and drives plot on a steady path from the beginning through the middle to the end.
· Choose from worksheets, which of the 3-6 premise methods works best for their stories.
· Practice writing a premise for their story, using proven techniques.
· Establish their premise, and then set out to create a plot that proves it.
· Develop an elevator pitch.
· Share the elevator pitch with the other students.
· Enjoy the audience applause.
This is a 60-minute workshop. There will be 3-4 handouts, PowerPoint presentation, lecture, and writing time for participants to work on their premise statement. Willing participants will read said statements to the group.
Mindy Meyers-Halleck is an award-winning author and writing instructor. Her debut novel, Return To Sender, a literary thriller set on the Oregon Coast in the 1950s, was an INDIE book of the year, a Reader’s Favorite award recipient, with consistent 5-Star reviews. She has won fiction writing contests with Writer’s Digest and other publications––additionally, in 2024 her recent passion is poetry, published in UPENN Literary Arts Magazine and Edmonds Beacon, and more on the way. Halleck is an active Pacific Northwest writing community member and a guest lecturer at the UW, other local colleges and writer’s conferences. She is currently completing two novels and a book of short stories.
In addition to being a writer, she is a happily married, globe-trotting beachcomber and five-time cancer survivor who credits part of her healing journey(s) to the art of writing poetry.
Note we are changing the location of our meetings. We will now be meeting at Buffalo Wild Wings at the Bellis Fair Mall. They have a side room that is double or more than that of the old location. RESERVATIONS are required so that we are properly staffed to eat quickly.
New to WWP
Welcome, Pacific Northwest Writers!
We meet every last Wednesday from September to June in scenic Bellingham, WA. Supper starts at 5:30, and the speaker starts at 6:30-7.
Dues are 25 dollars a year or 40 for two years. We use the dues to pay for our speakers to come from around the region, and for an occasional table at local writer events. Our dues year runs from September to June, like our meetings, but will roll over if you pay late in the cycle. If you want to try us out first, feel free. Speakers in the past have included authors Cami Ostman and Robert Dugoni, and agent Donald Maass, covering topics such as social media, self-publishing, memoirs, mixed media, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. It is our goal to offer something for everyone, no matter your place in the writing journey-- just starting or long-published. Old school or new. If you have an idea for a speaker or topic, let us know, but if it has been covered recently it might not be picked up.
Pay your dues
25 for 1 year
40 for 2 years
40 for couples
To pay online, please provide name and email address on the form so we can keep track of you.
We have a paypal account if you would prefer to pay on line. You can also pay by check; just drop it off with the treasurer at a meeting.
