by James L. Rubart, @jameslrubart
For years I’ve been a big advocate of pitching your novels to agents and editors (and even readers) using the “This Movie Meets This Movie” method.
I was reminded of the power of this technique the other day when I got this promotion in my email box:
Rear Window Meets Get Out …
If you know those two movies your mind immediately leaps to what a combination of those two story lines might produce. Even if you don’t come up with something concrete, you’re still intrigued and want to know more.
Why? Because you do come up with something concrete. You picture Jimmy Stewart in one or two scenes and recall the stress and tension of that classic movie. And you picture Daniel Kaluuaya as well and the horror he went through.
“But, Jim!” I hear you saying. “I don’t know those movies. I haven’t seen either one.”
No problem. Because if you haven’t seen those movies, or aren’t at least aware of them (I’ve seen Rear Window, and while I haven’t seen Get Out, I’m quite aware of it—it was a pop culture phenom—and I’ve read the plot) then you aren’t the target audience for the novel.
How This Works When You’re Pitching
It’s pretty simple. Take the elements of your story and brainstorm where there’s a movie that has a similar theme. Then take another element and another movie and mash them together.
For example when I was pitching my second novel, Book of Days, I described it as, National Treasure meets M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs.
Now there was far more to the story than that—the story is about a man searching for God’s Book of Days (which is described in Psalm 139) on earth. And I never used that comparison to promote the novel to readers because the element of Signs in Book of Days wasn’t aliens, but the relationship between the hero and his wife. I used the comparison to instantly explain a few elements of the story and to spur editors to ask for a deeper understanding of the story.
In other words, my goal wasn’t to describe the plot with that comparison, but to give a starting point, to stir questions, and plant images in editors minds.
And it worked!
Your Turn. What movies can meet each other that will get editors and agents talking and wanting to know the answers to questions about your manuscript that only you can answer?
How Do You Stand Up for Yourself When It Means Losing Everything?
Allison Moore is making it. Barely. The Seattle architecture firm she started with her best friend is struggling, but at least they’re free from the games played by the corporate world. She’s gotten over her divorce. And while her dad’s recent passing is tough, their relationship had never been easy.
Then the bomb drops. Her dad was living a secret life and left her mom in massive debt.
As Allison scrambles to help her mom find a way out, she’s given a journal, anonymously, during a visit to her favorite coffee shop. The pressure to rescue her mom mounts, and Allison pours her fears and heartache into the journal.
But then the unexplainable happens. The words in the journal, her words, begin to disappear. And new ones fill the empty spaces—words that force her to look at everything she knows about herself in a new light.
Ignoring those words could cost her everything . . . but so could embracing them.
James L. Rubart is 28 years old, but lives trapped inside an older man’s body. He thinks he’s still young enough to water ski like a madman and dirt bike with his two grown sons. He’s the best-selling, Christy BOOK of the YEAR, CAROL, INSPY, and RT Book Reviews award winning author of ten novels and loves to send readers on journeys they’ll remember months after they finish one of his stories. He’s also a branding expert, audiobook narrator, co-host of the Novel Marketing podcast, and co-founder with his son, Taylor, of the Rubart Writing Academy. He lives with his amazing wife on a small lake in Washington state.