Pitching Your Visual Novel - What's Your Premise?

[OokamiKasumi]

Short version:
Crazy 4 U -- A Survival Horror Dating Game
-- Having just transferred, Phil Random is new to the city when he meets five potential romantic interests; four lovely girls, and one good-looking guy. Unfortunately, it's a bad time to be single in the city because a serial killer is on the loose -- a serial killer that targets lonely men just like Phil.

Long version:
Crazy 4 U -- A Survival Horror Dating Game
-- Having just transferred, Phil Random is new to the city when he meets five potential romantic interests.

• Elizabeth; an athletic, red-headed urban explorer with a taste for murder legends.
• Victoria; a buxom, blonde chef with a taste for fresh meat.
• Selina; a shapely brunette society miss with a yacht with an obsession with mermaids.
• Ray; a dark-haired, and deceptively slender, erotic photographer with a taste for Japanese shibari.
• Isabel; the petite, strawberry-blond police detective with a taste for stalking, for safety reasons, of course.

Unfortunately, it's a bad time to be single in the city because a serial killer is on the loose -- a serial killer that targets lonely men just like Phil.

[specialtantei]

@Carassaurat, I'd go for wording. I really have the plot well structured in my head but...I guess I chose the words wrong. Man, I hate when that happens. So, I'll try expressing it in a different way. Heck, I've changed the summary like 234324 times and I'm still not content with it. Ok, so the plot, taking into account your critiques, would be like this:

Akiko is living a really normal life in a calm Japanese mountain village. Everything is fine until the night after visiting the Suzuka Shrine, when she starts to have nightmares which depict her friends in ways she could never imagine them to be. The relationship between the Miko of the Shrine and the dreams seem to be clear enough to her, but when a silent girl in her classroom gains an interest in Akiko, things grow wierder and wierder. Akiko must prepare herself, for when the time comes, she must be ready to remember the truth, which she had forgotten for too long...

And the pitch:

Destiny is all about one single decision, and when a beautiful lie and the cruel reality clash, Akiko must make that decision to create the outcome of her fate and that of her friends. But decisions are not as easy as they seem to be...

Any modifications I should make?

[darlo]

Everyone went into Titanic knowing the boat would sink. It is still the second highest grossing movie of all time. If you have to hide parts of your story, it may not be a good story to begin with, or you might be relying too much on twists. Twists only work once. A good story works every time.

Now if the boat would have missed the iceburg, that would have been an interesting (not necessarily good) twist.

[CtrlAltLee]

You think it'd be faster to write three sentences. Also, yay, this is the first time I'll be posting about my game in dev anywhere,

Ahem.

3 Sentences.

" The personal protector of the Englightened One's daughter went "missing" yesterday.
Due to my perfect track record as a member of the Enlightened Ones Personal Guard, I'm been switched to daughter duty as a replacement. Problem is, if the Enlightened One finds out I've been harboring a crush on his daughter ever since I was stationed at the Palace, I'll be even more "missing" than my predecessor. "


That's more of like the box copy. I think it's best to have a pitch, but write your outline before refining it. That hardest part is not emphasizing the wrong element of your story so you don't make a bad promise to the reader. It's so easy to be misunderstood in three sentences.

[Sharm]

Pitching a story is so important! I've refused to read a lot of VN's simply because they had a terrible pitch. If a writer can't tell me what the story is, how can I expect him to tell me the story at all?

specialtantei: Here's my attempt at your pitch.

Everything is fine for Akiko until she visits the Suzuka Shrine. Now she has nightmares about her friends living a different life than she thinks is real, yet things from her dreams are affecting her real life. Through it all is a nagging feeling that she's forgotten something very important; something she needs to remember before it's too late.

Don't be afraid to get specific in a elevator pitch, in fact, the more specific the better. You can reduce most plots to some trope or another but what you really want is to explain why this form of telling this story is so great. For example, here's a Cinderella Pitch:

Cinderella is a beautiful girl with a beautiful heart to match, but she's trapped in a cruel life where she's tormented by her step-family. One day the prince holds a ball to find a wife and even Cinderella is invited! Dress, shoes, a carriage . . . Cinderella needs a lot of things to make it to the ball, but all she's got is soot and rags!

For contrast, here's my Cinderella Pitch, for a version I wrote a couple of years ago:

Ella's life was doing pretty well; she was smart, had a rich, doting father, and had even made friends with the royal family. Unfortunately, just before the Prince leaves for a quest, her father gets remarried and her new stepmother is a cruel woman who can control people using only words. Ella is now a servant in her own home and has to find a way to save her prince from the same fate.

The same basic plot is there; a ball, a prince, a girl who's a servant to her step-family, but the stuff that makes it interesting is what's different about it.

Figure out what makes you want to write this story yourself instead of just reading someone else's novel and then write that down. Never put a question mark in your pitch. It's gimmicky and a bit of a cop out. You want to make your pitch something that will make readers ask their own questions. Putting specific names and places in is a good thing, it makes the story feel grounded and gives a lot of information in a small word.

Anyway, I'm still learning so take my advice with a grain of salt. This is what I have at the beginning of my WIP thread:

At your birth you were betrothed to the crown prince of your country. You've now come of age and are ready to get married but when you arrive you find twin princes instead of one. It has been decided that the crown prince will be whomever you choose to marry. The wedding date is already set and you don't have much time to get to know your suitors.

One sentance too long and it was written before I had even started the outline. Now I'd do something like this:

Aline's wedding is only a week away, but on her arrival at the castle she's greeted by twin princes instead of one crown prince, and she's to choose between them. One week isn't much time to choose the fate of her life or the fate of the kingdom, it's certainly not enough to find out why she was chosen for this role in the first place.

Heh, one two short. When I think "pitch" I think "only one line" so two is actually quite verbose.

[junna]

" The personal protector of the Englightened One's daughter went "missing" yesterday.
Due to my perfect track record as a member of the Enlightened Ones Personal Guard, I'm been switched to daughter duty as a replacement. Problem is, if the Enlightened One finds out I've been harboring a crush on his daughter ever since I was stationed at the Palace, I'll be even more "missing" than my predecessor. "

My reaction. ROFL I love this. hmm...probably shows me there's some humour in the story too?





so after much deliberation (nah, it's only been 2 hours) and I was fixing my outline more than looking for pitch material (I think it's weird that I have the start, climax and ending in detail for my outline but vague stuff in between).

here's a renewed pitch... maybe.

"A comatose Saoirse is spirited to a place and time where women are mistresses to enslaved men. However, Fate has decided that Saoirse will have a hand in changing the history of this country called Tearramatta. Will the men be continually enslaved? Or can Saoirse change this course of Tearramatta history?"

I got the beginning, middle and end up in the pitch there but how do I reduce that into 3 sentences? Or is that okay?

[Auro-Cyanide]

I agree with this 100%. You can go more in depth in your post after you have my attention.

Hmmm, my try at it:

Super simple:

"Red Snow is about a city in upheavel and an assassin who chooses to save her target. Now their greatest challenge is getting out of the city alive."

And a more, ah, poetic version:

"In a snow bound city of stone at the brink of rebellion, an assassian is sent to kill the young prince. When she chooses instead to save him she faces her greatest challenge to get him out of the city alive."

Though granted Red Snow had a simple plot. It's a nice challenge though.

[OokamiKasumi]

"In a snow bound city of stone at the brink of rebellion, an assassin is sent to kill the young prince. When she chooses instead to save him she faces her greatest challenge to get him out of the city alive."

I like this version much better.

However, have you considered this?

"In a snow bound city of stone at the brink of rebellion, an assassin is sent to kill the young prince. Choosing to save him instead, the young assassin faces her greatest challenge -- how to get him out of the city alive."

[CtrlAltLee]

My reaction. ROFL I love this. hmm...probably shows me there's some humour in the story too?

Thanks junna.


The premise for your game sounds interesting. A female power structure would change so many things about society, the setting itself would be worth the price of admission.

[junna]

The premise for your game sounds interesting. A female power structure would change so many things about society, the setting itself would be worth the price of admission.

Thank you! I actually found doing the ASPIRE thing for this society of mine has been pretty challenging.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

Don't be afraid to get specific in a elevator pitch, in fact, the more specific the better.

Yes, exactly this. You don't want your pitch to be too generic or abstract. You want to walk the tight rope between too much and not enough detail. Too much detail and you'll start to bore readers before you've hooked them. No one gets hooked on characters first. They get hooked on a set-up or problem, then they can get hooked on the characters when they watch or read the story. But we don't need to know the name of your protagonist or their friends in the pitch.

Never put a question mark in your pitch. It's gimmicky and a bit of a cop out. You want to make your pitch something that will make readers ask their own questions. Putting specific names and places in is a good thing, it makes the story feel grounded and gives a lot of information in a small word.

Not necessarily. Lot's of professional pitch writers recommend starting with a question. For instance:

What would the future hold if crime could be stopped by catching the perpetrator before he commits the offense? This is life for a cop who arrests criminals before the crime occurs. However, when he is framed for a murder he has not yet committed, he goes on the lam to prove his innocence. (Minority Report)

Yes, you want your pitch readers to ask questions, but sometimes that is best triggered by asking a question yourself. From the above pitch, a reader might ask, "How do the police predict future crimes? How can the cop be framed if the predictions are always right? If the predictions aren't always right, how can they ethically arrest people? How can you prove you WON'T do something?!" If they are into those sorts of questions, they'll be desperate to see how it all turns out.

And you CAN put specific names and places in your pitch, but you have to be extremely careful not to overwhelm the reader with information that may put them off. In fact, the best thing to do is include a SECOND pitch that readers can move to if they liked the first pitch. To continue the Minority Report pitch above, a second pitch might get more specific:

The story revolves around John Anderton, a cop despondent over the fact that his young son was kidnapped and never seen again. This leads to drug addiction, the deterioration of his marriage, and his passionate support of nabbing perps before they commit the crime. But when the same future prediction system he enforces declares him guilty of murder, he must go on the run and confront what he has become - and what he might do.

Regardless, as Christopher Lockhart says, it is vital that the pitch only present the exact information necessary for concise comprehension. The pitch must be sparing when providing information on secondary characters and sub-plots.

[kkffoo]

I found that with my latest story, I changed the pitch three times..once for WIP,
http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 43&t=17375
once for completed games,
http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 11&t=17528 and again for the approval queue for the Ren'py games list.

This is that last version;

Tea For Two is a romantic farce. Antoine Boutin, retired banker find himself hopelessly in love with Marie, the flame haired waitress of the run down Hotel du Monde. Only when the hotel owner dies, and he is faced with losing Marie for ever, does our timid hero find the courage to take action. Can Antoine save the hotel and find true love, or will the crazy staff and residents be too much for our hero to handle?

Reading posts from this forum it seems like people look at the artwork first, then the story. So as my artwork is based on 3d machinima work, my story is a middle aged love affair and written from the man's perspective, it seems like I have carved out rather a difficult spot to pitch from.

Is the situation hopeless, or would improving the pitch really get more readers?

[Desu_Cake]

David is in a special branch of the army, tasked with dealing with supernatural phenomena. When his girlfriend is killed by a demon, he will do anything to get revenge. But how can he kill something that isn't alive?

A young girl disappears in a demon-infested household. A war between two realms begins. The fate of the world is in the hands of two people.

How are these? They're for two different stories in the same setting. I can't help feel that the second one sounds horribly vague and cheesy.

[Obscura]

David is in a special branch of the army, tasked with dealing with supernatural phenomena. When his girlfriend is killed by a demon, he will do anything to get revenge. But how can he kill something that isn't alive?

A young girl disappears in a demon-infested household. A war between two realms begins. The fate of the world is in the hands of two people.

How are these? They're for two different stories in the same setting. I can't help feel that the second one sounds horribly vague and cheesy.

I think your instincts are correct. I like the first one, it has my interest. I like it...it's snappy and has drama. The second one...argh. It's like the premise of about a hundred RPGs along the lines of "a dark force has taken over the land..." .

I found that with my latest story, I changed the pitch three times..once for WIP,
http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 43&t=17375
once for completed games,
http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 11&t=17528 and again for the approval queue for the Ren'py games list.

This is that last version;

Tea For Two is a romantic farce. Antoine Boutin, retired banker find himself hopelessly in love with Marie, the flame haired waitress of the run down Hotel du Monde. Only when the hotel owner dies, and he is faced with losing Marie for ever, does our timid hero find the courage to take action. Can Antoine save the hotel and find true love, or will the crazy staff and residents be too much for our hero to handle?

Reading posts from this forum it seems like people look at the artwork first, then the story. So as my artwork is based on 3d machinima work, my story is a middle aged love affair and written from the man's perspective, it seems like I have carved out rather a difficult spot to pitch from.

Is the situation hopeless, or would improving the pitch really get more readers?

kkffoo--the story is a romantic farce? I'm not sure I understand. Meaning that it's a bit of a joke, or making fun of the romance genre? I think the main problem is that you're going to fight a pretty tough battle with 3D around here. The problem with 3D is that a lot of it looks like examples of uncanny valley. I mean, I personally would prefer looking a VN with stick figures done in the way of XKCD vs. 3D done by one person. (3D can look great, but I think it takes at least tens of thousands of dollars to do really well.)

@LWR--yeah, I don't know what the whole deal is with these long character sheets people like to put in their WIP thread. I, for one, skip right over them. Show of hands--does anybody read them and actually enjoy them? I don't mind looking at the character art, but learning what their favorite food is, and that they're "feisty yet sensitive" is just a lot of forgettable verbiage. In sum, if you have detailed character sheets, I am actually less inclined to play your VN. Why? Because reading your character sheet feels like work (yes, they're really that boring!) But maybe that's just me. All I'd want is really just a picture, a name, and maybe a short description, like "the MC's boyfriend."

@Auro--the premise is really cool, and @Oookami--I really love your version of Auro's pitch.

@Junna--I like your premise but I like the earlier one you did better because it was easier to relate to the protagonist...."wakes up in a coma into a society where men are enslaved". Whereas the second one might be more technically correct but it reads like a dry academic summary, without the feeling of being there, in the story.

[Obscura]

@ Sharm

Aline's wedding is only a week away, but on her arrival at the castle she's greeted by twin princes instead of one crown prince, and she's to choose between them. One week isn't much time to choose the fate of her life or the fate of the kingdom, it's certainly not enough to find out why she was chosen for this role in the first place.

I'd probably eliminate the last sentence and instead focus on why she has to choose between twin princes and why it's gonna be tough choosing between them. Those things I'd want to hear about in your pitch.

@CtrlAltLee

" The personal protector of the Englightened One's daughter went "missing" yesterday.
Due to my perfect track record as a member of the Enlightened Ones Personal Guard, I'm been switched to daughter duty as a replacement. Problem is, if the Enlightened One finds out I've been harboring a crush on his daughter ever since I was stationed at the Palace, I'll be even more "missing" than my predecessor. "

My head has to do extra gymnastics to get into your first person voice during a pitch. I'd prefer this written in second or third person. Otherwise I like the premise. Potential for lots of drama.

@Ookami--I'd think I'd be interested in your VN just from reading the shorter pitch. Again, I'm not much for character descriptions. Perhaps other people enjoy them, but I'd probably skip reading them in your longer pitch, especially when they're in a list form.

@ Carassaurat--I really like your first two pitches. They've got conflict and drama. The third pitch is too abstract for me to be interested in. I just think "er, this is a story about mediation? How is this interesting?" Not my cup of tea, but maybe someone else's?