TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read)
Just the Facts Ma'am
Hello Friends,
I’ve been thinking a lot about brevity this past week as I have been working on developing my book coaching material.
During the first stage of my program, I ask the author to write an elevator pitch about their book. An elevator pitch, as you may know, is a short selling statement—1-2 sentences—that a person can use on a typical elevator ride (several seconds) to convince someone to want to hear more about a person’s product.
For example: “The cars I sell transport a person in the comfort of a grand hotel.” If you were a person looking for a luxury car, you might ask what brand of car this is and how it differs from other similar cars. If that happens, the salesperson has you in a conversation. The objective is achieved.
Since the elevator pitch’s origin is sales, it’s easy to imagine that its only purpose is to sell things, but that is not true.
A short, well-crafted statement gives the salesperson (or anyone) an automatic or non-fumbling response to the question, “What do you do?”
Or, “What is your book about?”
I like to use these pitches to help an author not only define their book’s plot. But also to maintain focus while writing.
The exercise of concentrating the goal of the book into a few words is powerful: it can tell the author where to cut and where to develop more. I return to mine frequently as I write.
In this way, elevator pitches can come in two flavors. Consider the story Little Red Riding Hood:
Plot: “A girl gets revenge on the wolf who ate her grandmother.”
Concept: “The assumption that innocence is equal to stupidity can have deadly consequences.” (…if you’re the wolf)
Both statements describe the story of Little Red Riding Hood. And hearing either on an elevator might inspire you to seek it out and read it as soon as you reach the lobby.
For me, the point of an elevator pitch when writing is to have a steady light, or beacon, to go back to as needed. It can help you define the scope of your work and stay on track.
If as you’re writing you create an amazing passage that doesn’t seem to fit into your focused pitch, you can remove it from the story and save it for another project. In this way, your primary work will be tighter, you will give the reader a more cohesive journey, and you’ll have something for your next piece.
Additionally, if you feel stuck, you can use your elevator pitch to get yourself back into the flow. In this way, it serves as a topic of conversation between yourself and your characters.
I also like it because it’s brief. Brevity is awesome. In the same vein that a picture is worth 1000 words, a short, concise turn is invaluable and evocative, such as the famous flash fiction story oft attributed to Hemmingway, but whose source is more complex: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
Besides, these days, saying less is all the rage. All the cool kids are doing it—thumbing their phones with shortcut phrases and emojis and their rock and roll music.
There is a six-word story movement in writing. I follow a sci-fi one at Wired Magazine. At the website Axios.com, the creators tout a concept they call Smart Brevity. And I have been a longtime advocate of personal mission statements.
As well as this newsletter’s title, TL;DR—which has solidified itself in our pop culture and is often found in work memos, representing a more hip and egalitarian term for “Executive Summary.”
As a side note, I find the term, TL;DR, a remarkable thing. I mean, most people don’t read memos or messages if they simply appear long. And so someone came up with the concept of putting a brief sentence or two in a specific TL;DR section at the top of the page—it is both useful and highlights the fact that people aren’t going to read your drivel (unless they are interested or your spouse).
“Summaries” have been around forever, but the very term TL;DR encapsulates the experience of being stuck reading a long, boring memo and gives the reader a way out.
Simply being brief is not the point—to work, short phrases have to say something meaningful.
Buzzwords and slogans are hollow, have no precise meaning, and often hide the snake-oil-salesman’s actual intentions (I’m sure you can think of a popular one right now that has been twisted into anyone’s excuse for doing harm).
Great elevator pitches are specific and have a depth that leaves the listener spending more time contemplating them than it takes to hear them.
So, just because something is short doesn’t mean it should be overlooked (see what I did there?). Often, it demands deeper inspection and is more powerful and useful than a long, rambling treatise.
If you have made it this far,…
Happy writing and happy reading,
David