To get readers interested in her upcoming novel, Vacation, Deb Olin Unferth recruited animator Scott Bateman and actor/comedian Maria Bamford. As a fun exercise, compare this movie-trailer-style rendition of the book’s plot makes Vacation to the description in the McSweeney’s catalog:
“A man follows his wife. The wife follows a stranger. The stranger leaves town and the man goes after him, determined to settle the score. But the man is not the only one looking for the stranger, and the stranger has troubles of his own. Amid all this, the earth quakes, a boy leaps out a window, and a dolphin swims free. Of course people have adventures of this kind—of course! of course!—but we’ve never heard of it before.”
That synopsis is perfectly pitched to the archetypal (or stereotypical) “McSweeney’s reader,” with its highly concentrated levels of surreal abstraction. But notice how just a slight emphasis on character creates a vastly different presentation of the same core message, and perhaps opens the book up to a new audience. So here’s another exercise for you, whether you’re a writer trying to pitch an agent, an agent trying to pitch an editor, a publicist trying to pitch the media, heck, even a reviewer trying to pitch readers: What could you do to change the way you talk about a book without distorting your core message? Or, put it another way: Is there something in that book you could be telling people about, something that might make your case for you, that you haven’t foregrounded yet?