I would contend that one of the most important aspects of feature writing is ensuring that your story pitch delivers on the promise you make to a potential editor or publisher. In other words, does the final story measure up to what you say it will be? Katrina Onstad's pitch for her story "My Year of Living Dangerously" appears on p.38. Compare her pitch to the final story. Does it deliver on the promise(s) contained within her letter to ELLE magazine? Is so, what key elements in her pitch might have contributed to her eventual success in getting the story published?
Yes. I do think Onstad delivered on her promise. The pitch itself reads like a diary entry. We can tell Onstad has mixed feelings about her experience at Quest. And she definitely explores those feelings in her story. She mentions political correctness and how "the boys" would never get away with the same stuff today. This again, is explored in greater detail in her story.
ReplyDeleteI also think the writing style in her pitch is similar to the writing style in the story. Her writing is clear and casual. Like I mentioned above, it seems like we're reading a teenager's diary entry.
I also think that her connection to the subjects in the story contributed to the success in getting it published. She explained this connection to the editors. They must have seen that this personal account would only add to the story. I'm not sure how successful it would have been without her view points.
I actually think the story had more elements in it that I don't think she emphasized enough in her pitch. Her descriptions of The Boys' abuse and humiliation really came out in the story. But the pitch was not as graphic. I guess Onstad wanted to save some of the juicy details for the story. I think if she had included a quote or two from one of the women on the stand (or even Tom's lewd quote), that might have given the pitch more of a punch.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree with Sybil about the writing styles of her pitch vs. her actual story, and that's why I think she succeeded in getting her story published. She employed a conversational tone and thought-provoking metaphors in both that probably made the editor want to read the whole story, which in turn readers would also want to do.
I think she delivered. I was really impressed by the pitch letter and I think the story totally mirrored all the promises made on it. It's personal and it also looks at the bigger picture and it also doesn't become her opinion on the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteI especially loved her last sentence. Very strong ending. If I didn't know it was published on ELLE I would have guessed it was. The story matched their style of writing and feature choice perfectly. The author did her homework and it paid off.
Katrina Onstad's pitch and story was written in a very relaxed style; a style that seemed to be written by a very confident woman that had no regrets about her time in the Quest.
ReplyDeleteOnstad's pitch contained some of the "wires" that were almost invisable in her story. In the pitch she inserted descriptions, like the "feel of a San Francisco vibe" or "aging hippies and proud mavericks, reveling in anti-authoritarian shenanigans" as a hook for the editors at Elle Magazine. In her feature, she showed these elements with the interaction between the students, Tom and the Boys. For example, Onstad's she explained that Quest was before the "dawn of political correctness" and it was "still taboo for anyone to admit that teenage girls wanted sex" relating to the shenanigans in her pitch.
Onstad's used very candid comments in her pitch about her time in the Quest, but she didn't judge anyone in the group. I think this is what actually sold her story. Her pitch, and her story, showed how she matured from the experiences of the Quest program.
I think Onstad's pitch worked because she was going to be providing a persepective of the story that hadn't been considered by most of the media yet. Her story definitely delivered on that. In her pitch, she said she was unsure that everything that happened at Quest was a bad thing and worried about what that could mean to her daughter and society, especially the lack of freedom. While she realizes that what the Boys did was wrong, she puts it into the context of the time. She was able to provide an insider's perspective who was part of Quest but not on the sexual level others were. That's exactly what her pitch said she would do.
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