How to create a short sharp pitch for a work of commercial fiction

I'm a writer not a film maker and I make no claims for the quality of production, nor am I expecting any academy award nominations, but I stand by the content as a tried and tested way to create the outline for an elevator pitch, a blurb or a book taster. 

This mini presentation was shown at virtual FantastiCon 2020 and was abridged from How to be a Fantastic Writer by Danuta Reah and Penny Grubb. 

Supporting #NHS Charities Together

Along with other authors, Mark P Henderson, Stuart Aken, Melodie Trudeaux, Sue Knight and John D Scotcher, I have joined an initiative to use book royalties to support NHS Charities Together during the current emergency.

The project comprises twelve books, including Cruel and Unusual PunNishments by Mark P Henderson, Blood Red Dust by Stuart Aken, Falling into Crime by Penny Grubb, Horse of a Different Colour by Melodie Trudeaux, The Boy in Winter's Grasp by John D Scotcher, Till They Dropped and Waiting for Gordo by Sue Knight.

The project was retired medic, Mark P Henderson’s idea. He told his publisher Fantastic Books Publishing that he wanted to donate the author royalties from one of his books to the NHS. Fantastic Books offered to bring other authors on board and to put some of their charity anthologies into the pot.


The anthologies chosen by Fantastic Books contain contributions from all four of these authors and also include the anthology that won the 2019 CWA Short Story Dagger.

In line with Fantastic Books Publishing’s current policy to cut down on the physical transport of goods, you are encouraged to buy ebooks.






See more detail, book previews and the full line up HERE.

The dangers of becoming disorientated in deep water

Our health services are chronically under-staffed after years of austerity (for which no one ever made a credible case, but that’s a different debate) and we desperately need to train up all the capable people we can. And there are plenty of very capable people, many of whom are already in demanding responsible health-related jobs. They want to take a step up, to take on more senior roles, to gain the skills and knowledge that a healthcare professional needs in the modern world.

They queue in droves to make the leap on to the healthcare professional career ladder by going back into higher education to gain the relevant qualifications, knowledge, skills and experience.

But for many it can seem a leap too far. These are the people who, for a variety of reasons, haven’t been in higher education (or maybe in any kind of formal education) for many years. Some struggled through school battling undiagnosed conditions such as dyslexia, and ended up feeling inadequate, as though their inability to learn the same way their peers did was all their fault.

There is a gap to bridge. Operating at higher education level is not simply a matter of stepping through the door and taking education on board. Basically, it involves reading, writing and thinking. We can all do all three – so how hard can it be?

Consider this: you’ve never done any scuba diving but you’d like to. You know how to swim because you go to your local pool occasionally and do a few lengths; you know how to breathe; you’ve been doing it all your life. So if you wanted to scuba dive in the ocean, all you would need to do is take a boat out to deep water, strap on a tank and jump in. Right?

Wrong (of course). You’d be lucky to survive the experience.

Stepping up to higher education is the same, but the negative effects of getting it wrong are not quite so immediate as the scuba diving example.

You won’t drown or die from the bends or get disorientated in deep water and never see the sun again, but you will feel a sense of drowning in words if you don’t learn ways to read, absorb and critically evaluate huge amounts of information; you will despair at ever putting together a coherent argument if you don’t hone your thinking skills and learn to distinguish fact, from opinion, bias from evidence, and to recognise the tricks that are used to derail logical thought.

Your ability to read, write and think had better take a huge leap forward if you are to keep your head above the higher education waterline.

Preparing for Higher Education Study isn’t just a book title, it’s something you need to do if you want to emerge from the deep waters of higher education unscathed, stronger and ready to take on the world.

Writing successful commercial fiction

This book, How to be a Fantastic Writer, is the expanded 2nd edition of The Writers' Toolkit. It is the recommended text (by the editors at Fantastic Books) for writers of commercial fiction.

Targeted specifically at authors of commercial fiction, this book lifts the lid and shows you the component pieces of compelling prose and how they fit together. It debunks popular myths – you’ve heard the adage ‘show, don’t tell’; did you know that ‘tell, don’t show’ has an equally vital role to play in vibrant fiction? The trick is knowing which to use and when. This book will tell you. It strips away the mystery and shows the practical steps involved in when and how to build dramatic effect; how to make your characters come alive on the page; how to employ powerful 21st century techniques (don’t let the film-makers have all the best tools).

How to be a Fantastic Writer leads you step by step from beginning to end. If you’re just starting out and want a solid framework to give you confidence, or if you are a seasoned novelist who wants practical advice on how to inject tension into a scene that inexplicably seems to drag, then this is the book for you.

“Specifically addresses the vast majority of the problems we encounter when assessing authors’ manuscripts. The whole team was delighted when the authors agreed to write an expanded second edition.” Mae, senior editor, Fantastic Books Publishing

                From Amazon reviews of the first edition

“You can literally see what needs to happen, where the sticking points are and how to resolve them. For me it was like a light turning on in my head.”

“Gets straight to the heart of what makes fiction commercial but also eminently readable.”

“It has given me considerable inspiration.”

 “It has clarified what my next steps are and how much work I still have to do. For that alone, it is worth the money.”

“The instructions for preparing a two-sentence pitch were alone worth the cost of the book.”

What is it with Show and Tell?

Show don’t tell? I hate seeing that in writing guides or hearing it in writing courses. It’s shorthand, it’s lazy, it isn’t good advice. Show and Tell do different things. They’re both good in the right context and can wreck a piece of prose if you get them wrong, but show isn’t somehow better than tell, it’s just different. Sometimes you need to show the reader what’s happening and sometimes it’s best to tell. The trick is to know when and why to show or tell.

What does 'show' do?

• Show keeps the viewpoint close behind the eyes of the viewpoint character. The closer you show, the closer the viewpoint.
• Show brings the reader closer to the action.
• Show is great for dramatic sequences, for keeping the reader at the edge of her/his seat.

Where ‘show’ is not so good

• Show is not so good for the more mundane moments. There’s tedium in real life; people don’t read fiction to be immersed in a boring moment.

What does 'tell' do?

• Tell distances the reader from the action, and sometimes that’s just what is needed.
• Tell pushes the viewpoint away from the character, makes it more distant, less personal.
• Tell is the way to allow the reader and the characters a breather after a moment of high drama.

When not to ‘tell’

• Tell is not the technique to use to involve a reader in a high tension moment.

There’s a short article called Milking the action and emotion: never summarise the dramatic moments that pulls together some of these ideas. It’s from the launch of The Writers’ Toolkit which contains other articles, worked examples and the live critiques that were done during the launch.

The Writers’ Toolkit is available from FantasticBooks Publishing