Learning to Write Emotional Pitches
Roadmap Writers is an online site for screenwriters, and I have taken several paid courses via this site. Most recently I took a two-session course MARKETING YOUR SCRIPT taught by Ben Everard, executive producer of the horror film LIGHTS OUT. Everard provided extremely valuable insights including the importance of getting emotion into pitches. After two weeks of Everard’s coaching, below is the pitch that I wrote for my sci fi thriller THE MOTHER SIEGE.
UPDATE: After publishing the pitch in this post, Everard gave me additional feedback. Thus the pitch below is slightly tweaked from what was originally published here.
THE MOTHER SIEGE is a sci fi thriller — think GATTACA meets CHILDREN OF MEN.
Adapted from my sci fi novella, THE MOTHER SIEGE was partly inspired by my own experiences as the mother of a child with health issues. I wanted to explore how the current advances in genetic engineering and government monitoring could go wrong.
In the near future of THE MOTHER SIEGE a corporation has encapsulated and completely cut off a large portion of the U.S. The corporation’s plan: total control of the population. Women are allowed only two live births (conceived via government-controlled sperm banks), and fathers are now totally anonymous.
As the story opens, the next step of total mind control has just been announced. Mothers must surrender all their children from ages six months to 18 years to government propaganda centers where the children will be entirely cut off from any contact with their mothers.
One mother – a pediatrician who has hidden her undocumented asthmatic child since the child’s birth – dares to resist. (Think Charlize Theron or Angelina Jolie.) She bands together with three other mothers – including a surveillance expert (think Gina Torres) – to escape with their children from the encapsulated land mass.
If you want to read the actual screenplay of THE MOTHER SIEGE on Amazon Studios, click here. Or read the novella of THE MOTHER SIEGE on Wattpad at http:/budurl.com/MSintro
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Phyllis is available by skype for book group discussions and may be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com
Her Kindle fiction ebooks may be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller — and her Kindle nonfiction ebooks may also be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszmiller