The following is a pitch for A Christmas Carol, followed by an explanation:

The story takes place at Christmas in merry old England, you know -- the time before electricity and cars when everyone rode in carriages, used gas lamps, and wore tons of clothing to fight off the bitter cold.

Well, there's this guy Bob Cratchitt who's got this great family and has just enough to keep them fed and give them a roof over their heads, a real working Joe. He loves his family. They love him. But there's a special place in his heart for his youngest kid, Tiny Tim. You see, Tiny Tim is filled with life and love for everyone, but Bob knows that Tiny Tim has a crippling disease and is slowly dying. If he had enough money, he might be able to save Tiny Tim's life. Unfortunately, Bob works for a stingy old bastard named Ebenezer Scrooge.

Mr. Scrooge is a bitter old money lender, frugal to a fault. Scrooge's love for humanity withered over the many childhood Christmases he was forced to suffer at boarding school because his father didn't want him around (or whatever his backstory was). Christmas stands for everything that Scrooge hates about people and the world. His idea of charity is to send the hungry and homeless to workhouses and orphanages. Not a nice guy.

This Christmas marks the one year anniversary of the death of Jacob Marley, Scrooge's lifelong business partner. It also marks Scrooge's last chance to redeem himself from an eternity of walking the world bearing the weight of his sins -- a fate suffered by Marley's ghost.

Marley's ghost visits Scrooge at the first stroke of midnight on Christmas to warn Scrooge of his impending fate and admonish him to change his ways before it's too late. Of course Scrooge tries to rationalize his vision of Marley's ghost as a bit of undigested beef, but isn't completely convinced it's indigestion. Marley tells Scrooge to expect visits from three ghosts.

What follows is a battle of wills set against the extraordinary backdrop of Christmases past, present, and future. Is Scrooge too set in his ways to change? Is he worth redemption? Can the ghosts of Marley, Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future convince Scrooge to reconsider his uncharitable ways? After all, they're not just any Christmas past, present, or future, but Scrooge's past, present, and future. And even if Scrooge decides to change and treat the world more generously, will it be enough to change the future and save Tiny Tim from a premature death?

Explanation

What I've tried to do here is use Dramatica concepts to organize the "pitch."

• I first started off by creating a sense of the setting (non-Dramatica stuff).
• Then I went immediately to the Overall Story throughline and established the central inequity -- Tiny Tim will die without money. Even though there are several parts to this piece of the story argument (the men asking for donations, Scrooge's nephew, the man overdue on his loan to Scrooge), this one is the most compelling and leads nicely into Scrooge, the Main Character.
• I then introduced the MC throughline inequity and backstory.
• The Impact Character throughline was then introduced, followed closely by a general sense of the story's Goal and Consequence.
• The last paragraph focuses on the MC/IC relationship while dropping in bits of MC, IC, and OS information. The MC Resolve is stated plainly. And I ended with a question about the story Costs.

The most logical place to follow would be to answer the questions posed -- Story Outcome, Story Judgment, and MC Resolve being the most obvious ones to dish out.

You'll notice, however, that I left out the answers in the pitch. That's because you want them to WANT the answers. Why? Because if THEY want the answers then the AUDIENCE will want the answers. You'll have created something compelling and that's something they can sell. Obviously you should have the answers to those questions at hand or you'll set them up without a satisfactory payoff.

My recommendation for any pitch is to include the following:

• OS Throughline (identify the inequity)
• MC Throughline (identify the inequity)
• IC Throughline
• Relationship Throughline
• MC Resolve
• OS Outcome
• OS Judgment
• OS Goal
• OS Consequence

Optional:

• MC Approach
• OS Driver
• OS Limit

This is just an off-the-cuff suggestion. See if it works for you.