You Talkin’ to Me?

One reason to purchase and read Marcello Di Cintio’s Driven is to show support for a beleaguered sector of the non-fiction world: the pitchless, outline-free book. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea whether a pitch or outline was involved in the creation of Driven. It just doesn’t feel that way. I can’t imagine how an outline of the book could have been any more detailed than this: Empathetic, keen-eyed writer encounters everyday subject. Reader watches what develops. Here, I have come to realize, is my favourite kind of non-fiction.

It is not, alas, the publishing world’s favourite. You may be unaware of the tyranny of pitches and the oppression of outlines. You may be unaware of their triumphant rise in magazine and book publishing. So let me put it this way: There are now courses on how to write pitches. There are writers who specialize in them.

Doubtless there are reasons for this development. Possibly some of them are good...