How Do You Write Something They Cannot Walk Away From?
Part IV: The Rewrite Drill + Kill Questions — Turn Your Summary Into a Weapon. One Sentence at a Time.
Your pitch is not redundant from lack of talent.
It was trained to obey.
To explain.
To please.
To sound like someone who WANTS a chance—not someone who TAKES IT.
That ends here.
This is not feedback.
This is demolition.
Welcome to the Drill.
🔩 THE REFORM DRILL
Drag your paragraphs to the line.
Each checkpoint is a hammer.
If it cracks, forge again.
No excuses.
No forward motion until you pass.
1. WHO THEY ARE – PRIMAL IDENTITY
Kill Question:
Does your pitch reveal a role—or a wound?
Fail:
“Lena is a marketing executive in Chicago struggling with her job.”
Rewrite:
“Lena survived the fire that killed her husband. Now she sells lies for a living—and she is getting good at it.”
Law:
No wounds, no reader.
We follow pain, not professions.
2. WHAT THEY WANT – THE WAR
Kill Question:
Can you define the pursuit in one brutal sentence?
Fail:
“She navigates the complexities of corporate life.”
Rewrite:
“She blackmails her boss to steal the promotion her dead husband was promised.”
Law:
Summaries are not moods. They are missions.
Define the war, or the reader walks.
3. WHY IT MATTERS – STAKES THAT HURT
Kill Question:
What dies if they collapse?
Fail:
“She wants to succeed.”
Rewrite:
“If she shatters, her son loses the only shot at a surgery that might save his voice.”
Law:
Money is not a stake. Survival is.
Stakes must draw blood or they vanish.
4. WHAT BREAKS – THE FRACTURE LINE
Kill Question:
Where does everything fall apart?
Fail:
“She realizes the job is not fulfilling.”
Rewrite:
“She discovers the promotion was her husband’s all along—and the CEO knew.”
Law:
No break, no hook.
Tension begins the moment loyalty ends.
5. WHAT YOU PROMISE – WORLD + TONE
Kill Question:
What world are you dragging them into?
Fail:
“A contemporary novel about healing and growth.”
Rewrite:
“A slow-burn psychological noir about grief, manipulation, and survival inside corporate hell.”
Law:
You are not selling plot. You are selling a world they cannot escape.
🧠 THE KILL QUESTIONS
These are the last blades.
Every line must survive them or die where it stands.
Would I buy this book from that paragraph?
If not, neither will anyone else.Would I remember this a week later?
If it cannot tattoo itself into memory, it deserves the grave.Does it leave a bruise—or just explain events?
If they feel nothing, they owe you nothing.
FINAL COMMAND
Take your original.
Shape it up.
Cut where it bleeds too soft.
Edit it clean and write again until the page stops resisting.
If it glows under pressure, keep it.
If it flinches—break it open and rebuild.
Part V drops Wednesday:
Can Your Summary Carry the War Alone?
No drills. No framework. Just exposure.
SUBSCRIBE. Share this with the writer still hiding behind description.
Fear is the first draft. Kill it. Rewrite. Ascend.