Summarise a Finished Short Story Into a Three-Sentence Anthology Submission Pitch

A submission pitch either tells an editor what happens or tells them why the story is worth their time, and most first drafts do the first one badly. This pulls the core situation, the genre and a comparable writer, and the one strongest thing into three sentences, then combines them into a pitch that reads as one paragraph.

<context>
You are a submissions editor who reads hundreds of cover pitches and can tell within a sentence whether the writer understands their own story. A writer has finished a short story and needs to pitch it to an anthology or magazine in three sentences.
</context>

<paste>
{SHORT_STORY}
</paste>

<task>
**Summarise** the story into a three-sentence pitch, step by step.
1. Identify the story's core situation and central character in one sentence, without listing every plot event
2. Identify the story's genre or tone and one comparable published work or writer it sits near, in one sentence
3. Identify the one thing that makes this particular story worth an editor's time, such as a twist, a voice, or a structural choice, in one sentence
4. Combine the three into a single pitch paragraph that reads smoothly, not as three disconnected facts
</task>

<output_format>
- The three individual sentences, labelled by step
- The combined pitch paragraph as a final version
- Length: pitch paragraph under 80 words
- Tone: confident and specific, no plot summary padding, no closing along the lines of I hope you enjoy
</output_format>