So, What’s Your Book About?

Recovering from a week away for a family wedding, I pulled out Lesson Four again and spent some time writing a new "one sentence summary" of my first Nanonovel, Gift of the Ancients.

I had a one sentence summary for the story before I wrote it, but Holly Lisle's way of going about it is different than Randy Ingermanson's (I used his Snowflake method to plan the novel in the last ten days of October 2007). As usual, at first I resisted changing a pre-learned method, but I have to say I'm very pleased with the results. The new summary brings the story to life better. As I work on more things in coming weeks some things in the sentence may change, but overall I think we have a winner.

The purpose of a one sentence summary is a marketing tool. It's a fast but complete response to the question "So what is your book about?" and is your first line of attack in trying to interest an editor. It's important, and not easy to do. My original one sentence was:

Forbidden friends must reach and activate an ancient weapon to save their land from invasion.

Ingermanson recommends a 15-17 word limit to keep your sound-bite short. It's accurate, but doesn't hook the way I wanted it to.

In How To Revise Your Novel, Holly Lisle allows for 30 words, but advises including your Protag, Antag, Plot, Setting and Twist and breaks down just how to do it. The new sentence is:

A strong-willed troublemaker secretly discovers Ancient technology and must use it to protect low-tech Ympyra from powerful invaders, but an enemy becomes a friend and nothing works out like she thought.

The twist needs some work, but this is by far the stronger sentence. Anyone agree?

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Tags: Gift of the Ancients, Holly Lisle, How To Revise Your Novel, Nanowrimo, Randy Ingermanson, Snowflake