![]() ![]() The DaVinci Code: A Harvard symbologist and a female French cryptographer solve the puzzle of the Holy Grail in a race against death across Europe. Pride and Prejudice: A young English woman from a peculiar family is pursued by an arrogant and wealthy young man.Įnder’s Game: A young boy is brutally trained in Battle School to be the general who will save humanity from alien invaders. The Time Traveler’s Wife: A young girl grows up in the company of a strange time-traveling visitor who appears and disappears at random. Outlander: A young nurse searches for the way home after time-traveling from 1945 to 1743 Scotland. The Pillars of the Earth: A stonemason in 12th century England battles to build his life’s dream, a cathedral. The Clan of the Cave Bear: A young human girl in Ice Age Europe struggles to survive in her adoptive clan of Neanderthals. The Lord of the Rings: A hobbit learns that his magic ring is the key to saving Middle Earth from the Dark Lord. Harry Potter And The Sorcere’s Stone: A boy wizard begins training and must battle for his life with the Dark Lord who murdered his parents. Here are some example one-sentence summaries to get you started: I wouldn’t be surprised if one of you has a better summary than mine, because my loyal blog readers are well known to be among the most intelligent people on the planet. Tomorrow, I’ll choose the best of the lot and compare it to the one I’ve already cooked up. Post your one-sentence summary of Star Wars here as a comment. Episode 4 was the first Star Wars movie made, and if it hadn’t been good, there would have been no others.) So here’s your assignment for today: Summarize Star Wars in one sentence. Your goal is to get published, and so you need to find one agent and then one editor who choose Door Number 2. But every story will appeal to some reader. Let’s face it–no story is going to appeal to every reader, and it won’t appeal to every editor or agent either. It needs to give the editor or agent enough information to make one of two decisions:ĭoor Number 1 is more common. It needs to capture the essence of your story. You have five seconds to make an elevator pitch, so it needs to be good. What’s the story really about? A one-sentence summary is what some people call the “elevator pitch”–it’s what you’d tell an editor or agent if you were both going up one floor and she asked you, “What’s your novel about?” The first step I take in analyzing any story is to try to summarize it in one sentence. And it’s just plain fun, even if you don’t like science fiction. It’s a fine example of the Hero’s Journey. It’s part of the lexicon of virtually all writers. If you haven’t seen this movie, rent it and watch it. Find yours.Īs an example of how to do this, let’s look at a story that I think we’re all familiar with: Star Wars. There are many roads to publishing nirvana. You need to find what works for you and work that way. Some writers prefer to do the analysis after the first draft, and that’s also fine. Some writers prefer to do the analysis before they write the first draft, and that’s fine. Sooner or later, you’ll need to do exactly that. I’d now like to switch gears and spend some time talking about how to analyze your novel. We can take action to make it better.įor the past few months, we’ve been looking at some tactical issues in the craft of writing fiction. Whether 2008 was a good year or a bad year for you, we can choose to make 2009 better. 2008 was in many ways an awful, terrible, no-good, very bad year. It’s a whole new year, and I hope my loyal blog readers have staggered through the holidays without damage. ![]()
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