How to Summarize Your Story

November 13, 2014 by David T. Allen

Agents and publishers want a synopsis of your book. Even if you self publish, it’s useful to be able to tell your entire story in as few words as possible.

Leslie and I had to summarize Dream Eater’s Carnival for a writing community. It felt overwhelming, at first, because I was thinking about everything at once.

Then I took a step back. I broke the story into 2,000 word blocks, then summarized each block in forty words or less. All the sudden, it was easy.

If your summary is still too long, start cutting words. If you’ve cut an entire block’s summary, then maybe that block isn’t necessary, or it could be slimmed down further.

Sprint 13: A New Year
It’s been a year since we started using a cork board to track and plan our writing goals. In that time, we published our first novella, redesigned our site twice, finished writing Echo Chamber Heist, were selected for #PitchSlam, and had eleven agents request our manuscript. The board is here to stay, but our process will continue to evolve as we learn.

Academy Pittsburgh Review
A little over four months ago I started developer boot camp at Academy Pittsburgh. Dave took my first day of school photo and I hopped in the car and drove to Allentown an hour earlier than necessary, a list of worries as long as my arm swirling in my head. What if the cost—free—belied that there was something wrong with the program? What if I didn’t like my classmates, or worse, what if they didn’t like me? What if my tangential history with programming wasn’t enough, and the course sped along, leaving me in the dust? What if the course ended up being a three-month waste of time, and I left without the ability to get a job?

#writing