Also it’s not clear if the conspiracy involves a massive amount of people or it’s a conspiracy to affect massive amounts of people. Presumably the latter, given that it’s stated to threaten millions, which then makes “massive” as a descriptor superfluous.

The problem I keep coming up with is that the conspiracy doesn’t get revealed until at least half way through the novel, and it’s supposed to be a surprise for the reader. I’m not sure how specific I can get without spoiling the surprises that await. As for being cliché, I will try to come up with a different way to word the one sentence, but with a limited amount of words I find myself cutting it short before I can explain more about it.

I took what you said and modified the sentence. This is what I came up with.

“An adopted boy’s search for his parents uncovers a world renowned businessman’s plot to get rid of all inferior people.”

It still seems like it needs some work, but I made it a bit more specific, and got rid of the redundant adjectives. The businessman is known in that time about as well as we would know BIll Gates. I’m not sure if world renowned is a good way to describe that or not, so if anyone has a better adjective for that please let me know.

Also, if the setting is important, (this story is set about 60 years in the future) should that be part of the one sentence storyline? Or is that the kind of thing you would put on the back of the novel?

Sorry for the super long post, I hope the new sentence works better!

Randy sez: OK, that’s a problem, if we don’t learn about the conspiracy until the midpoint of the book. It seems like this is the main problem for our lead character, and if neither he nor the reader knows about it until midway into the book, then I have to ask what’s going to carry the story for all those pages. My strong hunch is that your story will be stronger if AT LEAST the reader learns about this conspiracy within the first quarter of the book. Preferably the lead character should also, though it’s OK if he’s just struggling toward that knowledge, so long as he knows that Something Terrible Is Wrong With The World.

I think your new sentence is better. Can we improve on it even more? Instead of “world renowned businessman,” can we change it “the world’s richest man?” That has the advantage that the editor who hears this will mentally insert Bill Gates (though Bill is presumably a much nicer guy). Also, I wonder if we can get more specific about those pesky “inferior people.” There are a lot of ways to be “inferior.” Is it inferior in height? IQ? Weight? Bank account? Each of these leads to a subtly different story. By getting specific, you help to create a vision of what your story is in your editor’s mind, which is always a good thing because then she buys into it more readily and may even begin making helpful suggestions.

Since I’m unpublished and have a thirst for info on the industry, I’ve scoured what I could find on the ‘net. I have yet to locate where this one story sentence is actually used. Most query advice (including from agent blogs I’ve read) says nothing about the single sentence story. Rather, they want us to jump into the inciting incident in a more narrative form.

So my question is: Other than for our own personal use (and to ensure we have a story worth telling), what’s the point from a business / sales pitch perspective?

Randy sez: I use it in my “Executive Summary” page of a book proposal. However, the most common use of the one-sentence summary is the so-called “elevator pitch.” The scenario is this: You’re at a writing conference and you get in the elevator on the first floor going up one flight. An agent walks in beside you, and just to be friendly, says, “Hi, Richard! What sort of fiction are you writing?”

You now have 5 seconds to say something. If you have a strong one-sentence storyline memorized, you can spiel it out right now. If it’s good, the agent will know what to do next. If it’s bad, the awkward moment will last only a few seconds and then the agent is gone for good.

In my book, WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES, I explain in chapter 8 about the “selling chain” — the sequence of people that need to be sold on the concept of a book in order to make it a commercial success. The chain begins with an acquisitions editor and ends with the reader. Each step on the chain must be intact. The best way anyone has ever found for keeping that chain intact is to create a one-sentence storyline that can be easily remembered and passed along. The shorter the better, because you don’t want your message corrupted as it passes from one link to the next.

- Something beyond just an adopted boy like clues to age, hobby, criminal record, etc…
- A clue as to how he uncovers the plot
- What makes him inferior?
- Do you need the businessman (Mr. X) in the sentence to make it interesting? Is the purpetrator of the plot as important as the plot.

To me the strong emotive punches are the parent search and the death of millions. Since I don’t know your exact story line, I have improvised a couple details in the following example:

“An adopted teen hacker’s parent search uncovers a plan to kill all unwanted kids.”

An adopted teen hacker is interesting on so many levels, with a personal connection to three big segments (techno-geeks, teens and adoptees.) You have the personal element of the parent search. And last, but not least, you have a plot that kills millions of kids, including him. All in a 14 word sentence.

And Luke, don’t forget about the teen angst angle. You must mention the angst.

To take an example of a recently popular novel (Eclipse from the Twilight series), when you view this catalog entry it says: “Bella must choose between her friendship with Jacob and her relationship with Edward but when Seattle is ravaged by a mysterious string of killings, the three of them need to decide whether their personal lives are more important than the well-being of an entire city.”

It might be hard to succinctly define what, in the evil overlord businessman’s mind, constitutes “inferior” since there could be a myriad of reasons that would qualify. Maybe (similar to ethnic cleansing), “social cleansing”? Just an idea.

Perhaps:
“An adopted boy’s search for his parents uncovers a billionaire mogul’s terrifying “social cleansing” scheme.”