One of the most important tasks you can do when writing your novel is to write your one-sentence summary.
I blogged about this fairly recently, and nothing has changed since then. If you need a review of how the one-sentence summary works, I highly recommend reading that earlier blog post.
But if you only write a single one-sentence summary for your novel, you’re leaving money on the table. A lot of money.
As an example, here’s a one-sentence summary of The Hunger Games: A 16-year-old girl volunteers to take her sister’s place in an arena where twenty-four teens will battle each other to the death.
That’s pretty solid, as far as it goes, but it only tells the story as Katniss experiences it. Which is fair enough, because Katniss is the lead character, and she’s the only viewpoint character.
But Katniss is not the only person in this story. The other characters are critically important. And none of them thinks Katniss is the hero…
Every Character Thinks They’re the Hero
In the story you have been experiencing since birth, you are the lead character. That’s the nature of being human. There is only one skin you can be inside of. In your life story, everybody else is a side character.
But this is extremely important to understand—everybody else is the lead character in their own life story. And in their story, you’re the sidekick.
We live out the story of The Hunger Games through the eyes of Katniss, so her story is important. But there are other characters in this story that also matter. Peeta. Haymitch. Cato. Cinna.
Each one of these thinks they’re the lead character in the story. Let’s take a stab at writing the one-sentence summaries of each of these characters.
Peeta: When a 16-year-old boy is forced into the Hunger Games alongside the girl he loves, he resolves to sacrifice himself so she can survive.
Haymitch: A former champion of the Hunger Games has to coach a girl who could potentially win, if she doesn’t mind killing the one person in the world who loves her.
Cato: An 18-year-old boy—who has trained all his life for the Hunger Games—is shocked and humiliated when a girl half his size outscores him during training week.
Cinna: A leader in the secret conspiracy to overthrow the fascist government finds the perfect symbol of resistance—if he can keep her alive.
Notice that none of these one-sentence summaries capture the full story. And some of them are downright inaccurate. (Peeta is not really the only person who loves Katniss; her sister Prim loves her too.) By their nature, one-sentence summaries distort reality. They’re too short to capture everything, and you’d be crazy to make them try. They are approximations to the truth. Be OK with that.
Why Would You Do All This Extra Work?
It takes time and energy to write a good one-sentence summary. Each one might take you 10 or 15 minutes. Why bother?
There are several good reasons to do this extra work:
- It keeps you focused on the story while you’re writing it.
- It highlights where the essential conflicts are—which characters must be at odds with which other characters, and that helps you understand your novel better.
- It forces you to write 3-D characters, because you have walked inside the skin of all your characters, not just the “good guys”.
- It keeps your story from being a simple morality play, because you are constantly reminded that real life is complex and sometimes messy.
Bottom line: If you know the one-sentence summary of all your characters, you will empathize with them better. You’ll know them better. You’ll write them better. That’s a win.
Homework:
Pick a novel. Any novel you’ve read, where you really know the story. It doesn’t have to be a classic novel or even a great novel. It just needs to be one you completely understand.
1) Identify the 3 to 5 most important characters.
2) Write a one-sentence summary for each.
3) How well did the author give each character an interesting and reasonable storyline?
Now comes the hard work. Give yourself a one-hour time limit and do the same for the novel you’re working on right now. This might be the most productive hour you spend in writing your novel.
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