How to Create a (very) Short Description of Your Book

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Remember my blog about the “elevator pitch“, You Never Get a Second Chance…the 30-60 second description of your book? Writing a very short synopsis of your book is almost the same task.

Author Mike Wells

American Bestselling Author and writing teacher Mike Wells writes in his blog:
“If you’re like most authors, summarizing your book in a couple of sentences is a daunting task. However, if you’re going to sell your book, it’s simply something you have to do.

If you choose to go the traditional route, agents and editors alike are bombarded with so many queries that if they find themselves having to do much mental work to understand the gist of your book, they will simply pass on to the next one.

The same goes for self-publishing–all the retailers and distributors require short descriptions of your book.

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Each and every story is composed of the same five basic elements:  a (1) hero who finds himself stuck in a (2) situation from which he wants to free himself by achieving a (3) goal. However, there is a (4) villain who wants to stop him from this, and if he’s successful, will cause the hero to experience a (5) disaster.

Actually, what I’ve just written above IS the two sentence synopsis which will work for any story, no matter how complex the plot or characters may seem. Another way to write this compressed synopsis is to move the goal into the second sentence, in form of a question: Hero finds herself stuck in situation from which she wants to free herself. Can she achieve goal, or will villain stop her and cause her to experience disaster? All you have to do is identify the elements and plug them in to create the most basic two sentence synopsis for your own story.”

Read his worthwhile blog where he explains in detail how to write a synopsis of your book, under “Advice for Writers“.

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Hyper Smash

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