Thread: Writing a summary

Hi.

I got to the end of another (probably the tenth) writing/review cycle yesterday and am now considering writing a summary. It will be more for me to consolidate the story rather than to send to a publisher or agent. I have already drawn a picture of what the story as a whole looks like, but now need to summarise it in words.

I have never written a summary before, except only a few paragraphs. But this one I want to write at least a few pages of text to summarise the story.

Any advice? Should I summarise each chapter in turn, or just summarise the whole story in one go? I am hoping someone will read this summary, so I will need to make it read well.

Sorry if this question is on another thread.

Depending on the size of your chapters, if you summarise each one you'll possibly end up with multiple pages. Summaries tend only to be one or two pages long. When I sent a query letter to a publisher for Dereliction of Duty, it was only a page-and-a-half long and it summarised the crucial points of the story.

Today I wrote a summary and it consists of several short paragraphs for each chapter. I ended up with 7 pages but will need to go over them again. It also forced me to think about the story as a whole in a short space of time (several hours). But I will do others, some shorter and some longer.

You must be HR McMaster?

No, I just condensed it into what I considered the most vital parts of the story. It takes a little practice, but you'll get the hang of it after a few tries.