Ah, yeah, I kind of posted that and read them and was like "well those tell me nothing". That one you quoted is kind of funny, because technically I don't have a plot for it...Originally Posted by Staff Deployment
(sorry for using you as a bad example pops)
As far as what I know about the story at the moment... well that one sentence contains all of it. A girl and a new power source of immoral origin. Stuff will definitely happen. I swear.
I have an extensive knowledge of Mean Girls quotes.
While I agree that this particular summary was a bit too vague to generate much intrigue, I have to disagree with you on establishing the genre and the main character in your one-sentence 'pitch' (or logline, as KyleColorado put it). The story might be about Charles Dexter Ward, for instance, but to the prospective audience that name means almost nothing. A mentally unstable young man on the other hand would at least give us some idea of who this character is (which is leagues more effective than the name alone).
As for the genre, that should just be apparent between the setting and conflict. No need to overextend yourself in order to make it clear that the book you're summarizing is a fantasy novel--the fact that it's about a young wizard trying to tame a wild manticore should make that obvious.
"Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised." --John Steinbeck
RE: POPS: What about ... a teenaged girl, accosted by dark forces, must choose to either unravel the mystery and break the curse, or use her new powers for vengeance.
That's probably nothing like your story, but I couldn't resist. Now it's a young-adult supernatural story about a "Carrie"-type girl, where the conflict is internal, i.e. how she chooses to harness her new powers.
-- EDIT --
Yes, I agree with this! You'll notice in my own examples that words such as "schizophrenic", "wizard", "sex-bot", "haunted", etc all clearly point to a specific genre. A few times I think I spelled it out too obviously (fantasy, post-apocalyptic) but that's arguably more about the setting than the genre; the "fantasy" one, for example, is much more of a psychological story than a straight-up sword-and-sorcery thing.
This isn't to say that my examples are very good. They're not. If I thought they were good, I wouldn't have put them up.
Last edited by Staff Deployment; February 11th, 2014 at 06:58 AM.
It's more like...
A young woman fights for freedom with the help of a sickening power as humans retake a ravaged Earth.
And you might as well ignore the fourth logline I gave. It and the one above it are essentially the same story in different settings (maybe with a protagonist shift too), the latter of which I jotted down last night after some inspiration smacked me in the face. It was a better sentence in its 20+ words form. It's really very hard to write a 20 word sentence that contains useful information.
I have an extensive knowledge of Mean Girls quotes.
Take two:
As a mysterious enemy attacks, an unwilling draftee must reconcile his reluctance to fight with the knowledge that only he can save humanity.
Drat, 23 words.
"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." - Benjamin Franklin
"I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story." - Tom Clancy
Better. This tells us a whole lot more about the story. The most important detail here, which we missed in the last one, is the fact that this draftee is "the only one that can save humanity," which in turn tells us that humanity is in danger. Very relevant.As a mysterious enemy attacks, an unwilling draftee must reconcile his reluctance to fight with the knowledge that only he can save humanity.
Drat, 23 words.
I might even cut out the fact that he's reluctant, because that's just something we'll find out during the story--it's not what the story is about. Granted, it may mean a lot for the story, this seems as though it could read "When a mysterious enemy attacks, an unwilling draftee is the only hope for humanity" without losing too much of its potency.
Again, those are just my two cents.
Last edited by InkwellMachine; February 11th, 2014 at 09:08 PM.
"Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised." --John Steinbeck
Done. Thanks!You could remove 'own' and/or 'ancient'.
“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.” -Carl Sagan
Real courage is found, not in the willingness to risk death, but in the willingness to stand, alone if necessary, against the ignorant and disapproving herd. --Jon Roland, 1976
Have you checked out the Hidden Content
Founder of the Pantsers United Group and member of the Fantasy Lords Group"Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful,
insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows." - Walt Disney
You could drop 'As', 'unwilling', 'his', 'the'.
I was fighting with temptation but I didn't want to win.
A man like me don't like to see temptation caving in.
Leonard Cohen
No, that would break the syntax.
In my own opinion, I think the fight between the "unwilling draftee" and the "mysterious enemy" is more interesting than the internal struggle. After all, "unwilling draftee" pretty much sums up that internal struggle perfectly. It means he's there out of duty, not out of free will. Bam, you've instantly freed up space to describe what this mysterious enemy is and why it's a threat.
The story of a boy, a dog, and the serial killer threatening them both.
“Fools” said I, “You do not knowSilence like a cancer growsHear my words that I might teach youTake my arms that I might reach you”But my words like silent raindrops fellAnd echoed in the wells of silence : Simon & Garfunkel
Those who enjoy stirring the chamber-pot should be required to lick the spoon.
Our job as writers is to make readers dream, to infiltrate their minds with our words and create a new reality; a reality not theirs, and not ours, but a new, unique combination of both.
Visit Amazon and the Kindle Store to check out Reflections in a Black Mirror, and Chase
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