Why is it- whenever I talk to someone and mention I’m writing a story- they ask the age old question- “What’s it about?” It pops up everywhere! My usual response is a laugh, then trying to fumble through a brief summary- but then the summary starts to sound like a book in itself. I mean, how can you sum up over fifty thousand words into a paragraph? It’s belittling the story! Then after my failed attempt to describe what I’m working on- they tend to ignore it and categorise it as some random ‘rant’. In my many experiences of this- I’ve learnt one thing about myself in particular; I CANNOT summarise my stories! Not in the slightest. If you ask me what I did over the past month- sure, I could summarise that in a paragraph. But Thaihaelon? No way! I mean- I’ll try and give it a go now... You’ll see what I mean. Warning, this synopsis will be pathetic.
Markus starts to play a videogame called Thaihaelon. He logs in and finds a couple of his friends online. After killing a massive slug with an uber-cool sword, he and his friends talk to a hack in the game- she tells them that the game is swallowing people up, and that people are dying in the game. So it’s up to Markus and his friends to destroy the screen layer that’s keeping them all trapped in the game. So then they go and destroy the first tower. Markus meets this strange old centaur man who starts telling him stories about Thaihaelon- and that it’s not really a game. Then one of Markus’s friends, Karisia, gets kidnapped and the group goes to the second tower where Masadorraed destorys it. Then they go and save Karisia, and destroy the third tower. After that, Masadorraed keeps seeing volcanoes in the sky. So they decide to hop on the Hacker’s pirate ship and look for an island with the volcano on it, and hopefully the fourth tower
...I’ll stop there. Now I’ll point out some of the many mistakes-
Point one: It IS a rant! Really, it just went on and on and on.... It was too long. That’s probably two paragraphs or more!
Point two: It sounds stupid. To skip certain details and cover so much sounds stupid. Really, I didn’t even mention Saroheed or Aluria!
Point three: It sounded typical. Just like every other book out there on the shelf; who would want to pick it up if it sounded typical?
Point four: It sounds boring. What did I say in there that was really interesting? Nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t even read this far because of falling asleep from my synopsis.
Point five: Spoilers! It you're going to blurt everything out- just put it on the net... *looks at website self made* Ugh- it's a first draft. ^_^'
Now, what can I do to fix these problems? One thing that some authors will do is take something really interesting from their book and use it on the back cover. It could be something dramatic- like the intro to a massive battle. It could be something suspenseful, a questioning scene of a great mystery. Or maybe it’s emotional? Something that will connect the reader and character before the reader even opens the book.
Some of you might have heard the saying ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’, but the problem is, these days, quite a few people do. There are those who cover browse, there are those who blurb –synopsis- browse, and there are those who will open up and read the prologue. Hopefully I’ll be able to get the prologue readers hooked, and I’ll see in time on the cover browsers... But the synopsis readers? I think I’ll be picking from a few scenes once the books done. ;)
Disappearing through the Screen Layer
~Icey
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