Easy, Breezy, Summary
You remember the summaries that you
hated writing for your language teachers? Well, guess what? We’re doing them.
If only to avoid later confusion, let us
quickly define two words who have extremely similar meanings. A summary is
a brief explanation for a larger body of work (i.e., book, movie, etc.). A synopsis
is a brief explanation for a larger body of work (i.e., book, movie, etc.) that
is asked for by a literary agent or publisher. Why do we make this
distinction? While we aren’t entirely certain, we assume it’s because nerds
like ridiculous words. We purposefully use the word summary throughout the this
and other articles because we have a secondary rule for both words. A summary
is written before the book is written. A synopsis is written after
the book is written. Essentially, the summary you will be creating right now will
be changed and amended after your book is written, and thus, made into the
synopsis that you will give to literary agents and publishers.
In all seriousness, your summary is a
surface-level look at what you want your story to be. It doesn’t answer all the
questions—and shouldn’t. Remember our river metaphor from the article entitled,
Spoiling the
Story? Well, if the beginning and ending scenes are the shores of
the river, then the summary is what we’ll use to find our stepping stones to
cross said river. What do we mean? Well, the summary is a great guide to define
the major plot points of the story. For a summary, we’ll want 5 major plot
points to get from the beginning scene to the end. However, to brainstorm these
ideas, we’ll generate 10-15 ideas, and then we’ll cut, combine, and expand on
the good ones. To help us come up with ideas, the first bullet point is the
beginning scene. The last bullet point is the ending scene. Everything else in
the middle is just a thought—despite being a stepping stones, these are not set
in stone… God, we love puns.
·
Beginning: Kraig Jones hunts and kills a deer to
feed his wife and daughter after a lengthy ordeal in the woods.
·
Kraig sees the huge bonfire in the
distance—extremely bright—which has been burning since the sun first
disappeared. He wants to investigate.
·
Kraig gets caught by cultists—meets other
potential sacrifices.
·
Kraig witnesses a sacrifice, which is
terrifying—also sees that Evander has magic powers.
·
Evander is angry after the sacrifice because
nothing changes. Apparently, the sacrifice wasn’t good enough to satiate the
creature he summoned.
·
Asher betrays the cult and helps Kraig escape
but entrance is blocked and windows are sealed off. They plan to escape down
through the hotel.
·
Asher and Kraig get lost in the hotel—cultists
look for them and fight them
·
Asher and Kraig fight to survive (Asher freezes
up and doesn’t help Kraig to fight)—Kraig gets mad and Asher crumbles
·
Convinced Asher will get him killed, Kraig
abandons him and searches for a way out. But without Asher, he keeps getting
lost in the confusing corridors
·
Evander tries to sacrifice Kraig and Asher to
the monster but they escape.
·
Kraig fights the magic-fueled Evander and is
saved by Asher
·
Both realize that they’ll still lose if they
can’t get the sun back.
·
Monster makes deal with Kraig to get the sun
back?? OR Kraig summons the monster, controls it, and demands the sun back?? OR
Asher sacrifices himself? “The lost need a light to find a way back.”
·
Kraig burns down the hotel.
·
Ending: With the hotel burning behind him, Kraig
stumbles out of the hotel to see the sunlight and returns home to his wife and
daughter.
So, these are our initial thoughts for
the story. Now, how do we whittle this down and even expand on these points?
Quite frankly, we take the ones that sound coolest to us and fit the story
best.
·
Beginning: Kraig Jones hunts and kills a deer to
feed his wife and daughter after a lengthy ordeal in the woods.
·
Plot Point 1: Having run out of food for his
family, Kraig is drawn to investigate a huge bonfire in the distance which has
been burning since the sun first disappeared. Kraig finds a luxurious hotel
with a giant fire out front. Several people are standing outside, waiting to
get in, but are instead snatched by masked cultists in black robes. Rather than
fight, Kraig tries to run away only to be knocked unconscious by a cultist with
a owl mask.
·
Plot Point 2: Kraig awakes in a small hotel room
devoid of furniture only to find that it is a prison. After hearing the stories
of other prisoners, Kraig tries to escape and fails. Multiple times. Evander
enters. The leader of the cultist selects one of the prisoners to be sacrificed
and leaves.
·
Plot Point 3: Kraig convinces Asher—who is
guarding Kraig’s door from the opposite side, as this hotel room is locked from
the outside—to release him and the other would-be sacrifices. Asher does
and Kraig decks him. The survivors escape and try to run away as a group but
cultists come to find them. Kraig hides in a room on the top floor and
accidentally witnesses a sacrifice. Shockingly, Asher saves Kraig and
pretends to subdue him.
·
Plot Point 4: Kraig and Asher devise a plan to
get the demon-summoning book and necklace from Evander, who lives in the
penthouse apartment. He does steal it but has to fight cultists on the way back
down toward the summoning circle.
·
Plot Point 5: Kraig finally makes it back to the
basement and starts summoning the demon to make a deal with it. Evander tries
to kill him but Asher helps this time. Evander throws Asher into the summoning
circle and becomes the next sacrifice. This time, the demon is satisfied with
the sacrifice. Evander and Kraig battle for control of the sun in a weird demon
realm. Kraig wins, sacrifices the entire cult, and burns down the hotel after
releasing the prisoners.
·
Ending: With the hotel burning behind him, Kraig
stumbles out of the hotel to see the sunlight and returns home to his wife and
daughter.
Now we feel ready to write our summary.
Frankly, it’s going to be a paraphrased version of what we have written above.
However, we need to keep in mind the 1% rule: the summary should be 1% of the
story. So, I expect this story to be 80k words, so I’ll assume that the summary
should approximately be 800 words. Why do we use this rule? Because, the summary
is only supposed to detail the main story line and little else. The detailed
outline will be far more in depth.
Kraig Jones
hunts and kills a deer to feed his wife and daughter after a lengthy ordeal in
the woods. Having
run out of food for his family, Kraig is drawn to investigate a huge bonfire in
the distance which has been burning since the sun first disappeared. Because
the bonfire has to be tended to, Kraig is certain that there are people
there—people that he can hopefully raid. He treks through the wilderness for
almost twenty-five miles to find this place, because the roads are covered in
abandoned cars. Though Kraig expects to find a couple of people tending to the
fire, he instead finds an elaborate hotel with a gigantic bonfire, around which
a crowd of people had gathered. Then, masked cultists in black robes begin
opening fire into the crowd, which panics and tries to bolt. However, these
people are quickly found and subdued or killed by the cultists. Kraig tries to
sneak away only to be knocked unconscious by a cultist with an owl mask. Kraig wakes up to
find that he has been stripped of his clothes and is wearing white robes, which
clearly distinguishing himself against the black robed cultists. He is
horrified to learn that he is in a small hotel room devoid of furniture, and
the door is locked. While there are other white-robed captives with him, Kraig
understands that this is a prison. Panicking, Kraig tries to kick the door down
only to be calmed down by one of the other prisoners in the room with him. After hearing the
stories of other prisoners, Kraig decides to escape through the window only to
realize that he is ten stories up. Still, he tries to jump down to the lower
level and almost dies. One of the survivors helps, Kraig back into the room
just before Evander enters. The leader of the cultist selects one of the
prisoners—the one who just saved Kraig’s life—and leaves. This happens multiple times throughout the course of the
first day until only five of the original dozen survivors are left in this
cage. Kraig convinces Asher—who is guarding Kraig’s door from the opposite
side, as this hotel room is locked from the outside—to release him and
the other would-be sacrifices. Asher does and Kraig decks him. The survivors
escape and try to run away as a group but cultists come to fight them. After
escaping from the cultists, Kraig hides in a room on the top floor. However, he
is not alone. Instead, he witnesses a
sacrifice. He sees a hand rise from the ground—just as he saw on the day the
sun disappeared—and grab the sacrifice before crushing it. Both the hand and
the corpse disappear into the ground. Seeing no changes, Evander becomes
enraged and Kraig learns that Evander is trying to get the sun back (he thought
that he would be given the power of the sun—not that the demon would take the
sun). Evander has very limited magic powers and is a warlock—he calls upon the
demon for more power. Kraig again tries to flee, but is cornered by cultists.
Shockingly, Asher saves his life and pretends to subdue him. Though Kraig wants to leave, he now knows that these
people had something to do with the loss of the sun. Asher finally admits what
he knows—which is limited—regarding Evander’s powers, the demon, and how it all
happened in the first place. Less for humanity and
more to help his wife and daughter survive, Kraig abandons the plan to leave
and instead wants to bring down Evander. So does Asher, because he thought that
the demon stuff was a step too far. So, Kraig and Asher devise a plan to get
the demon-summoning book and necklace from Evander, who lives in the penthouse
apartment. Asher distracts Evander and Kraig knocks
him down, stealing both the pendant and the book. They
then have to fight cultists on the way back down toward the summoning circle.
Asher freezes up and doesn’t help Kraig to fight. Kraig is angry, especially
when he has to fight the owl-masked cultist, who is a giant man. Kraig beats
him when Asher finally comes to his aid. Kraig and
Asher return to the summoning room and begin summoning the demon to make a deal
with it. Evander tries to kill him, but Asher helps this time. Evander throws
Asher into the summoning circle and becomes the next sacrifice. This time, the
demon is satisfied with the sacrifice. Evander and Kraig battle for
control of the sun in a weird demon realm. Kraig wins. Releasing the sun back into the sky, Kraig sacrifices the
entire cult, releases the prisoners, and burns down the hotel. With the hotel burning behind him, Kraig stumbles out of
the hotel to see the sunlight and returns home to his wife and daughter.
You might notice that the summary
doesn’t exactly line up at 800 words. It’s 819 words. But you know what? It’s
close enough. Frankly, when we’re writing a summary, we give myself a range of
200 words. So, if we wanted 800 words, we’ll be happy with anything between 700
and 900 words. From that perspective, we are well within tolerance.
Remember: the key to summaries, as it is with most things in life, is to break the task down into more manageable pieces. As is the case with the next task: side characters.
