“I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard.”
Estée Lauder
“People don’t ask for facts in making up their minds. They would rather have one good, soul-satisfying emotion than a dozen facts.”
Robert Keith Leavit, author and historian
Preparing an overview has proven time and time again to be a challenge that stumps even the most experienced of writers. How do you take this massive idea for a story and condense it down to a page?
Somewhere out there is an author for whom writing a commercial overview is a piece of cake. They sit down, the concept is hovering in the air over their computer, they type it out, done and dusted. I haven’t met them, but I’m sure they exist. If you happen to be that lone individual, I’d advise you not to tell other authors. Your end will be swift and certain.
For the rest of us, the story overview is a beast.
You have all these ideas that are swarming around in your head. You have a huge cast of characters, a growing storm of events, and three or four hundred pages later, you’ve created a fabulous tale.
How on earth do you distill all this down to one page? How can you tell your story in just a few paragraphs, create in that tiny space a vision that is so compelling the gatekeepers will fall over themselves in their haste to offer you a publishing contract, a film deal, the keys to the kingdom, whatever?
After twenty-five years as a published author, the simple answer is, it doesn’t come easy.
For my latest story, I worked on the overview for seven weeks.
All through the initial phase of shaping the characters and the story, I returned over and over to this daunting task. I knew I had something great here. The challenge was, creating an overview that made other people feel the same way.
I am going to offer you a few simple steps that will help deconstruct the project, and hopefully guide you towards a synopsis that is magnetic in its appeal.
Do This Now:
- Start with the question, so what’s your story about? Imagine you are seated in a television studio. The cameras swish around on silent rubber wheels. The lights are intense and aimed at you. The much-loved interviewer shows you that world-famous smile, and then asks you that question. What is your story about?
How do you respond? You have the live audience on the other side of the camera, and they’re genuinely eager for you to tell them what they’re going to go out and buy the very next day.
Write out what you would say. Limit yourself to just one paragraph.
Then set it aside.
- Accept that it is a gradual process. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this first effort is going to be your finished project. Creating the winning overview is done through trial and error. A few days later, write your first paragraph again.
Keep a notebook just for the overview. If you’re like me, most of these early attempts are not going to fit. But gradually you come to terms with the key element to the successful overview, which is:
- Your job is not to tell your story. Your goal is to SELL your story. At some point there will come that moment when you discover the amazing concept, the emotional foundation that fuels your quest to write this story. When that happens…
- Focus on that silver thread. Usually this emotional punch will help you identify the key plot line and characters that drive the story. The entire overview must center upon this one element. This time, when you write the paragraph, you will discover that the entire concept is real in a new sense. The paragraph that results is often called the story’s hook.
- Begin with the hook, end with the climax. Gradually you develop a story concept that was not there before. As a result, you will often perceive your story’sclimax in a new light. Write this final paragraph next. Remember, you are not entering into a contract. You are not required to actually keep this climax. You are selling.
- Develop a log-line. The log-line is a Hollywood term, signifying the one sentence or even just a phrase that shouts to the world: This is unique, this is great, come join me on this amazing ride. At some point during the writing of my overview, I will go to the movies and walk down the line of posters for coming attractions. I visualize my story up there as a poster, and sketch out ideas for what this log-line might be. My goal is to come up with two, and I place one at the beginning and another at the end of my overview. These help the editor sell the story to the pub board, and the sales staff place your book with buyers. Oftentimes they also appear on the book’s back cover.
- Polish and distill. Only at this point do I begin to concern myself with length. Because I want my overview to work with Hollywood, I must limit myself to one page. It is very rare for anything longer to be considered by senior executives. If an overview gets that far up the food chain, a junior exec will trim the longer structures. I much prefer to do that myself.
A final bit of advice: Refrain from speaking with anyone about your work until your overview is complete.
This serves two purposes. First, you have created a commercial structure, and that is what outside readers are really all about. They respond to your project, not to the tender seed of creative fire that exists at heart level.
Second, you now have a means by which you can present your story in a brief and concise fashion. When someone asks what the story is about, you actually know what to say.
I wish you every triumph in making a winning transition from creative project to commercial success.
Davis Bunn’s novels have sold in excess of eight million copies in twenty-four languages. He has appeared on numerous national bestseller lists, and his titles have been Main or Featured Selections with every major US book club. In 2011 his novel Lion of Babylon was named Best Book of the Year by Library Journal. The sequel, entitled Rare Earth, won Davis his fourth Christy Award for Excellence in Fiction in 2013. In 2014 Davis was granted the Lifetime Achievement award by the Christy board of judges. His recent title Trial Run has been named Best Book of The Year by Suspense Magazine. Lately he has appeared on the cover of Southern Writers Magazine and Publishers Weekly, and in the past three years his titles have earned him Best Book and Top Pick awards from Library Journal, Romantic Times, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus. His most recent series, Miramar Bay, have been acquired for world-wide condensation-books by Readers Digest. Currently Davis serves as Writer-In-Residence at Regent’s Park College, Oxford University. Until Covid struck, he was speaking around the world on aspects of creative writing.
Watch an excerpt from his new book The Cottage on Lighthouse Lane here.
