I recently came across some poor sot’s plea for tips on how to condense her book into the one short paragraph some agents demand. I was once that sot. After each day of trying, I’d leave my laptop for a little scotch and a big cry. I did this for a month. What I eventually did was imagine my 90,000-word novel on the inside of a dust jacket. Woo-hoo! 56 words.
Then I thought about myself – you know, the stuff where authors write third-person descriptions of their glamorous lives. Example: Suzy Schmerringer divides her time between homes in San Francisco and Nantucket. Suzy and her cocker-doodle-schnitzel-terrier, Bo, enjoy long walks on exotic beaches. Woo-hoo! 26 words.
Then I thought: Gee … Maybe an agent would find this too wordy. So I eliminated the part about Bo (who, to be honest, died 16 years ago and never set foot on an exotic beach because of a teensy-weensy bowel issue I won’t get into here, but ask your vet about parasites in cocker-doodle-schnitzel-terriers).
And then I again thought: Gee … Maybe 26 words about my book is also too wordy. So I polished and pared and perfected the description of my book to just one word: The.
© Nicole Parton, 2019
