A Summary is the cream of any piece of writing that draws reader’s interest to explore whole story which is given in that book. Before writing summary, it is important to know how to deal with this back cover piece of art nicely. A summary should contain all of the special edges of story yet hiding the real plot and conclusion to maintain reader’s curiosity level. So at the same time you have to give a whole picture, while hiding the real suspense and the ending.
As far as the marketing/promotion is concerned, summary plays a vital role as it can either increase or decrease the chances of being sold to the one who has shown a bit of interest in it. When a person picks up a book reading its title, he moves towards the summary page straight forwardly to get an idea about it and t this point you have to introduce the main characters, plot, and interesting events of story while maintaining the magic of feeling and curiosity. In short, that little one page text should be strong enough to force the reader to buy that specific book.
The Basics of a Summary:
There are three key points you must keep in mind while writing a summary.
- It should be written in present tense. It is a strict rule you must follow while writing a summary
- It’s written in a form as if it is told by a third person.
- Never reveal conclusion as it is used to add cliffhangers and teasers to heighten the interest level of reader.
Summary is somewhere confused with synopsis but it is quite different from that. A synopsis is detailed and it is geared towards drawing a publisher or agent to pick that book to publish whether summary is shorter and it forces reader to take a ride through the whole story.
Things to avoid composing summary:
As we have mentioned before that promotional summary is second important part of your book right after the title. The Book cover will appeal reader and after picking it up, he will move directly to the page where its synopsis is written. So you have to be very careful while composing it. Avoid the mistakes which are mentioned below to make your summary perfect and more appealing.
- Don’t use difficult words. Use comprehensible vocabulary which every reader can get easily. It is not always possible to target highly qualified readers so you have to use simple yet interesting tone with easy vocabulary.
- Strictly avoid grammatical mistakes and errors. Summary should be totally free from such mistakes. If your summary has some mistakes, it will spoil the image of your whole book as well. So please compose carefully and proofread many times to make it perfect.
- Avoid repeating things. Neither you have so much space for summary nor will the reader spend so much time going through it so never repeat things.
- Avoid putting vague details as it will confuse the reader and he will never buy such book. Make things clear, short and interesting keeping the suspense maintained.
Why one should write a summary?
A summary is powerful tool that can do various good things for you. First of all it helps you to gather and compose the thoughts that drove you to write that book, story or novel. Secondly, it gives you a solid one paragraph that contains major content of your plot to discuss it with someone who is interested to discuss about it. Furthermore, a back cover summery adds a value to writer’s storyline and its characters and it pulls a readers interest to explore it in detail.
It is therefore suggested for the writers to compose this part of their book by themselves and not to leave it to editors or composers because as much as you are into the soul of your piece of writing, no one else can be. Only you can create those cliffhangers and teasers effectively to draw readers towards your creative writing.