[Path to Publication] Tips for Writing Chapter Summaries
Contributor
Written by
Elizabeth Enslin
January 2014
Contributor
Written by
Elizabeth Enslin
January 2014

I’m deep in revisions on my memoir for Seal Press (the title of which, by the way, has changed to While the Gods Were Sleeping: A Journey Through Love and Rebellion in Nepal). I plan to blog about the editorial review process in the future, especially the gift of having a thoughtful and critical developmental editor. But for now, I’d like to pick up on a thread that emerged from comments on my last post.

A reader was looking for further tips on how to write the chapter summary section in a book proposal for narrative nonfiction. I shared some insights based on what worked for me and wanted to expand on those here.

First of all, I had to flesh out the narrative arc of the entire book. Some have an intuitive sense for that. Up to a point, I followed my own vague sense of story (rooted in Freytag’s pyramid and lots of reading over the years). But I needed more guidance. I turned to detailed models for three or four part story structure that screenwriters often use. A great guide to that approach is Story Engineering by Larry Brooks.

I used Cami Ostman's book proposal for Second Wind as a starting point for how to fill out chapter summaries. It is still available for download as a pdf file at these contest guidelines. Or perhaps you’ll find another successful book proposal that resonates better with the kind of story you’re trying to put together. The key is to find a good model to work from.

I also found this post from Jane Friedman helpful: Back to Basics: Writing a Novel Synopsis. For each chapter summary, I tried to follow the formula she provides: Incident (Story Advancement) + Reaction (Color) = Decision (Story Advancement).

With some general ideas for what I hoped to accomplish, I began brainstorming key points or scenes I wanted in each chapter. That helped me focus without getting bogged down in details. Then, I gave myself a two week time frame and slogged through the summaries chapter-by-chapter.  In the description of each chapter, I focused on key moments that brought me to particular insights or decisions. I didn’t enjoy writing them, so I worked on just a few each day, then rewarded myself with something fun: a walk in the park, a bike ride.

Sometimes I got hung up. Usually, that happened because I didn’t have a clear sense of where the story needed to go at that point. So, I tacked back and forth between writing chapter summaries and streamlining the entire narrative arc and nailing down where the turning points on it should fall. As all that became clearer in my mind, I began to see how I needed to use the chapter summaries to highlight those turning points. That helped me figure out what to leave out of the summaries (and I left a whole lot out).

Most of my chapter summaries are 1-2 paragraphs, though a few are a bit longer. Here's the summary of my opening chapter as an example:

In a loft over a buffalo shed in the nondescript village of Gunjanagar in Chitwan Valley in the plains of Nepal, American anthropologist, Elizabeth Enslin awakens to another day of painful, but unproductive contractions. After forty hours of labor, she’s stuck between 4 to 6 centimeters in cervical dilation. She could have made plans to give birth in a well-staffed hospital in Kathmandu, but she wanted a home birth — even though home was more rustic than she would have liked. The family decides she should go to the local hospital, 45 minutes away over potholed, rural roads. Her brother-in-law fetches a three wheeled motor rickshaw to take her. Relatives and neighbors crowd the courtyard. Waddling from the shed to the vehicle, she sees on their faces what should have been obvious long before: she could die.

I used a ten page version of chapter summaries in my book proposal, but also found I needed a one pager and a three pager for other purposes (fellowship applications, etc.). Tacking back and forth between all those turned out to be helpful too. By working on the one pager, I could better pull out the key points. The longer versions simply expanded on those.

Anyone else out there working on chapter summaries for a book proposal? What have you found helpful?

(Image Credit for Freytag's Pyramid: Wikimedia Commons)

Let's be friends

The Women Behind She Writes

519 articles
12 articles

Featured Members (7)

123 articles
392 articles
54 articles
60 articles

Featured Groups (7)

Trending Articles

Comments
No comments yet