Could you summarise your novel in a sentence? You might wonder why you even need to. It’s true that often – perhaps most of the time – a one sentence summary isn’t enough. Luckily, we usually get more space to explain our work.

However, summarising your novel in a single sentence can still be a useful exercise. Here’s why.

Define your work

One of the big reasons is that a single sentence can help you to define what your work is. You have to think carefully about which aspects of your novel to focus on as you won’t be able to put everything into your one sentence. This can be a particularly useful thing to do if you’re currently unsure which genre your novel falls into; the bits you focus on in your sentence can give you important direction in terms of genre.

Hone your ideas

Related to this is the fact that it can help you hone your ideas. What is your novel about, really? What is the big idea at its centre that holds it all together? What are you trying to achieve? If you’re finding it impossible to say what it is your book is about in so short a space, the problem might not be with the sentence – it might be with some of the content of the book.

Sell your novel

Also, we’ve all heard about the fabled ‘elevator pitch’. Say, for instance, that you have stumbled upon the company of a person who could get your book published. You want to impress them, but they have literally seconds before they need to dash off somewhere else. You’ll naturally want to be memorable for all the right reasons, and a compelling, intriguing summary of your novel could help you on your way.

Save it for future use

Finally, a one-sentence summary of your book might not be useful now – but it could be in the future. For instance, let’s say that you’ve currently got an idea for a book but that idea isn’t formed enough for you to start writing yet and you’ve already got another project on the go. Writing a single sentence to summarise your intentions can be a good memory jog when you come back to the idea, and can be a good starting point when it comes to fleshing out the idea.