I was just chuckling over some of the answers in the thread "You know you're writing literary fiction when...", and it came to me that I'd love to hear what everyone's novels are about, in one concise sentence. They say it's important to be able to sum up your novel in one sentence - a kind of "pitch" line for selling it - and it made me intensely curious. Can we (literary ficcers) do it, without providing paragraphs of supporting explanation?
I'm betting the answers will be illuminating and funny all at once.
As a first stab at my novel I offer the following sentence. Of course... I'll need to think about it some more...
"This is a coming-of-middle-age story about a woman who may or may not be real, who hears and sees people who may or may not be real."
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100,551 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2008 - 10 59
Wow...One sentence...a fine challenge! Here Goes:
"Training" is the story of one big, messy family which includes: an octogenarian war bride, a woman who writes poetry from the P.O.V. of dogs, an adrenaline addicted daughter, and a cheating bird-watcher husband, and how they all come to make peace with themselves and one another.
Thanks for making me think about that!
----------GO TEAM GO!!!!
19,004 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2008 - 13 35
A man walks around feeling a bit sad.
57,121 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2008 - 13 52
There's a war and people aren't happy because everyone's dying but they try to live anyway and my MC, Amy, learns how to "live" again, only to have her son snatched away from her and ramble on and on and ON about her feelings for at least 9/10 of the novel.
----------"And so the lion fell in love with the lamb."
"What a stupid lamb."
"What a sick, masochistic lion."
<3
51,252 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2008 - 14 04
I'll try:
Remembering the sixties: Sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll ~ I think.
*Heh, I really was there!*
----------Mary w/a Storeetllr
http://storeetllr.livejournal.com/
'06: The Landlord's Other Daughter
'07: Temping a Desperate Man
'08: The Last Dog
Be nice to me or I'll put you in my NaNo novel.
>^..^<
14,759 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2008 - 14 28
Unrequited love, in a pub.
(that's not even a sentence, just a fragment...)
x
50,001 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2008 - 15 09
Set in 1870's France, this is the tale of three painters, a patron, and a working holiday in the country that ends in brutal murder.
----------50,260 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2008 - 15 11
"Training" is the story of one big, messy family which includes: an octogenarian war bride, a woman who writes poetry from the P.O.V. of dogs, an adrenaline addicted daughter, and a cheating bird-watcher husband, and how they all come to make peace with themselves and one another.
This sounds like it can't be anything but brilliant to me.
51,083 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2008 - 15 28
a young nurse is confronted by diverse and episodic sexual and morbid encounters, forcing her to rethink her erotic and thanatotic dispositions.
(ugh. that wasn't pretty.)
50,040 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2008 - 16 22
A man and his dead self struggle with love and identity.
That was easier than I thought it would be. Of course, it just ignores all subplots, but still.
50,094 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2008 - 20 52
My novel is about guilt, how it affects my characters, and how they deal with it.
That's kind of an uber broad thematic summary of it and there is a lot more to it, but it's what I tell people when they bug me and ask me what my novel is about...
50,007 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2008 - 21 08
Two brothers try to deal with growing up without growing apart (although physically they are very far apart, due to a series of tragic incidents ending up with one brother in boarding school while the other works as a video game clerk in a local mall in Wisconsin).
50,215 / 50,000
Nov 19, 2008 - 22 53
"Junior Boys" is a novel about two brothers born in a violent climate looking for a way to deal with their past in both a disarmingly honest study on the effect of upbringing as well as a celebration of what makes youthful naiveté such an enviable phenomenon.
(That's what says on the back right now)
53,066 / 50,000
Nov 20, 2008 - 00 18
A young barefooter, attending college only because her parents insist upon it, is striving to survive without either disappointing her parents or killing herself in the meantime.
(avoiding all the subplots, of course, and that's basically what it says on my novel info page)
11,014 / 50,000
Nov 20, 2008 - 07 14
Novella about a writer and an artist adapting to the child they've had together.
I have to say, this is the best one I've read:
"A man walks around feeling a bit sad."
I think that goes for about 90% of literary fiction.
11,623 / 50,000
Nov 20, 2008 - 09 01
A 25-year-old woman, at loose ends, returns to her hometown to care for her ill father, and becomes obsessed with writing letters to her dead ex-boyfriend, in an attempt to come to terms with the dramatic events of their teenage love affair and find some kind of meaning in all that has been lost.
32,365 / 50,000
Nov 20, 2008 - 09 37
Here's mine: "A scientist is locked up by strange men and told to write."
From these summaries, I really like axblue's... sounds potentially interesting... a novel about the erotic life of nurses :) yay
70,644 / 50,000
Nov 20, 2008 - 10 23
Our heroes Alex and Ellie fight a megalo-maniacal women in control of a technology so dangerous it could destroy the entire world.
That's a one sentence plot summary. How about a one sentence moral summary:
Alex learns the true meaning of love and commitment while Ellie comes to grips with her true nature.
EDIT: Somehow I thought I was in the Horror and Thriller group...not the Literary group. My novel has no literary qualities whatsoever :)
----------I thought a lot of these one-line summaries were tame...where were the zombies and vampires?
(tiptoeing out of Literary now....sorry to disturb)
__________________________________
NaNo 2007 - "30 Days" (63679 words) WON
Participate in my Interactive Adventure Blogvel!
http://blog.dawnsrise.com
50,381 / 50,000
Nov 20, 2008 - 10 57
I thought a lot of these one-line summaries were tame...where were the zombies and vampires?
(tiptoeing out of Literary now....sorry to disturb)
*giggles* I don't know but I thought you were just blending the lines between genres! :D
I am just loving these summaries, guys.... just as I thought... pathos, humour, strangeness. I loved the poetry from the POV of dogs. I loved the guy who walks around feeling sad (sounds a lot like my story on reflection). I even learned a new word "thanatonic". I'd read so many of the novels here if I saw them in my library or bookstore.
Keep 'em coming!
50,030 / 50,000
Nov 20, 2008 - 16 28
A man leaves it all behind and moves to the beach with a plan to kill himself in one year.
25,009 / 50,000
Nov 20, 2008 - 18 41
An aging socialite developes a deep relationship with a young woman who resembles her murdered daughter
50,016 / 50,000
Nov 20, 2008 - 18 50
Mordecai Jones hates people, but he's on a mission to interview the world.
50,016 / 50,000
Nov 20, 2008 - 18 55
A man walks around feeling a bit sad? Best. Description. Ever.
75,018 / 50,000
Nov 20, 2008 - 20 36
Jump Without Thinking is about angels and demons, good and evil, connecting when you should be enemies, and that vast, vast space known as gray morality.
Yeeeeah. *nods*
----------2007: Failure to Cope
"You must go make this journey, but you have to go alone/Go sail uncharted waters and then mark them as your own/You must never give up/I have faith in you." -I Had A Dream Last Night, Forward
51,813 / 50,000
Nov 20, 2008 - 21 37
"The Remicks" is a a semi-sane teenager's recollections about his family, which consists of a legally blind electrician, a woman who talks to herself a lot, a priest, a sociopathic soldier, a very misanthropic actress, a virtuosic clarinetist who is also dumb as a post, and two little boys who like to hit things with sticks; and a documentation of exactly why they all hate each other.
In short, kid hates his family. Truly groundbreaking.
-----------------
2006: Mind Spew (50,000... and some)
2007: Pelmont (50,125)
2008: The Remicks (look at the bar under my username)
24,872 / 50,000
Nov 20, 2008 - 22 24
Vampires dealing with lack of resources and overpopulation.
Dunno what to name it -- suggestions, anyone?
50,130 / 50,000
Nov 21, 2008 - 01 48
Where do I belong, really?
(Hint: Not where you expected.)
Although if someone asked, I'd probably say, "It's a novel about a 21-year-old girl with PTSD, a 79-year-old devout Catholic woman who takes care of her and is secretly gay, and a young doctor whose values and priorities are in painful conflict."
----------"You have a promising career in soft smut writing ahead of you."
- My grade 12 Writer's Craft teacher
60,102 / 50,000
Nov 21, 2008 - 09 56
Interesting challenge. Alright, here's mine:
The lives of a small-time horse trainer, the son of an Olympian, a prepubescent girl, an American "prince", a gay wannabe rock star, and a struggling college drop-out intersect and intertwine as they revolve around one man's dying empire.
And there are far more subplots than that, but those are the main threads.
----------50,173 / 50,000
Nov 21, 2008 - 11 04
Set in a futuristic society where there is no crime and no religion, a disgruntled young man becomes a Christian terrorist and a young girl sets off on her own to see if every thing is truly 'perfect.'
This thread is great. I love the description: a man walks around feeling a bit sad!
50,268 / 50,000
Nov 21, 2008 - 14 24
'No Poet, Honey' is the pointless and possibly insane ventures of a woman who writes letters she never intends to send to a daughter she gave away, in hopes of finding her own redemption, and slaying her own demons.
50,033 / 50,000
Nov 21, 2008 - 15 22
Everything is connected.