How to talk about your book

Have you ever been stumped when someone asks you what your book is about? You know, the book that occupies your every waking moment, that you’re supposed to know better than anyone else because you’re the author? Here’s how to answer without using a pie chart.

Too often, my answer to the what is your book about question is Well, there’s this woman, and she’s an accountant, and she’s got a crush on her Team Leader, and one day he goes missing, and did I mention that her name is Frances…

Gripping stuff.

The Book Length Project Group members have the same problem. How, they asked, on a cold Sunday in Swanbourne, do we respond in a way that makes our book length projects sound like something our interlocutor would want to read?

At some point somewhere in my writing adventures, someone taught me how to write loglines. I wish I could remember who so I could thank them, because writing (practicing and remembering) the logline for each of my books has saved me in elevators more than once.

A logline (or elevator pitch) is a two – three sentence summary of your story that includes:

• your protagonist
• an inciting incident
• your protagonist’s goal
• obstacles to achieving the goals.

When a tired and grieving country town nurse discovers that her teenage son may have been killed by her best friend, she is torn between protecting a secret and finding the truth about the murder.  But in a town beset by drugs, misogyny, and the possible resurgence of a serial rapist, other people have secrets too, including her murdered son. (The River Mouth)

Fuelled by tea and biscuits, the book length project group members wrote some impressive loglines that will one day describe the books on your TBR pile. The protagonists were compelling, the inciting incidents intriguing, the goals conflicting, and the obstacles seemingly insurmountable. All we need to do now is muster the courage to talk to a publisher.

What would the log line look like for your own book length project?

The Book Length Project Group meets on the third Sunday of every month at Mattie Furphy House in Swanbourne. All FAWWA members and friends are welcome. If you would like to join us, please go to The Fellowship of Australian Writers WA (fawwa.org)