It seems that recently, writers and those who dispense writing advice have discovered the power of The Sentence. The movie industry has known about this one-line pitch they call the logline for years, though often it was something as simple as "Sharknado! It's Jaws meets Twister..."

I discovered the power of The Sentence years ago by accident. Since then, I don't even start a story until I've defined it. 

We used to play a game on theNaNoWriMo forums called 20-word synopsis. The idea was to summarize your story in 20 words or less. Many people found this hard, so did I , until I discovered my four questions. Simply answer the following four questions in five words or less.

TheFour Questions

Who is it about? Their name and their physical description are the least important details here. None of those things tell us anything about their character. Ironically you usually only need a noun and an adjective: an alcoholic neurosurgeon, a bored housewife, an honest lawyer... We often don't need more than this, but the key here is specificity. Identify what makes this person different than the multitude of other potential main characters. Even an ordinary person in an unusual situation is all it takes.

What do they want? A character who does nothing is boring. A protagonist needs to be passionately motivated to climb over obstacles in pursuit of a goal. The more desperate they are to achieve it, the more willing they will be to fight and suffer to get there. Those are the kinds of characters readers naturally care (and keep reading) about.

What prevents them from getting it? As I mentioned before, stories begin and end with conflict and the antagonist is the source of and the focus for the conflict. Even if the antagonist is something abstract like an evil empire, the evil empire will usually have a powerful general or henchman likeDarth Vader that does its bidding. This gives the protagonist (and the reader) something to focus on and makes the conflict personal.

What is at stake? This is the answer to the "why should we care" question. If the protagonist fails, something bad will happen, really really bad. This keeps the protagonist motivated and the reader engaged. It doesn't always have to be the end of the world. It could be a little girl who desperately wants to star in a talent show, but if she wants it bad enough, it might as well be the end of the world for her...and us.

The Sentence

Just answer those questions and put them together into The Sentence. The sentence is the very heart and soul of your story. While NaNoWriMo has taught me to make a fairly detailed outline of my story before I start, I may not always do that for every story. But I do always figure out what my sentence is. I don't consider that I even have a complete story ready to write until I first have my sentence.

AnExample

As I write this, I just published Chapter 7 of Courting Death.My sentence for that story is:

To save his first love, a shy Japanese teenage boy must prove to a Shinigami (Japanese death god) that love exists by making it fall in love with him.

Who: A shy Japanese teenage boy.

Goal/Motivation: prove that love exists

Antagonist: a shinigami

The stakes: the life of his first love.

For the longest time that one sentence was the only summary I used. I did eventually expand it a bit by adding a little detail about the cost the protagonist pays to continue the conflict (the stakes) but it is still a very streamlined summary. Any more detail would tend to dilute the impact of what is there without adding value.

Kingdom of the Stone, the first novel of my fantasy series however, has tons of complications added to its summary. I wrote it before I discovered The Sentence but at its core its sentence would be–

Who: A young herdsman tormented by dreams of the future

Goal/Motivation: to discover the secrets of magic

Antagonist: the fallen lords of heaven

The stakes: the woman he loves and all the tribes of men

As a sentence, it covers all the bases, but it also leaves a lot out. If you go and read the summary, I also mention an autistic six-year-old girl who is his only aid to discovering magic, the fact that the tribes of men have no concept of war, a spreading curse, betrayal and an inhuman enemy as additional complications. If you can add one or two complications without making the sentence overlong, do so. But remember, The Sentence isn't an entire synopsis, it's the essence of the story boiled down to a single statement.

Your Assignment

1) Go back over your stories and answer the four questions. If you run out of stories, find others that you've read and see if you can answer the four questions about them.

2) Then put them together into The Sentence. Often this will be <Protagonist > must < Goal > or < Antagonist > will <Stakes > type of order, though sometimes you may want to lead with the stakes. Play around with the order to see which fits your story best and be sure to focus on the most exciting parts.

3) Expand The Sentence into a full summary by adding important details. These will usually be additional complications that will make the protagonist's life more difficult or details that will raise the stakes. Sometimes if the goal is very complicated, you can add those details, but be careful, because too many of those sorts of details can lose the reader instead. Lastly, if the protagonist's background or nature ties heavily into the conflict you may want to include extra details about the protagonist, but detailed character sketches should generally be avoided in the summary.

Extra Credit

If you've ever considered submitting your story to an agent or editor, this synopsis will form an excellent foundation for your query. Checkout some online resources like http://queryshark.blogspot.com/ and go ahead and write up your query letter.

Then expand your query into a one or two-page synopsis by adding the story's ending and the key events that lead to that ending. With a query letter, a synopsis and a few sample chapters you'll have everything you need for a submission package to send off to an agent or editor.

Goodluck!