"...but what's it ABOUT?"

When I started submitting my novel to agents last summer, a friend of mine from the Goddard MFA program told me that I needed to come up with a 10-second plot summary. Ten seconds, as in: "Imagine you've got an agent in the elevator with you, and you have ten seconds to tell them what your book is about. Ready? GO!"

Uhhhh... uhhh...

A couple days ago at work, I met a woman who went to high school in Gettysburg (the setting of my novel) around the time that my novel took place (mid-late 70s). "Oh, my novel is set in Gettysburg," I said. "I actually grew up in Carlisle, but I set the book in Gettysburg because I didn't want to incriminate anyone."

"Oh, you wrote a book?"

"Yeah."

"What's it about?"

Uhhhhh...uhhh...

I stammered out some response that I'm certain sounded like THIS BOOK ACTUALLY HAS CHARACTERS BUT NO PLOT AND IT'S NOT REALLY ABOUT ANYTHING AND I'M CERTAIN YOU PROBABLY WOULDN'T WANT TO READ IT, HERE'S YOUR SINGLE SKIM MOCHA LATTE, HAVE A GOOD LIFE.

Why is it so hard to step outside of a work that you've written yourself and answer the simple question "What is it about?" My smart-assed response has traditionally been "Oh, it's about 280 pages," but even if that gets a laugh, it still doesn't answer the question.

It's not just that part of the process of selling a book (to an agent, to a publisher, to a reader) is communicating concisely what the book is; but as my friend Chris said, understanding what the book is about and having a clear idea of the story and the plot focusses your revisions. "Anything that doesn't serve the story, out it goes."

What happens? What do the characters do? What would a plot summary in a movie listing for my story look like?

Somehow I didn't have any trouble with that last one:

SAD SWEET DREAMER (PG-13) A middle-aged man delves into old letters and diaries to understand the friendship between his high school sweetheart and the best friend who later became his wife.

Not exactly compelling, but it's a start.

"But what's it ABOUT?" my friend Shawn said.

"We're not trying to bust your balls here," Chris added. "But it's a good exercise."

Yeah, right. Exactly what all my gym teachers used to say in high school.

So I answered: It's about love and jealousy and fear, and the veneers that people put over their real feelings in order to preserve friendships and-or avoid heartaches.

"But what happens? What do the characters DO?"

I'm still working on the answer here.

Stay tuned.