“What is your book about?” seems like a simple question for an author. Last week I attended a panel discussion that hosted a group of authors. An audience member asked for advice on submitting proposals to publishers.
One of the panellists answered and during her answer said that she found the most challenging part of writing proposals was writing a synopsis of her book. (A synopsis is a brief outline or general view, as of a subject or written work; an abstract or a summary.) She said she’d spent years refining the book and found it difficult to summarize what the book is about.
This shocked me. I can understand the creative process and how an author may begin in one place and, as she works her creativity, a plot and characters further develop. But it seems to me there must have been be a central theme, a lesson or a plot. I can’t understand why it would be difficult to create a synopsis.
A Speech and a “Synopsis”
From time to time, I will run a workshop with developing speakers to help their creative process and to create content. The process is pretty simple. I ask the attendee to offer a general idea for their speech, a core idea, then use a flip chart to work with the attendee to capture all possible ideas and stories that will support the core idea. I believe it’s important to build confidence for the speaker that he has abundant content available and then move to content selection. I use the bubble technique to map all the possible content on the flip chart.
I use this technique personally and once I have a draft of all content, I like to set it aside for a day or so and then revisit later. I will always add more content. It may not be better content, but there’s always more content available.
Once all, or enough, content is captured on the flip chart, I ask the attendee the key question, which can take several forms. It’s usually “what is the purpose of your speech,” or “what do you want your audience to take away from your speech?”
Sometimes I get a wide-eyed stare from the attendee because they haven’t considered their purpose, but usually a prospective speaker has a good idea of why they’ll choose to stand before an audience and speak.
Then, once purpose is declared, we work to select the content that supports the purpose and fits their speaking time allotment. (Generally, any bubble element on the chart equates to 90-seconds to two-minutes of speech content). This exercise is effective as it enables the speaker to focus, and create a speech with a clear purpose, and clearly supporting content. That should make it easy for the audience to follow along, and not try to connect the disparate components.
This technique of selection is valuable as well as it helps a speaker toss away interesting but irrelevant material, or better, to save that content for another speech on another day.
Three Versions of Any Speech
I also encourage any speaker to have three versions of the speech, one that is 30-seconds long, one that is two minutes long, and then the final product. A speaker should be able to offer a synopsis of the larger speech in 30-seconds.
Conclusion
I’m still bewildered that an author would find it difficult to write a synopsis of her book. A great book, or a great speech, will have a clear purpose and all of the content will support that purpose.
