The Seven Word Summary

Finding the heart of your writing

Photo by Alexandra on Unsplash

A few years ago, there was a series of radio shows made by the Public Library Of New York, where some big names from across the arts (and sciences) were asked – at the end of an interview – to summarise themselves in just seven words.

Distilling a life down to seven words? That sounds impossible. It sounds like a pointless exercise of reduction. And yet this idea produced interesting results from the literary figures who were asked to take part. Here’s a few of them:

• “Mother, grandmothers, aunties: everyone cooked. I napped.” 
  Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love.

• “Bronx boy, wondering, why he is here.”
  Don DeLillo, author and playwright.

• “An ant that nibbles away at totalitarianism.” 
  Liao Yiwu, Chinese poet.

• “Unfinished, unprocessed, uncertain, unknown, unadorned, underarms, underpants, unfrozen, unfussy.” 
  David Byrne, musician with Talking Heads

• “Imagined missing father; wrestled, wrote, fathered children.” 
  John Irving, novelist.

In fact, John Irving was so inspired by the seven word biographies that he wrote some for others:

• Charles Dickens: “Had many kids; wrote about unhappy childhoods.”

• Herman Melville: “More than a postal worker; knew whales, too.”

So how is any of this useful when it comes to writing and creativity?

When I read these short biographies, my writing and editing brain clicks in. I notice immediately not just the content, but the way language is used. The use of alliteration, repetition, the tone and mood, the way phrases and sentences are structured, whether it is a list or an attempt at a concept. Even the decision to discard the seven word guideline in David Byrne’s example, reveals something about the author. 

This has practical uses for us as writers. For novelists and those working on long form collections such as flash novellas, short story collections and the like, this seven word idea can be adapted. 

Take my short fiction collection All That Is Between Us (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2019) as an example. The seven word summary of that would be: “Exploring the complex fragility of human relationships”. I didn’t set out to make a collection that adhered to this idea. The stories were written individually over a few years, and I initially baulked at the idea of collecting the stories into a book because I thought they had little in common. Then I thought about it some more. And then some more. And then a bit extra besides. And then I realised that all these stories were not about individual characters, or had a particular thematic focus, but were actually held together by the exploration of how complex and fragile human relationships can be, ranging from family, to romantic, to those brief relationships with strangers that we encounter along the way.

If you are putting together a collection or flash fiction novella, the Seven Word Summary can be a useful exercise to find the book’s heart. Not only does that help you clarify what the book is about, but also gives you a great pitch line for publishers.

The same goes for novelists struggling to find a pitch line for your book. Again, something that agents and publishers really like.

The key to this is to have the awareness of what words come to mind, to identify what tone those words convey, and why are you choosing to frame it in that way. It’s the process of doing this where the good stuff lies, not just the summary you produce.

Individual short fiction pieces generally don’t need a summary or a pitch or anything like that. But is it useful to be able to encapsulate things? I’d argue that there is, particularly when it comes to those stories which you don’t seem able to finish satisfactorily (haven’t we all been there!), or those stories which you believe in, but just don’t seem to find a home.

By trying to think of a Seven Word Summary, you may surprise yourself, and find a way forward with it, through that process. And though it may seem reductive to whittle a story down like this, Isn’t that what we do as short fiction writers – we express in a handful of words the simple complexity of human life.

The Seven Word Summary also has other uses, particularly when it comes to your characters. Short stories often epitomise a character’s life in one, or a handful, of compelling moments, exposing who they truly are. So if you are struggling with a character or a key scene where something changes for them, then summarising either that character, or what the scene is supposed to be doing can be very useful.

The bottom line is if you feel lost in what you are trying to write, that will be conveyed to the reader. You don’t have to understand everything, but you do have to understand the core.

A seven word summary of the Seven Word Summary idea is this: ‘a litmus test for knowing your material’.

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Exercise

Think of some words or short phases that describe your book, your collection, your character, your scene or chapter. Think about the language you want to use, think about what you instinctively go for. Then take those words and create a single sentence of no more than seven words that encapsulates those ideas, both in tone and in the content.

Take your time on this exercise, there’s no rush, but it might bring a clarity and some surprises as you focus on something you didn’t expect, just like me.