One of the things writers often have to do is encapsulate the essence of a story into a few lines. Sometimes for a pitch, or a workshop or an application for something, but often it’s simply an attempt to answer a well-meaning question from a complete stranger while you’re in line for a sandwich. “Oh you’re a writer! What’s your book about?”
I find this question really difficult.
I can answer it on a surface level, but that’s a bit like offering somebody a Wonka Bar with no chocolate inside. I end up fumbling through mouthfuls of sentences, trying to convey what the story is really about. And once I start, it’s hard to stop. By which time the person behind the counter is irritated and the stranger is very much regretting having asked the question in the first place.
I was thinking a bit about this and why it’s so hard to sum everything up when I came across an essay by the great Ursula Le Guin called A Message About Messages. In her essay, Le Guin talks about the idea that for some, a story - especially if it’s for a young person - ought to contain some kind of message or ‘useful little sermon’. (Which is not the same thing as summing things up neatly, but it has bearing I think, on why it’s hard.) Here’s what she says:
Ursula K. Le Guin. Photograph by William Anthony /The Nation
“Does it ever occur to such reviewers that the meaning of the story might lie in the language itself, in the movement of the story as read, in an inexpressible sense of discovery, rather than a tidy bit of advice?… The notion that a story has a message assumes that it can be reduced to a few abstract words, neatly summarised in a school or college examination paper or a brisk critical review.
“If that were true, why would writers go to the trouble of making up characters and relationships and plots and scenes and all that? Why not just deliver the message? Is the story a box to hide an idea in, a fancy dresss to make a naked idea look pretty?…. I’m not saying fiction is meaningless or useless. Far from it. I believe storytelling is one of the most useful tools we have for achieving meaning: It serves to keep our communities together by asking and says who we are, and it’s one of the best tools an individual has to find out who I am, what life may ask of me and how I can respond. […]
“I don’t have a message for you! What I have for you is a story.
“What you get out of that story, in the way of understanding or perception or emotion, is partly up to you - because, of course, the story is passionately meaningful to me (even if I only find out what it’s about after I’ve told it). But it’s also up to you, the reader. Reading is a passionate act. If you read a story not just with your head, but also with your body and feelings and soul, the way you dance or listen to music, then it becomes your story. And it can mean infinitely more than any message. It can offer beauty. It can take you through pain. It can signify freedom. And it can mean something different every time you reread it.”
When I finished her essay (and it should be read in full, see link below) I realized why I find it so hard to sum up what any one of my stories is about. The act of reading a story is a personal one, it is deeply subjective. You have to read - as Le Guin says, not just with your head, but also with your body and feelings and soul - in order to really understand what the story is about and what it means - to you, as a unique reader - not to you, some kind of generic reader.
Which isn’t to say I should try to get out of summarizing things. I shouldn’t. Publishing is of course a business and pitches have their place. But I’m not going to worry about it in quite the same way, knowing there’s only so much that can be encapsulated into a few lines. In the end, the story must speak for itself - and as Le Guin says, in its own way, to each individual, passionate reader.
Full text of A Message About Messages is printed here in The Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer
Ursula Le Guin - an obituary by Margaret Atwood in The Guardian
Neil Gaiman presents a lifetime achievement award to Ursula Le Guin, 2014 National Book Awards