HOW TO WRITE NARRATIVE SUMMARY (that’s actually interesting) | theory, tips, & examples

[@olivianoelani4363]

i’m a huge underwriter, and i struggle the most with writing narrative. i feel like my first drafts always lack a lot of substance because my narrative is so thin and boring. i appreciate it so much anytime you talk about narrative!

[@morganunraveled]

it sucks to always feel that the way we naturally write is wrong! I think this is actually a super valid and valuable writing process, almost blending the processes of discovery writing and plotting. your ‘underwritten’ first draft could almost be considered a detailed outline of action/dialogue and plot beats that you can then flesh out and add in the narrative and description etc! I’m sure many great books are written this way and I’m super inspired by your process!

[@elizabethcoylewrites]

Why are your videos always so good??! Every time im struggling in my novel, i think "wow i hope shaelin posts about this soon" and then you do?? Thank you for always reading my stressed out writer's mind

[@c1975stark]

I need this video so much!! I tend to avoid time skipping and summary because it feels like cheating or I’m not showing everything or like it’s lazy writing not to make everything a scene with dialogue. I took the show vs tell advice way too far. I think I remember you saying you used to do this as an amateur too. I can’t wait to use this advice and improve. 🖤🖤

[@nocturnus009]

I’m reminded of that oblique strategy card, “Convert a melodic element into a rhythmic element.” Also last night I was reading about 3 tracks in dialogue (Melodic, Harmonic & Keywords) in The Anatomy of Story. All of this plays so well in the point Betty Edwards asks her followers, to look for the intertextual connections & crossover clues.

[@Lolz4249]

This came at the perfect time in my story. Tysm!!

[@KrisMF]

I loveeee narrative summary so much, omg this video was MADE for me. my current project has a retrospective narration which I think lends itself more easily into into summarizing events/ passages of time vs. making everything into a scene. I used to struggle with summary but after practicing it for the last year, I’ve come around to it and really enjoy it! thank you for these tips!!! somehow you always articulate the craft thoughts rolling around in my head and make it so easy to understand!

[@ChBrahm]

A good book -in my opinion- to get a feel for what narrative summarys should be is One Hundred Years of Solitude by GG Márquez A good chunk of the book is told in narrative summary with only charcter building scenes being actually active scenes You´d think action segments would get to be whole scenes but no. There´s a moment when the narrator tells us that Colonel Aureliano Buendia fought and lost 35 wars and its just that. A single line that doesn´t get much more detail than that. But then you get another scene in which a pool of blood gets an entire scene for itself describing how it flowed from the home of the guy who just died to his mother´s house. Describing every turn and twist it took to get there

[@GuineaPigEveryday]

Thank you! I was thinking exactly about this just a few hours before you made this. I’ve been very insecure about the chunks of narration i have inbetween actual scenes becuz im unsure if i’m actually carrying the story forward or just kind of rambling about character, plot, that doesn’t actually move the story but instead conveys information. Narrative summary is exactly the sort of thing that usually goes there, inbetween scenes, and thats hard to master

[@Lara_Ameen]

Wow! Your excerpts of HONEY VINEGAR are amazing! This video is super useful! Thank you so much! I just finished the third draft of my PhD dissertation novel (Adult contemporary/urban fantasy) and now I’m waiting for beta reader/CP feedback. I have some narrative summary in Chapter 1. I can see how it’s effective and not too infodumpy. I’ll probably re-watch this video. Thank you again! Love this! 💜

[@lexuschambe5787]

This video was so helpful!! I'm actually struggling right now with incorporating summary into a short story I'm writing, and your point about keeping conflict and tension in summary really helped!

[@lindseywritesstuff]

I'm obsessed with the first example

[@ShaelinWrites]

The entire book is sooooo good

[@Mana_Ski]

I write in free indirect narration and I am only just now learning it has a name! Thank you 😁

[@SamanthaRoberts42]

THIS IS SO GOOD AND NECESSARY AND INCREDIBLE

[@VideoGameRoom32]

These are very helpful tips. It's always good to improve your writing. As years go by, you should always get better at something.

[@Exayevie]

I love it when you talk about psychic distance! That was the video that originally got me hooked on your channel! I’m a bit of an odd duck because I loooooove writing with a very distant, objective psychic take. So unsurprisingly, a well-written narrative summary passage can actually be more intriguing to me that the middle of a scene. Naturally, I had to try rewriting the Penelope passage a third time, as distantly as possible: “Penelope stood at the open fridge, considering. After a while she shut it abruptly and leafed through the stack of takeout and delivery flyers on the nearby counter. Once. Twice. Half way through a third time she stopped and looked up abruptly. She felt her pockets for her cell phone and they were empty. She retraced her steps to the front door and tested the lock.”

[@goonwithoutme]

I've watched (and benefited from) many of your videos, but found this one particularly excellent, hence me dropping my first comment! Thanks for all you do and share in this space.

[@ioanam.2374]

I am always so grateful to you for these resources!

[@woodenspoon6222]

This video couldn't have come at a better time, thanks so much :)

[@mariliis8]

Thanks for this :) lined up exactly with what I’m currently working on.

[@paulmagnuson1021]

This was heaven-sent. Thank you!

[@nootanwait2358]

Thank you for your videos. I've learned a lot

[@aidenignition]

Avoid narrative summary is what broke my book. The first part of the book was dramatized and I needed to like skip time forward, but I didn't trust myself to convey the things that were happening off scene, so I was trying to show EVERYTHING, and my book's pacing is so off.

[@mageprometheus]

Thanks. Another great note in my 2nd brain.

[@anisha7232]

can you make a video on personal essay?

[@ShaelinWrites]

Probably not just because I don't really have any experience writing them, sorry!

[@wordcharm2649]

Can you combine free indirect with direct? So you keep the dialogue tags. "She said, she thought" (sparingly) but don't use italics to single out her internal thoughts and let the thoughts seamlessly blend in with the narrator?

[@ShaelinWrites]

It depends on what you want - to create a pure free indirect throughout you'd want to avoid that, but the POV style of your book can have whatever parameters you want depending on the effect you want and the role of POV in the narrative. And sometimes even in a very close POV, you need to occasionally use a filter for clarity or stylistic reasons.

[@jackhaggerty1066]

Yes, Narrative Summary condenses periods of time when the plot slows. Think of setting-up-home scenes in romcom movies. The Jewish Quarterly (August 2023) has a belated review of Laurie Colwin's *A Big Storm Knocked It Over* (1993/ 2021 reissue). Laurie Colwin excelled at domestic details: Upper East Side apartments & delicious food - she wrote for Bon Appetit magazine. Melvyn Bragg said novels excel in 'ramblings' - noticing a wild flower on a country road, visiting an elderly friend who lives up a hill. Bragg's 1971 novel *The Nerve* is set in Hampstead, London, but the protagonist rambles in his memory to his childhood in Cumberland. Narrative Summary calls for textured prose + a sure sense of place. Even in these quiet moments *dramatize dramatize* as Henry James said.

[@jackhaggerty1066]

These quiet periods in novels, which coincide with Narrative Summary, is a time for wit, jokes, hilarity, Christmas cracker moments. Dickens did them supremely well but you will also find them in Jane Austen, Flaubert, Proust, Colette and in post-war writers. Post 1945 : Mollie Keane, Muriel Spark, Barbara Pym, Penelope Fitzgerald, Penelope Mortimer, Alice Thomas Ellis, Elizabeth Jane Howard. John Braine chided me for not having read EJ Howard's novel *After Julius*. Iris Murdoch moved from domestic detail to big ideas.

[@PQ_497]

Can you please make a video on the three act structure in middle grade books? Where the story is just about friendships, popularity, image school etc. I'm finding it hard to spot the acts/beats. Thank you very much! ❤

[@ShaelinWrites]

Unfortunately I don't write or read middle grade so I don't think I'd be able to speak to that, sorry!

[@666nemeesis]

what about salman rushdie he writes mostly in narrative style?

[@NambiEthendraThatha]

I love your videos a lot. I learn quite a bit, but you seriously have to start using a mic. PLEASE! I want to be able to listen to your carefully but also effortlessly😭

[@EvoluteCreator]

for real!!! i love their videos so much tho

[@maddestdog449]

Frothing for any crumbs of Honey Vinegar!!

[@immagns]

i got nothing to comment but i wanna drop some engagement so imma write xdd

[@AdamFishkin]

Hmm. Never heard that definition of a summary before. Duly noted.

[@temranitalk]

Please use a good microphone

[@Exayevie]

Please use a good attitude

[@johnnyutahz3823]

Your book seems really cool why not put it out yourself so us , your fans can enjoy it? Isn't that what its all about anyway? can charge way less than like 30 bucks for a book! lol, I don't have a job...

[@Exayevie]

Mooch

[@johnnyutahz3823]

Tons of artists post their books on amazon self-published I was just wondering why does one need to adhere to outdated traditions?@@Exayevie

[@african_chris]

🥹🥺🥹 Honey Vinegar! 🤌🏼🤌🏼🤌🏼🤤🤤🤤🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼 I really can’t wait for this baby to be on the market. 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼❤️❤️❤️

[@nemofish4937]

the example with honey vinegar is soso rich,, im really hyped for whenever you manage to publish it! 🤍