I need to come up with a back cover synopsis for my book, Grandmother’s Letters. The problem is, I have to have the book ready to send for a proof on Wednesday and I can’t seem to come up with anything good. The book has several story-lines, so I wrote loglines (sad ones at that) for each of the main story-lines, then tried to come up with a synopsis by combining them to a certain extent. Here’s what I came up with – the first one really is central to the entire book… but the others make is sound – more interesting?


-A bored eighteen-year-old girl, begins reading a stack of letters written by her grieving great-great-grandmother, living in the early 20th century, ever dreaming of the impact they will have on several lives, including her own.

-A reserved law student struggles, while living in a house with a tyrannical uncle and a cousin whom he can barely stand, while trying to forget about his father’s death.

-A reluctant adventurer and her enthusiastic friend, set out to solve the mystery and discover the treasure, of the Hadding Family Legend.

-A reclusive, cranky old man, finds his habits broken up when he allows his neighbor’s son to begin helping him with his yard work.


And this is what I came up with for the synopsis. In the words of my sister, “It has potential, but it needs a lot of help! It sounds… boring.”


A curious young woman; a reclusive old man; an enthusiastic adventurer; and a reserved law student. What do they have in common?

When Louise Whitmore begins reading a stack of letters, written by a grieving young wife living in the early 20th Century, she never dreams of the impact they will have on several lives, including her own.


Help, please?!

How about something like this,
A curious young woman; a reclusive old man; an enthusiastic adventurer; and a reserved law student wind their way through the path of life, overcoming old habits, trying uncles, and an old mystery.

When Louise Whitmore begins reading a stack of letters, written by a grieving young wife living in the early 20th Century, she never dreams of the impact they will have on several lives, including her own. So join her on an adventure of words she will never forget!

I believe the most prominent problem with it as it is is that it has too little information. A premise and a blurb are intended to make the reader ask questions – be interested in the story. However you don't give enough clues about what will actually happen in the story, and so it is impossible for the reader to easily come up with intriguing questions about it. You mention these apparently disconnected people, and you say that they somehow interact together in a story. The possibilities for how exactly this could happen are endless – too endless. I would suggest telling the reader a little more about the story.

I believe that is also the main problem that is making the central premise too uninteresting. When a reader picks up a book, he expects that there will be something life changing happening in it. There are practically no books out there where nothing happens to change anybody's lives. So the simple statement that 'she never dreams of the impact they will have on several lives, including her own' doesn't really pique my curiosity. How does it change her life? Does her family fall to pieces because of it? Does she become a pauper? Does she find some secret that forces her to consider reconciling with the long lost love of her youth? Does she get a college course in canto composition? Ahem. Maybe you get my drift.

If you want to, you could give a more in depth overview of what happens in your story, and perhaps we could help you construct a more powerful synopsis off of that.

Hmm... I can see your point. The possibilities are endless.

Here's a more in-depth overview of the book. I would love help and ideas for how to incorporate more of this. I think I get so caught up in not giving away too much information, that I end up going the other way and not giving enough?


Louise Whitmore, the eldest in a family of five kids, finds and reads a bunch of letters written by her great-great-grandmother, whose name is Georgiana. Georgiana is writing her brother and sister-in-law, who are missionaries in India. (But you don’t really see much about that.) First, Georgiana’s father dies, then her mother. Besides her and her brother in India, they leave behind three sons and a daughter. The youngest is only 7. Georgiana is mad at the Lord for taking her parents and we follow her over the course of about two years I think, solely through her letters and one from her brother, Franklin. She gets married, has a baby, helps raise her younger siblings, and can hardly stand the local reverend and his wife. Everything reaches a climax for her when her husband, who has since become a Christian, is dying from a fall that caused major injuries. Louise reads all these letters and begins questioning her Christianity in consequence, which really has no depth at all. Georgiana wants to blame God for all the problems befalling her and Louise doesn’t know why she shouldn’t. It bothers her and she begins searching for the answers to, “Can we be angry at God?” and “What is a Christian?”


Xavier Nowak lives with his mother, his uncle, his cousin Adrian, and his little sister Yavonna. He has one other sister, who lives states away and who really isn’t part of much in the story. Xavier’s father died five years ago. He always wanted Xavier to be a lawyer; a dream Xavier shared. Since his father died, however, the young man has been at odds with his uncle, who thinks he should enter the medical profession. To make matters worse, his cousin, Adrian, is a genius and Xavier is constantly being compared to him. Consequently, Xavier thinks Adrian is pretty near perfect and he can’t stand him, even though they used to get along fine when they were kids. Xavier is 22 and Adrian is 23-24 in the book.


Interspersed between her letter reading, Louise’s friend, Priscilla Lake, pretty much drags Louise into a treasure hunt. The Hadding Legend is revived by an article written by H. B. Wilman, telling about a missing treasure and Priscilla is certain that they can find it. Problem is, no one knows for sure, if it even exists.


The reclusive old man, whose name no one knows anymore, simply because he won’t share it with anyone. He’s eccentric, doesn’t like human company (he prefers his dogs and birds), and hardly ever has anything nice to say. When one of his dogs jumps the fence and his neighbors bring him over, he ends up agreeing, much to his later astonishment, to let 16 year old Malcolm Moore come help him keep his yard up. He’s having trouble finding time and energy for the weeds, tree trimming, and grass. He doesn’t know that the Moores have been praying for an opportunity to bless this man and decides to treat the young man as poorly as possible, just so he’ll stop coming.

Excellent, though a little long. I would cut down on the unnecessary details.

Balec, are you suggesting that I change around the long overview that I posted and use that?

Yep I think he is and I agree

Yes, I am, and yes I do.

Ah, now we have more to work with, precious...yess, precious.....



I don't think the way the overview she posted is written would be best for a blurb, actually...it's too sprawling and not really intended for hooking people. It's long, too.

The story seems to have quite a few threads that don't have very much direct plot connection. So...what if we sort of strung the blurb together along the theme of her doubts – the 'Why' question?

Here's a sort of an idea of what I mean that I scribbled in my notebook while we were driving to Ringaskiddy this afternoon....

'Louise finds some old letters written by her Grandmother Georgiana, and they tell her a story that challenges her ideas about God. How was Georgiana's life under His control when her parent's died? And how is Louise's own life – her adventures with her friend dragging her off on a treasure hunt, and her neighbor's struggles with helping a reclusive (or cross, or cranky, or repulsive, whatever fits him best) old man – touched by His hand? Why does he seem to find pleasure in (or: why does he think it just to – or: why does he think it best to) <some bad thing that happens in the story – best if connected to, or a continuation of, the earlier mentions of parts of her life> (For example: 'allow Georgiana's husband to get injured, and allow Louise's friendship with her <some adjective: best, childhood, good, whatever> friend to go awry when the treasure hunt doesn't happen like they wanted it to?')'

Comments: I said that Moore was her neighbor because you didn't mention what connection he had with Louise, and I grabbed something at random. Also, you could pretty much put whatever aspects of Louise's life in that space there that you wanted, I just grabbed a couple that I remembered.

Feel free to rip it apart and stitch it back together, or just scrap it if it doesn't seem like it'll work for you.

What I mean is condense the long overview that Rebekah posted.

Sorry everyone for asking a question and then dropping off the face of the earth. I got sick and then we went out of town.

Lady Rwebhu, I can see how parts of that would work... Not all of it though. Mos of my characters aren't even connected to each other for most of the book... which makes it even harder. Hmm...

Balec, I can't seem to figure out what to cut out and what to leave. Though, I might try that again, but try rewriting parts too? Not sure...

I have to finish this today or tomorrow. Oh, brother! Why do I wait until the last minute for these things?

Did my best - I'm sure someone can do better.

You don't need a bunch of information thrown at the readers - this is just, basically, your back cover that someone may pick up and read (they must get interested in the story by reading the back cover)

Anyway, hope it helps...

Okay... Taking into account everyone's comments, and with lots of help from the lovely Perry Elisabeth, this is what I've got. I think I still have a rough spot or two to work out, but I'm liking it overall...


Louise’s friend is dragging her along on a hunt for treasure that probably doesn't even exist. But Louise would rather be reading letters written by her great-great-grandmother, Georgiana Donahue.

Meanwhile Xavier, a hurting law student, is facing troubles of his own. He can’t find a job, his uncle is constantly belittling his late father, and he can hardly stand his seemingly perfect cousin.

In the next town, an old man's reclusive ways are disturbed when he agrees to let Malcolm Moore do his yard work. Even though he desires to return to his seclusion, he is perplexed by the Moores willingness to welcome him into their lives.

Almost 100 years ago, Georgiana Donahue's life was turned upside down in the course of one eventful year and she wants to blame God for all of her problems. Little did she realize that the candid letters written to her brother and his wife would end up touching so many lives, so many years after they were written.

That's really good - much shorter than my proposed one. I would personally move the Georgiana Donahue part -



I would move that paragraph between the two paragraphs about Xavier and Louise.

I might do that, Balec. Not sure yet. If I don't, I'm thinking of separating it from the rest with an small image... I'm working on sending the synopsis over to my cover now...

Changed a bit around...


Louise’s friend is dragging her along on a hunt for a treasure that probably doesn’t even exist. Louise, however, would rather be reading the letters she recently found, written by her great-great-grandmother, Georgiana Donahue.

Meanwhile, Xavier, a young law student, is facing struggles of his own. He can’t find a job, his uncle is constantly belittling his late father, and he can hardly stand his seemingly perfect cousin.

In the next town, an old man’s reclusive ways are disturbed when he agrees to let Malcolm Moore do his yard work. Although he desires to return to his seclusion, he is perplexed by the Moore’s willingness to welcome him into their lives.


Almost 100 in the past, Georgiana Donahue's life was turned upside down in the course of one eventful year and she was inclined to blame God for all of her troubles. Little did she realize that the searching letters she wrote to her brother and his wife would end up touching so many lives, so long after they were written...

Thinking I might go with this... Though I would love to come up with something slightly better for that last half sentence. "So", twice within two words of each other, does seem a bit awkward?

No, sounds okay to me. *Shrugs*

I'm going to leave it. Here's the final version... at least, I hope I let it stay final.


Louise’s friend is dragging her along on a dubious treasure hunt. She, however, would rather be reading the recently discovered letters written by her great-great-grandmother, Georgiana Donahue.

Meanwhile, Xavier, a young law student, is facing struggles of his own. He can’t find a job, his uncle is constantly belittling his late father, and he can hardly stand his seemingly perfect cousin.

In the next town, an old man’s reclusive ways are disturbed when he agrees to let Malcolm Moore do his yard work. Although he desires to return to his seclusion, he is perplexed by the Moores' willingness to welcome him into their lives.


Almost 100 years in the past, Georgiana Donahue's life was turned upside down in the course of one eventful year, and she was inclined to blame God for all of her troubles. Little did she realize that the searching letters she wrote to her brother and his wife would end up touching so many lives, so long after they were written...

Thank you all so very much for helping me! I really appreciate it!

Now, to just get this book polished and published!

It looks awesome! I'm glad you got it all worked out.

Yes!