5 Tips To Make Your Book Summaries Better

Book writing is one of the leading hobbies and professions in the world. According to studies, around 2.2million new books are published every year on average. Now, all of the book writers in the world have to tend to various requirements. 

One of those requirements is writing a summary. A good-quality book usually features a summary that briefly but effectively describes the events of the book without giving anything away. The job of this summary or synopsis is to provide an insight into the story, characters, etc. So, how do you write a book summary that covers all that? What are the tips and practices that can help you get better at writing book summaries? Let us find out.

Tip 1: Understand the Book

The first and perhaps the most important thing is to understand the book. If you are writing the summary for another writer, then you surely need to go through all of the content thoroughly. However, the idea is to focus on the key essentials of the book, and that is why you must: 

# Concentrate on reading the book thoroughly and entirely. 

# Focus on taking notes as you are reading and take notes of important points. 

# Understand the primary theme and concept of the book as you read it. 

# And analyze the author’s intentions, undertones, etc.

This way, you will be able to tell the premise of the book much more efficiently. Moreover, it will help you understand the author’s intention much more effectively too. Therefore, understanding the book is the first task you have—as this is particularly important for those who write summaries for other writers. 

If you are the writer yourself, then analyze the type of points that you wish to make. Focus on engaging the reader without giving too much away or spoiling anything important. You can do that by focusing on the main theme, characters, and plot of your story.

Tip 2: Focus on the Structure

The structure of the summary features a very precise and concise format. It comes down to the requirement at hand, as a lot of summaries can be anything from 300 words to 800 words. This depends entirely on the author, the book, and the necessity. If the summary is going to feature on the front page, then it will be less than 150 words. If an abstract is required, then you can expect it to go over a thousand words quite easily. So, you will have to focus on the structure by: 

# Writing a concise, brief, yet effective introduction. 

# Present the main characters first if the book has a story. 

# Or present the main ideas and arguments presented in the book. 

# Focus on the evidence, arguments, and proof in the book. 

# And Conclude with a cohesive summary of the events/arguments in the book. 

Now, it is important not to give away the key points, particularly in story-based literature. However, you should focus on summarizing the necessary aspects of the book and give a brief glimpse of the important points.

Tip 3: Be Concise and Clear

It is important to overstate the necessity of being concise and clear in summary. In summary, you do not have to build up on characters, plot points, challenges, arguments, research, or whatever the contents of the books are. In summary, you need to give the reader a glimpse of the context of the book. That means this should allow them to pursue reading the 300-500 pages—or however long the book may be. That is why, in summary, it is important to: 

# Avoid unnecessary details and detours and focus on the main point. 

# Be clear and concise and try to avoid technical language—even if it persists in the original content. 

# Focus on summarizing complex ideas without giving away spoilers. 

# And try to be coherent and readable instead of intricate and unhurried. 

This will allow you to focus on the conciseness of the summary, and as a result, you will have a summary that surmises all the important points presented in the book—without giving too much away. 

Tip 4: Capture the Essence 

Capturing the essence of the content presented in the book is a necessity. Now, this can be done chapter after chapter or page after page. It really depends on the writer how they wish to approach writing the summary of the book.

That is why they can focus on the following: 

# Identifying the book’s central message, theme, undertones, etc. 

# Focus on unique and important messages, ideas, and tones of the book. 

# Talk about specific passages, quotes, content, etc. 

# And focus on the author’s intentions. 

Now, this sort of essence can be difficult to capture. That is when a good-quality online text summarizer can help writers to summarize lengthy text automatically in seconds. The summarization tool can shorten this lengthy process and thoroughly capture the essence of a page or an entire chapter. This will ultimately help writers to save ample time and focus on other essentials of the summary. 

Tip 5: Tailor the Summary to the Audience

An important factor in writing a book summary is tending to the audience. A lot of times, summarizing requires less work, or a lot of it, depending on the kind of audience that you wish to create the summary for. That is why it is important to consider the target audience when writing such summaries. So, it is important to focus on: 

# The length according to the audience’s requirements and preferences. 

# Tending to the summary’s tone and style according to the reader. 

# Focusing on relevant context and information based on audience requirements. 

# And Include relevant recommendations and personal insights in the summary. 

This will help you identify the style and type of tone needed in the book summary. It will also help you focus on key points of the book and how to portray them according to audience interests.

Conclusion

These are the five tips and practices used by seasoned text summary writers. Not only will it help you capture the essence of the book, but also keep the synopsis of the story/content concise, brief, and yet captivating.