I once attended a writing workshop where the moderator told us to describe our work – a novel or short story – in a single sentence. When it came to my turn, I started … stuttered … stopped. And then muttered, “I don’t think I can describe it one sentence.” To which he smugly replied: “Then you don’t know what you’re writing about.”

I’m pretty sure I do know what I’m writing about, but that comment has rattled around in my brain for years, making grinding and clanging noises like a stack of pots falling over in a cupboard. I write novels, my internal monologue protests, not short stories. I confess I have no talent for the sharp focus and succinct closure of a short story. I build worlds, and the characters who live and breathe in them cannot be summed up in a few adjectives any more than I can be, or you can be.

But when it came time for writing a description for my first novel, I gritted my teeth and came up with a single sentence:

On a world once dominated by giants and ageless sorcerers, two men seek to unravel the secrets of a centuries old enchantment with the help of the woman unwittingly summoned to aid them.

One hundred thirty-nine thousand, two hundred and thirty-three words summed up in thirty-three. I think I did it out of spite, to put that self-righteous dismissal behind me. But now I’m thinking about the pitch for my second novel, and looking back on the first, and thinking it deserves more.

On a world once dominated by giants and ageless sorcerers, three men seek to unravel the secrets of a centuries old enchantment with the help of the woman unwittingly summoned to aid them. A dispossessed prince, a man with no memory of his origins, and a Huntmaster, more at ease with the eagle and wolf he is bonded to than with people, must overcome their doubts and differences to deal with this unexpected stranger, who is as surprised and dismayed as they are to discover she has inherited an artifact that is the stuff of legends – a staff named Bifrost, a bridge to other worlds and ancient powers.

Is it a better pitch? I don’t know. I think it was easier to write the 139,233 words of their story…