You’re very close. There are a couple things you can do differently to get a better result and at the same time retrieve the excerpt.
We’re going to use setup_postdata
to allow us to use functions like the_title()
and the_excerpt()
. After you finish retrieving and displaying this content, you always want to get back to where you started, so you call wp_reset_postdata()
to return to the previous content.
<?php
$post_17 = get_post(17);
if ( $post_17 ):
setup_postdata($post_17);
?>
<span id="chty_17">
<dt><?php the_title(); ?></dt>
<dd>
<?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?>
<h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>
<?php the_excerpt(); ?>
<p><a class="more" href="https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/184118/<?php the_permalink();?>">Find out more »</a></p>
</dd>
</span>
<?php
wp_reset_postdata();
endif;
?>
It’s important to note that the_excerpt()
appends a more link to the end of your excerpt content. Using the above code will output “more” links twice. You can modify this link content using the get_the_excerpt filter.