posted
Got an email forwarded to me from a workshop list, by a writer who has been following my novel critically (I mean that in a good way) on the Online writer's workshop for scfi, fantasy and horror.
Long story short, a well-respected magazine editor had been asked to find novels of a certain type for a publisher she wanted to work with.
That 'certain type' sounded a lot like my work in progress, and the email did intimate that unfinished works would be okay, submitted in the usual synopsis, sample chapters, entire manuscript way.
Thing is, my attempts at a synopsis have sucked so far. The problem is that a lot of what drives the story in the beginning is the tensions and power dynamic of the setting. A setting I have put a lot of thought into, and delicately built through detail. Yet it just sounds so incredibly DUMB to start off with a bunch of setting, y' know?
In the story itself, I have tried very hard to reveal the setting in actions and various interesting ways, but summarizing it just sounds so lame. *pulls hair*
I was hoping you might have some online resources for help or suggestions regarding synopsis writing. Please?
I can't help feeling that this shouldn't be as hard as I'm making it. Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
You know how accurate the synopses on book jackets tend to be. It's really not a great artform. Is there someone else you can let write one?
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
I'm on call tonight, and if the woman with 26-wk twins doesn't deliver -- well, you know those chapters are with me night and day. Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Olivia, Randy Ingermanson (Christian writer, several award-winning novels under his belt - the guy is actually good, not just good-for-Christian-fiction) has a method of breaking down your story called the Snowflake method.
It's wonderful for writing a novel (I'm using it right now for my latest WIP), but it's also great to use with an existing story to help you nail down the specifics for a synopsis. And, even more wonderful, he gives you an example of each step along with sample synopses and a sample proposal of one of his novels that sold.
Maybe it will help. Randy is a nice guy, very cool and very helpful. He's a hoot too, he'd fit right in at Hatrack.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Pooka-- I would really rather learn to do this myself, though I did have somebody volunteer.
Tres-- I'm too embarrasssed, actually. Though I might post what I have so far, to see if you guys can make suggestions to improve it.
CT-- you are a dear, but you have a lot on your plate at the moment and I know it. If you want to, that's okay, but don't stress over it.
Belle, dear, I have been all over his site since you first showed it to me. There is a good example of a synopsis there, but it is a synopsis of a story that takes place in our modern setting, more or less. The problem I'm having is getting the setting across in the synopsis. That's a problem since the setting is so different from the usual, but I don't want to yammer on about the context and leave the action behind. On the other hand, just describing the action without the context might sound just plain irrational. That's my problem.
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I hate to state the obvious, but Uncle Orson has several series that only make sense in the settings he has created for them. What do the backs of Memory of Earth, Seventh Son, and Speaker for the Dead say?
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
If I asked you to summarize your story in only one sentence, right now on the spot, what would you say?
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged |
Here's one more that might help, it's from an article at SFWA.
In this sample proposal, the first three paragraphs essentially deal with nothing but setting - so I think you could get away with doing the same thing. After all, the editor wants SF, so she has to be expecting some description of the setting, right?
posted
"A domestic peacekeeper is thrown into the center of a struggle between the militaristic matriarchy she serves and the savage forces coalescing against it."?
posted
Okay, good, that's the main plot idea. Now the question is, why do I care about this story? What's supposed to interest me? What interests you about it that made you write it?
posted
If you can't tell me why I should bother caring about your story and I'm an editor, I'm probably not going to invest much time or effort in it. A synopsis should sell why a story should be read.
You say it's been fun to play with gender roles, societal differences, and love of different sorts - in what way do you mean? What's interesting about this in your story and how does that relate to the main plot?
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
See, this is where the way my brain works interferes with self-promotion
There is no story, EVER, that Should be read. There's no reason why any story should interest you.
The reasons that things interest a particular person is as individual as their fingerprints. I would be offended if someone told me I 'should' read something, as if I was somehow less than everyone else for not having read it.
I mean, ALL LITERATURE is, well, umimportant in the grand scheme of life and death. I tell a story that interests me. If you like it, great. If you don't, it doesn't really change anything, even when you not liking it means I don't get paid. 'Cause I'm already , well, not paid.
Looks like it doesn't matter anyway, because she (the editor) is only interested in high fantasy, as it turns out. That wasn't in her email, specifically, but she has a blog and it was there.
So, I guess I'll just keep writing and worry about a synopsis later.
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
When you're a freelance writer (which you are), you are also an entrepreneur. Sometimes its hard to be both. From what I can tell, Uncle Orson does the writing and the lovely Kristine does the entrepreneuring. Will that work? Can your friend that recommended you go one more step and help the synopsis?
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Just to back up Tresopax here, I want to post some of an essay by Frank Herbert, author of Dune.
quote: The single most important piece I ever got was to concentrate on story. What is "story"? It's the quality that keeps the reader following the narrative. A good story makes intersting things happen to a character with whom the reader can identify. And it keeps them happening, so that the character pogresses and grows in stature.
A writer's job is to do whatever is neccesary to make the reader want to read the next line. That's what you're supposed to be thinking about when you're writing a story. Don't think about money, don't think about success; concentrate on story--don't waste your energy on anything else. That all takes care of itself, if you've done your job as a writer. If you haven't done that, nothing helps.
. . . I have heard essentially the same thing from many other successful figures in writing; some of the top writers in the world have said it. It is the best advice I can give to beginners.
You should make a conciouss effort, in your writing, to think about why a reader would want to read your story. It's what OSC calls the "So what?" factor. What conflicts are there? What is interesting?
Think about it this way--it's the difference between the snobbish literary person who doesn't care if his reader understands or not (who in fact, may desire the reader NOT understand him, because he wants to be admired and looked up to, not understood) and the pandering writer who tries to write nothing but what he thinks readers will soak up and editors will drool over.
Somewhere in the middle is you. You want to introduce all the neat ideas that aren't all bite-sized and easy to swallow, but you also want the reader to be able to understand why these ideas are important to you, and ultimately important to them.
You can't not care. You can't feign to above trying to communicate with a reader--writing is an art of communication, and wanting to help a reader care deeply about the things you care about is the purpouse of writing. If the reader doesn't care or ignores you, fine, but it won't be because you didn't make the effort to put it in a form he could both be entertained by and understand.
I am certainly not saying that anybody should slant a story to make it more "commercial."
A writer must ask himself why a reader would care about the story. That is neither a presumptuous question or a prideful one. It's a necessary one for making the story into the moving, powerful peice you want it to be.
Posts: 1894 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
