The Synopsis: A tool of drafting, revising, and querying

The Synopsis is like winning on several lines of slot play. Are you shaking your head at me, wondering how I could ever claim that the dreadworthy synopsis is, gulp, a good thing multiple times over?

Good.

Because I used to hate writing them too.

I waited until the book was finished to try to distill it to a 2 page synopsis and a 1-2 paragraph query hook. I would throw myself on the floor bemoaning the impossibility.

Scraped-skin-across-tar painful? Yup.

And much easier to do if you start it in the drafting phase, when you don’t know where the novel will end, but you need a roadmap. I give myself some leeway and let the drafting synopsis reach five, gasp, pages.

That’s what the drafting version of the synopsis does. It lets you know what comes next. Helps you over the hump of Writer’s Block.

It tells you when you’ve veered off on a tangent.

Not that tangents are bad. Sometimes they become the story. But the synopsis is your map. It reminds you  that you’re changing your book as you go and that changes have ripple effects.

Writing a synopsis during the drafting phase forces you to plot out your book. And also draws attention to gaps in the plot before the book is done.

Plus the practice of writing one helps.

When you get to revision, you know what you thought was important in drafting. And now might not be. You get to hack away at the  drafting synopsis, sculpting it to a lean, soon-to-be-querying machine.

Revision is a time when the story changes so the synopsis must conform to all plot shifts. The synopsis’ brevity forces you to isolate your one main plot.

The synopsis is an essential querying tool (read agent-requested material for evaluating a book). It helps sell your book at the querying stage.

It also helps crystallize in your mind what the central plot is and how to succinctly describe it. The synopsis will help you determine genre and impact your pitch too.

For me, having a synopsis during each of these three phases streamlined my work time and created a better manuscript.

Do you still hate synopses?

Maybe.

But do you see their inherent value?

The Writing Process–A Bowl of Clam Chowder

This is some of the best New England Clam Chowder around. Found at Sam the Clam’s in CT. Delish.

But no two clam chowders are made with exactly the same process. Everyone has their own way of getting to that perfect chowder.

I’ve found the same thing with novel writing. My first manuscript, I had a page of character outlines and a 12-page plot outline. And then I just dove into writing. At each chapter, I’d stop and outline the things that needed to happen and the scenes necessary for this to occur.

A very stop and start writing process. But it worked and I completed a draft.

A very very very bad draft that required many many rounds of revisions.

So next book. I wrote a 40 page outline. Um yeah, very detailed. But it made the writing easier because I had a GPS navigating my way to the end point.

Next book I tried a different approach. I spent weeks just daydreaming and imagining everything. Then I wrote a 4 page outline of the first 50 pages. Once I got those 50 pages written, I wrote a 5 page synopsis of the whole book. Then the query letter. Then I wrote the rest of the book in fits of 15-20k words.

The first draft turned out better than my others. Still needed edits and revisions. But the bones were laid out in the right order.

And as I wrote, I did light edits on the previous 2-3 days’ worth of writing. Some people frown on this.

For me, it helped me move forward. I can’t if there’s a fly buzzing around my head saying “Fix it!” Plus, when I’d get stuck on inspiration, I’d edit the previous day and as I came to the end, I’d know what came next.

I don’t know that any of these ways is universally the best. One might be best for me or for that book. But the point is each time I ended up with a delicious bowl of clam chowder.

So how I got there doesn’t seem as important as the fact that the method got me there.

What about you? Do you have a tried and true method for writing? Are you an outliner? A pantser? An edit-as-you-go or a strict-no-editing-until-the-end writer?

 

Dog Tired Day

Did you ever wake up and have zero energy? Like the idea of getting out of bed sapped all your strength. And you hadn’t moved a muscle yet. That was this morning. The alarm went off and all I could think about were the aches and pain in my body.

I crawled back into bed and slept another hour. I woke up mentally alert, but physically I could use another day of sleep. I don’t remember ever feeling like this in my 20s. And another birthday approaches in November. Ouch.

I forced myself up and out of bed to work on my Flashwords for the Crimebake conference. It came to me last night at midnight and I put in 2 more hours revising this AM. Then I had to shower and breakfast and take the dogs out. I came back in and reworked my synopsis based on all the amazing feedback from the CTRWA critique group. I even added a couple hundred words to the manuscript itself. With the synopsis in better shape, I sent it off to another auction from the Brenda Novak summer auction. Now there is only one left to finalize.

So much to do! Then I have a few more contests to enter. It never stops. Then again, when it comes to writing, I never want it to.  It feels like what I was born to do. Sure sometimes, I have to force myself to sit down and start a new scene. But it usually comes to me once I’m in the chair.

I’m still feeling physically spent, but I think that is because of the move and all the stress. I unpacked about 45 boxes in 7  days. I have 4 left to unpack and the room is set up. I’m taking it slow now so it might be another week before it is all done.

Have you ever felt physically wiped out, without being sick? What did you do to get your energy back?

 

Do The Write Thing For Nashville Auctions–An Update

So, I was a little overzealous in the bidding and ended up winning several auctions from Do The Write Thing For Nashville. But it was for a great cause, and the prizes were pretty awesome. I thought it might be useful to talk about what happened after winning.

In terms of collecting the items, the auction organizers e-mailed me the contact information for each item. Then I send a brief e-mail to the individual who donated the item,  she responded with details on how we would do the critiques and the lunch meeting.  It really was that easy  and seamless. So if anyone worries about how the auction was run, this one was super well organized.

First off, I won a critique of my  young adult manuscript from Tricia Mills. She critiqued my first thirty pages and my synopsis.  This was extremely helpful to me. I’d had a few beta readers but none of which were published authors. She pointed out  where the transitions were bad in the first few chapters and gave several important examples of  how to improve my scenes. Worth every penny I spent. The most important take away was that my writing of the manuscript was far better than my synopsis writing. That’s really essential to know because the synopsis is supposed to sell the manuscript. Her comments helped me to improve the synopsis tremendously. I also won 2 signed books from her!

Second off, I won a critique of my young adult manuscript from Lisa Desrochers. She critiqued my first three chapters (50 pages)  and my query letter. I’ve been struggling with the query letter. She gave some super helpful insight and showed me how to rework it. When it came to critiquing the manuscript, she was great about pointing out what worked and what didn’t. She was tactful but honest, which meant the manuscript and I both benefited from her feedback. Another wonderful experience. I’m also receiving an ARC and the first 4 chapters of her next book! (After reading the snippet she released on her blog, I’m happily anticipating their arrival!)

Third off,  I won a critique of the first 10 pages and the synopsis  for my romance novel from a senior editor at  Pocket Books, Abby Zidle. When I won this auction item, I had only written 10,000 words of the story. I had a synopsis but it hadn’t gone through as much critique and editing as the other book. I was kind of testing the waters.  One of the most important takeaways from this critique was that the synopsis was badly written.  But this is good to know because now I can work on it.  This is my first foray into romance writing and I also had the genre wrong.  Originally, I thought it was romantic suspense, but  after reading her comments I realize it’s more of a paranormal romance.  She gave honest, straightforward feedback and advice. I am planning to rework the synopsis and first 10 pages in July.

Fourth off, I won a lunch with the amazing Rose Fox, who is a SF/fantasy/horror and mass market reviews editor for Publishers Weekly. I met her at Grand Sichuan, which is a delicious Chinese restaurant. Having received super valuable written critiques and feedback, it was a nice change of pace to sit down with someone and talk about my story, show her a few pages, and have more interactive feedback. I got to pick her brain about potential publishers for my story, what should being included in a one line pitch,  and whether my story was young adult or adult (which seems to be the most difficult question about my book).  We also talked a little bit about my new paranormal romance story but since that’s still in draft, we focused on my young adult paranormal mystery. Besides sharing some of her awesome knowledge of the publishing industry, she also ordered the most delicious dishes! We had pork soup dumplings, smoke tea duck, and a lamb dish.   I left there feeling completely satiated and excited to getting back to work on my novel.

I still have one auction item left, but because of my neck problems I haven’t been able to send in the materials.  The agent, who will be  giving me feedback, has given me a couple months to get it together. I’m hoping to work on it soon.

Lastly, I want to say 1000 thank yous to all these people for donating their time and expertise to help out the people of Nashville. And a big thank you to the tireless and dedicated people who ran the auctions. Can’t wait to see the T-shirts!

A Roadmap to your novel

In our first week of my online class, we learned to draft a 500-word plot summary of our novels. I’d already written my mystery novel, so this was a post drafting summary. But while researching what makes a good synopsis, I stumbled on a lot of advice about writing the synopsis before the story.

This sounded interesting and since I have a new novel I’m working on–total Kismet. That story stalled once because I didn’t know where I was going. I hate when I don’t know what the next scene is.  I froze up and worked on editing the other book instead.

Anyway, so I sat down and plotted out the story in 2 pages. Entire story. Done. Mind you OL played a huge part in story storming with me. It’s our version of brain storming where he asks questions or makes comments and bam I’ve suddenly plotted out a book in 30 minutes.

Anyway, since drafting the synopsis, I’ve been on a roll. I’ve written 5 new scenes this week alone. And it’s so much easier to know what comes next. Writing really is trial and error. I’ve learned so much from mistakes. I’d never take them back. But yeesh, it’s a tough journey sometimes.