McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Finished Draft, Synopsis and starting the next one

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meg_evonne:

--- Quote from: svb1972 on April 02, 2010, 01:06:15 PM ---She's a sexy dermatologist
He's a hot dog vendor.

Together.. they fight supernatural crime
 

--- End quote ---
Now that is COOL!  Good work on the blasted synopsis.  I've written several--for the same book.  *sigh*  The last one was maybe close, but not quite.  I've put it on the back burner since I hate them so much.  Neurovore posted that if it was possible to write a long manuscript in two pages --that's how it would have been done!  My problem is the particular agent waiting for it only wants one page...  one page...  one page... 


--- Quote from: Starbeam on April 02, 2010, 02:51:10 PM ---Something I'll likely end up doing is practicing on movies or books that I've seen/read.  It's in the details.  For example, a synopsis of one of the Dresden books wouldn't fully catch Harry's sense of humor. 

Plus, when you look at the page count, also look at the formatting.  The formatting asked for is usually double-spaced, which would actually be more like 1-2 pages single-spaced.  And google submission synopsis.  It came up with a lot of different stuff. 

--- End quote ---
What a great idea to practice on movies or other books!  Thank you!

Pretty sure that a synopsis is written in present tense, single space with a double space between paragraphs.  You can hedge the normal outer edges a tad bit if need be also.  I thought they were...character did this, than that, than this etc, but a recent blog stressed the agents desire for the emotional conflict and change in the character.  once I used that approach it got a lot easier, but like I said it still isn't quite right...

JB in a tweet commented that they were easy once you had your one or two sentence premise for the book complete.  Didn't work that way for me, but none of us are Jim, right?

svb1972:
I think the idea behind the synopsis is not.. to do an abridge version of the book, or even the cliff notes version.  But more..   To give the reader the essence of the book.  I mean, my dermatologist thing was a joke..

But think of how you would synopsis Harry/DF/StormFront in 1 page.
Dead Witch Walking (and the Hollows as a whole)
Lord of the Rings.

* Morally grey PI/Wizard, with a weakness for the damsel in distress.
* Family problems (Ie he doesn't have any)
* Money problems (again doesn't have any)
* Love/Trust issues
* Overzealous magical cop antagonist
* Beautiful Vampire.
* Plucky blonde cop with major pint sized attitude.
* Spiderman style snark
* Magic with big special effects
* Sexy love interest

You can get the essence of StormFront in about a page, without even touching the actual plot of the book. 

Starbeam:

--- Quote from: meg_evonne on April 02, 2010, 04:15:42 PM ---Pretty sure that a synopsis is written in present tense, single space with a double space between paragraphs.  You can hedge the normal outer edges a tad bit if need be also.  I thought they were...character did this, than that, than this etc, but a recent blog stressed the agents desire for the emotional conflict and change in the character.  once I used that approach it got a lot easier, but like I said it still isn't quite right...
--- End quote ---
A couple of the links I came across said that the formatting should be the same for the synopsis as the formatting for the manuscript.  And all the ones I looked at did say that the synopsis has to be in present tense.  Looking at several other sites, the length varies from place to place.  And it does come across that no one wants an outline(character does this, then that, then this thing, etc) and more like what you'd see as the blurb on the back of the book.  Or at least that's how most of it comes across to me.

I haven't put too much thought into writing any kinda synopsis cause I've not yet gotten to that point.

meg_evonne:

--- Quote from: svb1972 on April 02, 2010, 04:24:55 PM ---I mean, my dermatologist thing was a joke..
--- End quote ---
  Does that mean it's available???  Only kidding.  Take care and congrats.  I'll have to do some checking on my computer at home for synopsis writing sites and will post them. 

In fact, it would be a great exercise if we picked a movie and we all took a shot at the synopsis and see how they vary, what works, what didn't etc. 

Kali:
That's a FANTASTIC idea, Meg.  Start a thread, pick a well-known movie, I'll take a shot.  Mostly I want to learn from what others do/say. 

As for formatting, most of the places I've looked at say "present tense, third person, double-spaced."  Naturally, you always want to look at the agent/editor's page to see if they specifically require something else.

I will say that attempting to write a synopsis picked up a couple of weaknesses in my plot, but it also disguised a bunch of them.  That said, because of the synopsis fiasco, I have decided to try an outline.  So it was useful for that, but it's still a bad one. :D

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