So over the last few months I’ve been arguing with a synopsis for a story of mine. Now, you would think this should be an easy thing to write, since I know the story inside and out. I know the characters, their conflicts etc etc. But as you have guessed, months and lots of drafts later…nothing, zilch, zero, bluh! I couldn’t stand any of them.
I thought since the story started in my heroines pov so should the synopsis. So write, write, write away I did, and all I seemed to do was info dump. Boring even myself out of my mind. Now, since this ms finalled into the second round of the RWA Aust ‘Emerald Award’ I knew the story couldn’t be bad all of a sudden, so why wouldn’t the damn synopsis flop out onto the computer screen before me, complete and perfect.
Hmmmm. As I complained (as one does) to my friends on FB, a very talented friend of mine, who finalled in the RWA Aust ‘Selling Synopsis’ comp last year told me to look up a site of a published author who has placed her own example of a short synopsis on her website. My friend is a godsend.
It wasn’t so much the synopsis and how she had explained what covered key points of the story, it was the fact the writer had started the synopsis off in the hero’s pov. It got me to think, ‘why couldn’t I do that?’
So I did and guess what, it worked! Page after page flowed onto the computer screen before me. The book I love came to life and went from 90k to 1.5k. No more info dump or thinking I had to explain in more detail so they could understand further on in the synopsis. What a sigh of relief.
And there you have it. My second synopsis is done. Of course I’ll tweak and tweak some more before sending it off to my cp, who will no doubt, pick up all my errors. But wow, who would have thought just changing the first paragraph to my hero’s pov would have saved me from more grey hairs.
Which of course is only a temporary reprieve, before the next dreaded synopsis looms before me and I’ll have to go through it all over again.
Happy writing.
Tam
Yayy Tam.. I hate synopsis's as well… shudder!!! I also found a really good book on it that wasn't terribly painful to read through and pick up some good points from — funnily enough titled "the dreaded synopsis!!"
by Elizabeth Sinclair.
What a relief it must be to have at least one synopsis out of the way… take a deep breath and get on to number two!!! you'll nail it first time round this time!