Go as far as you like and start again. You can write happy, sad, or scary one day and romantic the next. You can write one story and give it six different endings. You can practice creative leaps or try your hand at different genres. Have you ever written a book synopsis? What was your experience? Did you do so at the start or the end of the writing process? Was it difficult? Did it reveal holes you needed to fill or breaches in logic you needed to fix?
Did it help you balance the flow of scenes or realize you spent too long or too little time on a story element? To help you get that agent, Dawn Field looks at the value of a great book synopsis.
A very good and helpful read. I felt like sharing my experience of writing a synopsis for the first time. Unfortunately, there was no place! Thanks for clearing a lot of my doubts regarding synopsis writing. Please keep sharing. Thanks for a wonderful eye-opener. Your article helped me see the synopsis as a more polished story outline. Fear not. Everybody likes a good story but not everybody especially the writer can take a step backwards and condense a quart into a thimbleful.
My advice would be to try your tale out on your friends. Initially, you might blather on and on and on and they will be bored, but eventually, you will arrive at the kernel of the tale and they will want to know more. That is the point at which you must realise that your synopsis is as good as you can make it. Interesting read. Writing my novel was so much easier than writing a synopsis. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Reading — in addition to being plain fun — can make you a better smarter, more informed, satisfied person. In my experience successful people are often voracious readers. Good Writing Habits. The Book Professor - November 4, 0. With the right tools, even busy people can make time to write a book.
So how long can you expect to be at the keyboard before your manuscript is complete? From setting expectations to understanding SEO, there are things you can do as a writer to launch and succeed in a career writing for digital publications. It's easier to find flaws in someone else's work than it is in your own. There's a lot you can do to minimize errors and make your writing shine, but another set of eyes on your work is always a good idea.
Reviewing your writing from an editor's perspective can be a challenge, even for experienced writers. Here are strategies that can help you bring fresh eyes to your written work. Does My Book Need Editing? Steven Spatz - May 25, 2. Only one kind of magical spirit can pull off such wizardry — professional editors.
Whether you complete or 50, words in 30 days, you owe it to your Self to see your words through in a process that leaves you feeling accomplished and alive. We're all looking for a connection — and that includes your readers. How do you connect with your readers? Draw them in with sensory language. Hope Clark - September 17, 7. Scrivener is a powerful writing program that has been my software of choice as I write and revise my first novel.
Industry News. Authory is a utility that consolidates your published works from multiple websites, organizes and customizes the results, and gathers other useful data. Book Distribution. Editing software uses powerful algorithms to compare your content with that of thousands of published authors. In addition to letting a professional reader know what happens in your manuscript, the synopsis will also let them know at a glance if you have thought about how your work fits in to the market.
This is critical in non-fiction, less so with fiction, although with fiction awareness of what genre you have written in is vital.
A fiction synopsis should comprise a brief summary followed by a more detailed synopsis. But before writing either of these, you must clarify which genre your work fits into.
The most important thing to realise about fiction in respect of how you present it to representatives of the publishing industry is that it breaks down into different types, or genres. Some of these dramatic forms are familiar and others not. There are always more genres being invented or cross-fertilised. It can be difficult to keep up!
Classifying your novel within a genre can be a challenge. This is largely because when most people start to write a novel they do so without having studied the genre they are writing for. Although, when you start to write, you feel free to explore, practise and experiment without thinking in terms of the defining limits of a genre, by the time you come to submitting your work to be published, it is very important to know which genre your work fits into.
A good starting point is to read books you consider similar to the one you are writing that are already published, and note how they are classified on the back cover. By reading, and sometimes studying literature and writing through other routes, you will also learn the possibilities and limits offered by your chosen genre. Having made it your top priority to identify what type of novel you have written, you can make a start on your all-important synopsis. For example, had you written Pride and Prejudice today:.
Pride and Prejudice is a contemporary, literary romance about a woman who falls in love with a man she thinks she hates. Pride and Prejudice, a contemporary, literary novel, tells the story of Elizabeth Bennett, a proud, intelligent woman, one of five sisters, whose mother is committed to marrying her children off as a matter of urgency. Elizabeth meets Darcy, owner of a grand estate, but considers him over proud, arrogant and undesirable. In time, she learns that he is not all that he appears to be, and revises her prejudice, before they fall deeply in love.
Both these examples, one short, one longer, serve to whet the appetite for more detail to follow. An example of an ostensibly weak synopsis, which rambles and fails to emphasise the most important points quickly enough, might be:. Set at some point in the nineteenth century, five sisters are looking for husbands. Or is Mary, really? Anyway, their mother is a real fuss pot and annoys everybody. Outside their house there are lots of fields and it is sometimes raining.
Mr Bingley is an important character who is very handsome, but is he as handsome as Mr Darcy? It is hard to tell! Following the brief summary should be a more detailed synopsis of — words. The main aim of the longer synopsis is to give a detailed overview which clearly and concisely conveys how the story flows and unfolds, and very importantly what is interesting about it. The longer synopsis should also reconfirm when the story is set i. The longer synopsis should also highlight the dramatic turning points and tell the reader of any other salient information which will help convey what kind of work it is, how well imagined are the characters involved and how well thought through and alluring is the plot.
Alongside the synopsis should also be an excellent, economically written and confident sounding cover letter. It does not matter if this is repeated on the synopsis page.
You may also wish to refer to writers you feel you are similar to, although do be careful not to have misplaced arrogance in this. Otherwise, let the agent decide and they will help market you to the publisher, and the publisher then help market you to the public.
If you admire an agent for a particular reason, such as they publish a hero or heroine of yours, let them know. If you have something interesting to say about yourself, such as that you have won a writing competition or published before in relevant publications, do include this briefly in the cover letter.
Are you tired of working for other people? This kind of opening is already informing the assessor that you know who your audience is and you know how to engage their interest quickly. Also, bring to the fore a sizzling quote and place it straight after the introduction. This will also help with immediate engagement. This will take time.
When doing this think carefully about who to compare yourself and your work to. If you are lucky enough to have a publisher contact you, they are going to want you to talk about why you liken your work to Margaret Atwood. Be honest and do your research. A perfect structure involves getting to the point quickly, giving an indication of the audience early on and keeping it brief.
What do they learn? Ideally a synopsis should be kept to a minimum but different publishers have different requirements. Some publishers want a three-page synopsis while others only want half a page. Stick to what the publisher asks for. The blurb needs to reveal the highlights of the plotting, or the key themes.
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