Right now I’m working on a synopsis for a novella that might
come between In the After and Book 2.
Its purpose is to fill in back story for a few of the characters and it’s
really fun to bring these background scenes front and center.
The trouble I’m having is getting all the information into a
3-5 page synopsis. Right now, it’s running 7 pages, and I’m not sure which info
to cut out…of course I think it’s all dreadfully important and pertinent. J
My agent has it now and is going to help me refine it a bit, before we send it
off to Harper for approval.
How about you guys? Do you have trouble with synopsis, or
are you a summarizing ninja?
I'm going to try and sort out my summary this weekend, so I'll be back Monday!
I'm going to try and sort out my summary this weekend, so I'll be back Monday!
Some people say that synopses are harder to write than the book itself. I revised my query letter and synopsis for a month, with lots of feedback from beta readers, before I felt they were ready to send out. It really is kind of an art, and I do think I'm pretty good at it--at least for the first book I wrote.
ReplyDeleteThe best trick I found is that not everything has to be explained chronologically, if it can be better explained earlier in the synopsis. And not every event has to be described or *completely* faithful to the actual book; it really does have to be as interesting, cohesive, and well-written as the book so it kind of works like a story on its own.
Good luck!
I do much better with short summaries than longer ones--I always trip over how much detail to include, which characters to leave out, that kind of thing. In a short summary, I intuit better what to cut out!
ReplyDeleteSynopses make my brain hurt. I want to put all the things in them, and end up with far too much! Good luck with yours.
ReplyDeletei have a hard enough time trying to keep my query tight, I'm afraid of what my finished synopsis will look like.
ReplyDeleteI decided early on not to go in for traditional publishing or an agent, so the synopsis hasn't been on my radar, though I did write one early on in the process. It was a bedevilling process.
ReplyDeleteInteresting about using a novella format to play around with characters. I'm planning on doing that with a character I co-write, and possibly with my solo writing, with supporting characters or villains.