RITA ® Award-Winning Author of Fantasy Romance
//How to write a synopsis – or, at least, fake it the way the pros do! Great news on BANDITS and next steps there. Also, why agents/editors ask for partials, why you should include your profession in your query, and other crazy checks.
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Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is “Queries & Synopses: Bane, Benefit, or Both?”
Besides all of us immediately screeching BANE – because all sane human beings hate writing synopses – I’m here to tell you to learn to, if not love, then at least bear with them. Being able to write a decent synopsis is a critical skill for a writer, even indies. Same with queries. Come on over to find out why.
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This wasn’t exactly the shot I was going for, but I love how the photo captures the luminous autumn light we get this time of year.
I’m over at Word Whores, kicking off a week of synopsis-writing tips and tricks from the pros!
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I had to write a synopsis the other day for the new novel I’m shopping around.
It will come as no shock to any of you writers out there that I avoided doing it As Long As Possible. In fact, I had a list of ten agents I wanted to query and I managed to send to eight of them without writing a synopsis. (Which shocked one of my CPs, but it’s true.) Part of this was because a couple of them had asked to see the very next thing I wrote. One of them I’d talked to via email just recently, so I just emailed her with a “here it is” note. Another I tweeted, asking her if she wanted to see it, which she did.
Love those easy ones!
Now, I should say that I did have a pitch paragraph for the book, that I included with these messages. My CPs who’d read the book helped me put that together. Then, there were several more agents I’d had previous positive contact with, that I sent more formal queries to. None of those blessed souls, however, required a synopsis for submission.
When I’d knocked out eight queries/submissions, then I hit the big white wall.
You know the one I mean: the empty screen. The blank page taunting you with the certainty that you can never ever condense your long, lovely, intertwined story into a one-page plot summation. The thing I like to say – which ALL the publishing people hate to hear – is, if I could have told the story in one page, I would have.
Yes, I see you people out there, making faces at the screen.
And I know I’m wrong.
I know you need the synopsis and, if I can’t explain what my story is about in a short space, then either there’s a problem with my story or with me. Possibly both.
At any rate, though I knew that a synopsis is a necessary evil, I didn’t really see the light until I read Malle Vallik’s post this morning about all the things Harlequin and Carina use a synopsis for.
I tell you: I have drunk the Koolaid.
I bookmarked this post for the next time I write a synopsis. Or, for rewriting my Middle Princess synopsis, as I’m now seriously considering.
Now, go get you some Koolaid.