Synopses are my friend
September22
I just finished writing a “one page” (2.5 page if you want it double-spaced and legible) synopsis of Booby Trap, my next manuscript.
And I’m shocked to realize I had fun.
What a pleasure it is, I now know through painful trial-and-error, to write a synopsis before you write the entire book. You have no secondary characters to agonize over cutting. No clever plot twists too complicated to summarize. No subtle nuances impossible to convey in the brutish, brief sentences allowed in what’s essentially a piece of marketing fluff. Just the hero, and the heroine, and the hook, and the plot arc. Just the main thrust — and if it’s a solid story, it just flows.
I will never again sit down to write a book without writing the synopsis first!
In early 2008 Michelle left a fulfilling career as interactive director in an integrated marketing agency to pursue her passion for writing great stories filled with fascinating, intense, real characters who will do anything necessary to achieve their dreams. She’s co-written the audio-play of a Louis L’Amour short story produced by Bantam and Beau L’Amour, worked as an executive assistant for a Hollywood publicist, taught English in Spain, and enjoyed the lofty title of Romance Director running the personals sections of a newsweekly in Los Angeles. She lives in Austin, Texas and spends her spare time adding poems to
Boy is that the truth. I wrote a novel I titled Trashcan Baby. Then I wrote a synopsis to submit to ARWA retreat critque. I practically revised the whole story while writing the synopsis. Now I’m re-writing the story for the ARWA writer’s challenge. It is going soooo much faster.
Gary