I‘ve always assumed if I was ever going to get my butt kicked it would be by some bad-ass in a dark alley (not that I tend to hang out in dark alleys, but you know what I mean). However, I’m discovering this weekend that I’m apparently a wimp. I’m having my ass kicked by a synopsis. Pathetic, I know.
It’s not like I’ve never written a synopsis before. I have…many. The last couple of which helped me sell a book. But as I’ve struggled this weekend to write a synopsis for the YA novel I’m working on, I feel like I’m back to square one with no clue what the heck I’m doing.
Do I write it in first person, like the book itself will be? Or third person, which seems to be the only way I could shove the words out through my fingers. I started and restarted. I couldn’t figure out HOW to start. I finally managed to get about 2 pages out in third person (hating every moment of it), then suddenly felt it click over to first person. Seriously??! After I’d tried that several times already to no avail. But it felt right, so I kept going. Three pages. Then, I went back to the beginning and converted it all to first. I discovered my character’s voice shining through. Ah, sweet success.
Page five…I’m rambling. I’m giving too many details. Actually discovering a few more details about the book, which have me scrambling back to SuperNoteCard to add a scene here, change a scene there.
But the synopsis still isn’t done. Arghh! It was my goal to finish the damn thing today. I need my agent’s input. Am I headed in the right direction toward a sellable book? Can’t do that without the synopsis.
Will these ever become easy? I don’t know a single writer who enjoys synopsis writing. Maybe because its so ingrained in us to “show and not tell” our stories, that synopses, which are basically just one long “telling” of our stories are like swimming upstream. It goes against everything we’ve been taught. Everything that comes naturally. I constantly remind myself that that’s the way synopses are supposed to be. They are expected to be that way…and are basically just an indication to a potential editor that we know how to string together a coherent plot.
That doesn’t make it any easier. Ugh.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
hehe! My last synospis came out in dueling first person. I knew if I sent it to my agent like that, she’d punt it back in my direction BUT it got it out of my head!!!
Ames, that is actually the structure of my last TWO book sale synopses…and they weren’t punted back to me. The books were ultimately written in 1st person present tense and 1st person past tense, so that’s how I wrote the synopses…with success!
Like I said, I’ve done this more than a few times before, so it shouldn’t be so damn difficult. Right?
Good luck. A synopsis AFTER the story is writtien, not so bad. But before? Argh.
I’m starting to think there will never be anything easy about any aspect of the publishing world. I haven’t even reached the synopsis stage with my latest idea–I’m just trying to get down a basic premise and, maybe, a paragraph-long blurb–and it’s killing me! Not as though I haven’t done it before either. Yikes
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Blurbs are really hard, too, Marilyn! And that one-sentence log-line like description? Sheesh. Forget it!