Synopses Don’t Have to Suck

Synopsis.

The very word made me cringe.

For something defined as “a brief summary of the plot of a novel, motion picture, play, etc” it sure has a way of causing sleepless nights, groans of frustration, and blank-eyed confusion.

No matter how many books I read or sites I visited, I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. I’d try to keep my synopsis tight and (of course) make sense, but then I wasn’t sure what I needed to include, what I shouldn’t include, what was really important or just sort of important, and on and on.

But then I found the Holy Grail of Synopsis Writing. I stumbled on this website by complete accident and it has changed everything I’ve thought of synopsis writing. Namely, they no longer suck.

I know I’m not the only writer who has had this issue, so I thought I’d share my secret. So here we go …

All you have to do in order to write a complete, clear, and concise synopsis is to answer the following questions:

1. What is the setting? (This is really the lead-in question for the next one)
2. Who is the main character and what does s/he want?
3. What initial problem does s/he encounter?
4. How does s/he overcome his/her initial problem and achieve some measure of success?
5. What happens to spoil the initial success?
6. Where does this new problem lead?
7. What risk does the main character take to deal with this new challenge?
8. What is his/her “dark moment?”
9. How does s/he overcome this last obstacle to achieve the outcome of the story?
10. How does it end? Happily ever after? What’s changed?

When I’m writing a synopsis, I will list these questions, answer them, and erase them when I’m done. And then Voila! I have a concise and to-the-point synopsis. There are some other rules to remember when writing your synopsis:

1. Keep it single spaced and to about a page.
2. Write in present tense.
3. Use all caps when you first introduce your main characters (LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD walks through the woods and she meets the BIG BAD WOLF). This is a one-time thing.
4. Keep all other characters outside your main characters to a minimum. Even though Aunt Em and Uncle Henry were important to Dorothy. In your synopsis, they are just Dorothy’s aunt and uncle. Capice?

I took the above method from the Top Ten Questions for a Successful Synopsis by Gina Ardito, a romance writer, but tweaked it a bit so I could use it for my manuscripts. If you’re writing a romance, i.e. paranormal romance (I know you’re out there), you might want to go to her website and use the questions she has listed. I know I will when my YA paranormal romance is ever ready to go.

Check out Gina Ardito’s website at http://www.ginaardito.com/.

I See You Blog

My blog has totally been neglected. It’s becoming that “one” thing I started and now it just sort of stares at me from the window when I’m trying to watch T.V.—a little creepy.

I really have no excuse. Busy? Yes. I just went to a writer’s conference at the beginning of the month, got a ton of requests, and now I’ve been revising like crazy—tweaking this, tweaking that.

I’ve still been reading some YA bestsellers. Speaking of YA bestsellers, I’m so excited for Mockingjay (third book in the Hunger Games series). I’ve already preordered and been religiously checking the countdown (4DAYS!!! This is worse than Christmas morning). I’ve stayed away from all forums talking about the last book. I have my own predictions, but want to be surprised. Anyone else sitting on pins and needles?

Heist Society: Ally Carter

Heist Society was fun, fast paced, and exciting.

I’m always amazed (and a little jealous) when authors or screenwriters are able to come up with innovative ways to make an impossible task possible (like robbing a casino in Oceans 11). Heist Society was along this same vein when Ally Carter had to come up with a plan for her main character, Katarina Bishop, to take on the Henley Museum.

Heist Society was all about the obstacles. That being said, Carter did an excellent job of demonstrating how to put obstacles between the protagonist and his or her goal.

For instance, Kat’s main goal was to re-steal five paintings for mobster, Arturo Taccone, to save her dad:

1. The paintings were in the most secured museum in the world—the Henley.
2. The one person (Kat’s uncle), who could most likely pull off the heist, refused to help.
3. The other person (Kat’s dad) was unable to help.
4. Kat didn't have enough people in her crew to pull off the job.
5. Carter threw in an ethical obstacle about stealing the paintings in general.
6. But if Kat didn't succeed, then Arturo would kill her dad.

Aside from these obstacles, Carter established an overarching obstacle to the story: Kat wanted out of a life of thieving. Of course, other obstacles prevented that from happening.

I attended a presentation once where the speaker said a writers job was to put as many obstacles as possible between the main characters and their intended goals. The prize should never come easy for them.

I think Heist Society is a good example of creating obstacles—tons of them.

You don’t need to stop with direct obstacles (such as obstacles that prevent the character from physically attaining what they want), but personal obstacles, ethical obstacles, etc. Ultimately, obstacles create conflict and we really can’t have too much of that.

Where's the Book Reviews????

I haven’t posted anything in quite awhile … obviously.

But the good news is that I finally applied to graduate school for an MFA in Creative Writing! I’m very excited to hear if I’ve been accepted and even more excited to get started in the program (assuming I’m accepted). I took a lot of time writing my essays so I haven’t been reading as much. I did finish one of the books on my list and I am nearly done with another.

I’m looking forward to getting back to my YA bestsellers and posting why I think they’re awesome!

Incarceron: Catherine Fisher

Incarceron was a trip. It was a little slow to get into, but once I was in, I was hooked. When I mean slow, it wasn’t that it had too little action or too much narration. It was because there was a lot of sci-fi, alternate world stuff going on that was a little hard to follow at first—at least for me. It might be completely different for someone else.

But, like I said, Incarceron was a trip. Fans of Hunger Games might want to give it a try. They are completely different stories, of course, but have the same sort of vibe.

And like Hunger Games, Incarceron was a best seller because of it’s …

High Stakes

Think Shawshank Redemption, but on crack. Try breaking out of a prison that’s alive, doesn’t want you to leave, and can kill you at whim. Talk about stacking the deck.

Here’s how Fisher did it:

1. Finn aka Giles (the lost prince) finds a key and believes it’s his means to escape Incarceron.
2. He gets help from the outside, the Warden’s daughter, Claudia, who has been looking for the entrance for Incarceron her whole life, not to mention the lost prince, and has never found either.
3. The prison doesn’t want Finn/Giles to leave and leaving isn’t that easy when Incarceron is smaller than an ice cube.

I really liked the imaginative world that Catherine Fisher created. With every page, she left me wondering what will the prison do next and what “really” is Incarceron. Even though the prison was a larger-than-life place, all the work it took to develop it would have been meaningless without the stakes that Fisher created.

I think Incarceron is a good example of a balance between world-building and plot. Fisher was able to blend both perfectly and, in doing so, she crafted an engaging and enjoying story while at the same time showing us a crazy world within worlds.

For those of us that want to recreate the same in our own manuscripts, it’s important to remember that too much focus on world-building without the same amount of attention on the plot will end up destroying both efforts.

Shiver: Maggie Stiefvater

I was super excited when I heard a rumor that Shiver wasn’t a series and that I’d actually get some closure from a YA book, especially a YA paranormal romance. It was a complete psych-out and book number two, Linger, will be coming out July 20, 2010.

Shiver is another paranormal romance that has risen to bestseller status. On a side note, I really liked the atmosphere of the story. It felt cold. Weather played a big part and Stiefvater did a good job of making "temperature" just as salient as the characters and the setting.

Even so, I don’t think Stiefvater’s ability to bring out details was the reason it was a bestseller. However, she did do one thing that I have yet to see in other paranormal romance. Whether or not it is the reason for its popularity is debatable, but it’s worth mentioning.

What separated Shiver from other paranormal romance was because of it’s ….

Point of View

Shiver was from the viewpoint of both love interests (the wolf-boy and the girl) in the first person. This is no easy feat, but because Stiefvater was able to pull it off, it provided a greater depth to the characters. We were able to see the world from their eyes and the eyes of others.

There really is no “how she did” type of explanation, but I think if this is going to be replicated certain rules will have to be adhered.

1. Who?

a. You must clearly write out who is taking the lead. Make it blatantly obvious. The reader must know right away whose head they are in or they will only get confused.
b. Stiefvator titled each chapter with the name of the character. It wasn’t fancy, but it worked and left no room for confusion.

2. Voice

a. Character voice is going to be really important. Readers are going to figure out right away if the boy and the girl sound exactly the same. I doubt the reaction will be good.
b. Stiefvator used little things about the characters to separate them. For example, Sam was a musician and he’d break out in lyrics, making his voice guyish. Grace would worry and ruminate, making her voice sound girly.

I liked Shiver’s point of view and I think Stiefvater skillfully handled it. Something like this could easily unravel. It’s really important in working with dual point of views to make the voices and POV completely clear to the reader or you’ll lose them.

Beautiful Creatures: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

The first thing I noticed about Beautiful Creatures was how thick it was. In a world of edit, edit, edit, it was surprisingly fat. Instead of bogging down, I think the chunkiness gave the book some of its charm. It forced me to enjoy the story and not rush to the finish line to know “what happens.”

Apparently, I was not the only one and Beautiful Creatures was able to plop its beefy butt on the bestseller list.

Here was why:

Characters

This story was all about the characters… getting to know them, loving them, and rooting for them. It was a love story, in an old school kind of way, and its enchantment was not so much the magic, but the way the characters related to each other, their families, and their community.

Here’s how Garcia and Stohl did it:

1. Both love interests felt incomplete and lonely until they meet.
2. Numerous obstacles try to keep the lovers apart.
3. The lovers create obstacles by trying to stay together.
4. In the end, love conquers all with the promise that more obstacles are on the way.

Like I said, this is an “old school” love story where the characters have to sacrifice to be together. From a writers perspective, Beautiful Creatures is a good example that we can still break the rules, write like we want to write, tell the story in our own time and pace, and still be successful … just as long as we have the characters to sustain it.