The synopsis--the thing that every fiction writer dreads--needs to be written. Yes, that does mean that I've finished my YA novel. You could say that I finished it a long time ago and have spent the last 6+ months editing and polishing something that should have been submitted to agents long ago. You might be right; however, I appear to have a need for my writing to be perfect before I feel comfortable letting go, at least in regards to a novel-length manuscript. Short stories are much easier to polish and submit, and I don't have the same hang-ups about the shorter works that I do about a longer one.
So this synopsis thing...is it really that bad? Maybe not; I'll have to let you know once I've written it. Some agents don't ask for a synopsis, but a lot do, and the query letter is almost more important than the actual manuscript. If your query doesn't grab an agent's attention, he'll move on to the next one and you'll be stuck submitting elsewhere. A writer always hopes that submitting to agents won't be a long, drawn out affair, but sometimes it turns out that way.
Here's what goes into a synopsis:
1. Hook: a paragraph or two similar to the blurb on a book dust jacket. It's gotta grab attention.
2. Introduction of characters: who are these folks you're writing about?
3. The body: the entire story in chronological order.
4. Crisis and resolution: the ending
5. Now go back and rewrite all of that until it's perfect, but don't take 10 years to do it.
Easy, right? Well, we shall see.
No comments:
Post a Comment