Comments on: The Dreaded Synopsis

By: Jay

Jay — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 01:17:32 +0000

*sigh* this Firefox/Greasemonkey workaround to kick off a backtrack ping from my Blogger account doesn’t seem to be working.

I quoted some lines from this entry in my collateraltales blog:
http://collateraltales.blogspot.com/2008/08/synopses-and-excerpts.html

Cheers,
^_^J.

By: collateral tales

collateral tales — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:57:14 +0000

Synopses and Excerpts…

Here’s a nice post on the subject of writing synopses by Tate Hallaway on www.sfnovelists.com. Tate cries out:“If I could distill the story into clever sound bytes, I’d be an advertising mogul, not a……

By: Jerry Gordon

Jerry Gordon — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:24:44 +0000

I would recommend checking out the Plot Synopsis Project. Twenty-five authors offered up online examples of at least one successful synopsis with commentary on the process of writing it.

http://jpsorrow.livejournal.com/143076.html#cutid5

By: Chris Dolley

Chris Dolley — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:33:45 +0000

And if you’re submitting to agents there’s the added fun of having to write several synopses to meet each agent’s preferences concerning length. So you have the one paragraph pitch, the one page snappy synopsis, the however-many-pages-you-need-to-explain-the-really-clever-magic-system-that-makes-your-book-so-special synopsis…

And don’t even mention the chapter synopsis:)

By: Adam Heine

Adam Heine — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:35:21 +0000

I like Alma’s idea. It’s a lot easier for me to see the big picture in somebody else’s story than my own.

I like what Tate always ends up screaming. For me it was always, “If I could have written the story shorter, I WOULD HAVE!”

By: Alma Alexander

Alma Alexander — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:59:33 +0000

Or should we all just write each other’s synopses…? (perhaps we’re all too close to our own work…)

By: Simon Haynes

Simon Haynes — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:32:29 +0000

Has anyone thought of dictating their synopsis into the computer, talking about the major points & characters and repeating them until it’s close to what they need? Then they could just play back the best ones and type them up.

Sometimes changing the media is all you need to find the right message.

By: Karen Wester Newton

Karen Wester Newton — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:07:16 +0000

I always compare writing a synopsis to giving birth to a bowling ball&mdash it’s bound to be painful, and it’s never what you were hoping for.

By: Kelly McCullough

Kelly McCullough — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:58:31 +0000

For those who are interested, I did a series of posts on this over at the Wyrdsmiths blog where Tate also posts: One Two Three Four

By: S.C. Butler

S.C. Butler — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:43:17 +0000

“If I could distill the story into clever sound bytes, I’d be an advertising mogul, not a novelist!”

Exactly.

Then again, as you point out, most of my latest synopsis looks like it’s going to end up on the dust jacket. So you’re right: much as we might like to, we can’t just blow the damn thing off.