| Writing the Synopsis (or…Time Spent in Hell) – March 4, 2008 |
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| Written by Gordon Carroll | |
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 word “SYN” (aka “SIN”) being at the front of the word is just a coincidence? Hmmmmmm, do you? Are you really that naïve? That gullible? Well not me. No sir! I have written twenty-three… count them… twenty-three different versions of a synopsis for Sleeping Dogs… so far. Everywhere from twelve pages down to one page, and let me tell ya… it ain’t a walk in the park.Ok, enough venting. Let’s get down to work (evil work). I read several books and numerous articles on the subject and I still stink at it. I finally had to have my buddy Mark Ortler come over and read a few hundred more articles on the  subject with me (he only helped me on the big words). After that I started writing… and writing… and writing… and… (well you get the idea, or at least you will when you try writing one… ha-ha-ha-ha-hee-hee-hee-ha-ha-ha…er… sorry).So, where to start? First the disclaimer… I’m no expert on the field. I’m still in training. I’ve sat in the audience of several agent and editor panels at writing conventions on this subject and they make it sound so easy. I find it  not to be so. It’s hard. Like writing a term paper for college. About as distant from the free flowing joy of writing fiction as you can get. Still, it’s the way it is and if we want to be famous, rich authors with published masterpieces that will thrill the world, making people laugh and cry and scream and faint and neat stuff like that, then we will have to put in the work. (Poop!)Now, on to the actual job of writing the synopsis… oops, ran out of time (shucks). Okay, next blog we will begin the laborious, tedious, grinding, arduous, back-breaking, mind-bending stuff of actually putting pen to paper, or phalanges to keys, and start pumping out some words. Until then… don’t let the monkey shoot you. |
Ok, I’ve finally found something more horrible than having to write
query letters. WRITING A SYNOPSIS! ARRRRrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhh!I’ve gotten to speak to several authors who started out writing in the last century (you know, the one we just left, the 20th century), writers like, Judith Guest
(Ordinary People) and Robert Crais (Hostage, and the Elvis Cole mysteries) and Rupert Holmes (Escape- The Pina Colada Song, Novel-Where the Truth Lies), and Dan Simmons (Children of the Night) and Rebecca Hill (Blue Rise), and they all say they never had to write a synopsis, and they can’t imagine having to condense a three or five hundred page book into one or two pages.I nominate them for future Editors and Agents.| < Prev | Next > |
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