Friday, January 30, 2009

The Dreaded Synopsis

After writing an 80,000 word story, you’d think a 800 word synopsis of the story would be a breeze…NOT. I would rather write five full length stories than one synopsis. I’ve taken workshops, read article after article on how to write the perfect synopsis, and have written several which have led to contracts, but I still cringe at the thought of writing one.

My Texas Ranger story, The Wedding Plan, is complete. My critique partners gave their insights, my beta reader reviewed it, and I’ve gone over it several times. Now, I have to write the synopsis so I can query it.

This story is about Texas Ranger Brenner Adams who is hell-bent on catching the cattle rustler that’s responsible for the deaths of his family, and decides he needs an Achilles’ heel for the rustler to go after--a bride. The heroine of the story, Crystal Mills agrees to wed a stranger because she’s willing to do anything to keep the children of Sister Mary’s Orphanage off the dreaded orphan trains. Since neither Crystal nor Brenner share their ‘wedding plan’ with the other, the plan goes array from page one.

Set in the sandhills of Nebraska in 1881, it was a fun story to write, and my goal for next week is to write the dreaded synopsis.

This week I was notified I could order advance print copies of Shotgun Bride, which was wonderful because I had several people order copies, and they've been calling to see if they were in yet.

Hope you all have a great week!

1 comment:

Paty Jager said...

A friend calls synopsis- suckopsis. I don't understand how you can write one before you write a book, yet multi-pubbed authors do just that, they sell on a synopsis. ~Sigh~

Good luck on your synopsis!