SYNOPSIS WRITING THE WARRIOR-WRITER WAY

Most writers dread writing the dreaded synopsis. I think there is a very good reason for this. As we learn our craft, we are told to make sure every word, every sentence, every paragraph, ever scene has purpose. We are told to write tight. There can be nothing in our novels that could be tossed out. Every thing has to move our plot/characters forward. Therefore, how can you leave anything out of a synopsis!!!!!!!!! I mean, every thing in my book is important to the plot and characters because I wrote tight, right?

Here are the two lessons I learned from Bob Mayer (@Iwhodareswins on twitter) when I took his writers workshop last fall.

Lesson 1) Avoid what I like to call "and then this happened" syndrome. The very first synopsis Bob ever critiqued of mine, he told me that I had a lot of "incidents" in the synopsis but not conflict. Where was the conflict? What was the main conflict? How did it escalate? Also in the body of the critique were a lot of "why is this important?" or "I'm confused - who is this? what does he/she have to do with the main story line?" and even "I don't get this" of course my favorite is "I'm lost". At the end of the critique he told me that it was confusing because I had so many characters and every possible subplot that he got confused. He suggested I focus on three characters - the protagonist, the antagonist and one supporting character. He also said something about Narrative Structure, but I didn't hear him that time. I was stuck on how lost he was on what I thought was a great story. Sigh. So, I tried again.

Lesson 2) So, I'm a gluten for punishment. I asked Bob to do another paid critique. Here are some of the comments. I learned a little, but still not there yet. "OK - this is getting confusing" and "This character seems shoved in here" and "this is a coincidence" then "Feel like we skipped over the entire book" which lead to this "the focus is too much on the climatic scene". His final comments were something like "Overall, not bad. Too much focus on the ending. What is the inciting incident? Escalating conflict? and you have a big plot hole". So, here I added the climatic scene, but focused too much on it. Was better, but not there yet.

Lesson 3) I really enjoy having my work critiqued by this man. I'm actually not joking. He makes you think. So, I flew across the country and went to his Writers workshop. Once again, I got a critique. Here is what he had to say this time. "Good idea, but question is why would someone do this?" and "Why? This seems like an abrupt shift" and then "this is a confusing paragraph" next comment was my favorite because it means I did something right "interesting". Hey, if you can get that man to think something is interesting, well, damn it, it's interesting. But, critique not over yet. "You need to explain this" and then final comments were "Who exactly is the protagonist? Your ending is a huge let down. What is the pay off to the reader?"

OK - so, what have do I get from all of this. My synopsis writing is getting better. What I like the most about Bob's critiques is that he never tells you something is wrong, or bad, he asks you questions, forces you to really think about what is going on in your story and then you get to write it down. He gives you tools - like 3 characters, follow narrative structure, keep it simple. Yeah, sounds simple, well, seriously, if you follow it - Inciting incident, Escalating conflict (turning points) Dark moment, Climax and Resolution, and keep it to that, don't add anything else, you will have a very simple and precise synopsis of your book that is understandable and an exciting read, which is what you want.

Lesson 4) I will let you know when I finish current WIP and have Bob critique that opening and synopsis.