A Synopsis is a Cold Thing

Reading now: Michele Hauf’s Seraphim

SeraphimBeen working for over a week to rewrite my synopsis for River of Stars — now renamed Blooooooodstar. (You must say this title just like Dark Helmet says “Looooonestar” in Spaceballs. . .) — so that I get rejected again by two agents who have requested a partial of the manuscript. Yes, I’m feeling morose despite the fact that I’m actually liking the new version of this synosis.

I still hate squishing my 100K novel down to just a few pages and having to leave out so much good stuff. (OK, so I’ve been rejected several times — maybe it’s not-so-good-stuff).

To make this post even more of a rant I’m going to rail at all of the how-to-write-a-synopsis articles on the internet that basically say “paraphrase your novel, stupid” instead of actually providing examples. Good thing I belong to RWA’s FF&P chapter, because several members have actually offered up samples to other members. I’m exceedingly jealous of Michele Hauf’s writing skills in general, but specifically of her synopsis of Seraphim. It’s a great novel and an even better synopsis. I wonder if I could pay her to write mine?

Oh, but, no, that would be bad, because “money flows to the writer” — even if it takes you longer to write the damn synopsis than it did to write the damn novel. GRRR!

Signing off now to go spank this puppy of a synopsis if it’s the last thing I do.

Quote: J. B. Priestley