Synopsis Spotlight: As If I Were A River

A blog-reader has offered this synopsis of her book for us (you and me) to advise and comment on. Many of you will remember that I often have a "Synopsis Spotlight" - I'm still doing this every now and then. I can't use every one that is sent to me, for various reasons, but I try to include those that I think offer some useful teaching points. I do not include those that I think are so far from

DEAR CRABBIT: synopsis for a trilogy?

Dear CrabbitI read 'Write A Great Synopsis' ( which I thoroughly enjoyed). I have a question regarding the submission. 

What of a trilogy? Do I include the synopsis for all three books and take three times the length to give the full outcome of the novel, or do I simply give the synopsis to the first book and no conclusion? Is it presumptious to give the synopsis for all three books, will it be

Write a Great Synopsis launches at a crazy intro price! Wot? AND Tweet Right??

Announcing the launch of Write a Great Synopsis - hooray! All your troubles are at an end. Well, the ones relating to writing synopses, anyway. And that's quite enough to be going on with.

To celebrate, I have a crazy price promotion until the end of January: Write a GREAT Synopsis and Tweet Right - The Sensible Person's Guide to Twitter will each be stupid cheap on Amazon. I'm aiming for 99p,

Synopsis Spotlight - Kip Cusack and the Spy Formation League

I've chosen this synopsis by Louise Kelly because it nicely shows how you can (and should) convey the tone and voice of your story in your synopsis. Louise's worries whether, although the comic tone fits the novel, some vocab/phrasing doesn't match age range. Also, she introduces a new character right at end. Is this odd/wrong, she asks?

It's a novel for children of 9-11 (I'm guessing.)

Kip

The key to a synopsis is to forget your book

I've always known that the best way to learn something really well is to teach it. You think you know something but until you put it into words for someone else to understand, you don't know if you know it properly. And you might find you don't.

My point? While writing my forthcoming book, Write a Great Synopsis - An Expert Guide, I have learnt something extra about how to write synopses. I

Synopsis Spotlight - The Girl on Winter's Hill

Introducing the second brave synopsis-spotlight-provider, Margaret Kirk. If you don't know how these spotlights work, please read the previous one here, and the post here in which I introduced both the task and my forthcoming book on how to write a synopsis. Which is what all this is leading up to. (And, by the way, I have - I think - chosen my title for the book. To be revealed soon!)
In your

Synopsis Spotlight - Glass Houses

As you know, I'm writing a book on synopsis-writing. Last week, I offered you the chance to have your synopsis put under the spotlight, with a view to a) blog-readers commenting construcively and b) possibly having your synopsis (and some comments) featured in the book as an exemplar. The first brave writer under the spotlight is Jackie Buxton, with Glass Houses, which she says is general fiction

Your synopsis made short, sweet and stress-free

I am writing a book about how to write a great synopsis. I know this will make you fall at my feet in gratitude and that you are already almost literally drooling with anticipation. Possibly even literally, but I prefer not to think about that too closely. Calm yourselves and go and take a cold shower or something.

Because I know it will be hard for some of you to wait for a book of such

WHIPPED INTO SHAPE: Synopsis Special

Whipped into Shape is a series in which a reader of Write to be Published comments or asks a question about something in the book, perhaps asking for further information or sharing their own take on a topic. And then I add answers as appropriate and readers add comments. Today's contribution comes from Joy Spicer, who writes a rather nice looking blog about art, riding and family.

Hi Nicola

SYNOPSIS SPOTLIGHT - Dan Holloway

When blogging about synopses recently, I offered to post here for public comment any synopses you wanted help with. So, here is the first one. The brave writer is regular blog-reader, Dan Holloway.

I'm going to kick off by putting my own comments here first. Mainly because I'm colossally under pressure with deadlines at the moment so I may not manage to comment again in the next couple of days.

SYNOPSIS FOR A NON-LINEAR STORY

Bugger, I am now under serious pressure from Twitter "friends" to say something sensible on this topic. OK, here's the sensible thing: do not make people think that you are going to say something piercing and helpful, when you might not be.

Thing is, I blogged on Tuesday about synopses and foolishly promised to come back today to add something about how to do a synopsis for a non-linear or

SIMPLY SYNOPSES

I have just seen a terrible synopsis. (Not from a P2P client - I would never use a client's material in this way, even anonymously.) No, someone passed it to me, after receiving it from a friend who was wanting advice. Thing is, he didn't actually want advice about the synopsis, because he believed it was brilliant and couldn't understand why agents were rejecting him. But, 'twas awful.

Why?

SYNOPSIS SPOTLIGHT

Remember when I used to do those Submission Spotlights? When brave blog-readers would offer part of a submission for public scrutiny and comment? As you may remember, I stopped doing them when I decided to help people more directly by setting up Pen2Publication.

Well, the other day I was contacted by a newish blog-reader, Siena, who was having problems writing a synopsis. Pen2Publication is

OUTLINE and SYNOPSIS

A request to blog about outlines and another to blog about synopses makes it sensible to do both at the same time. Authors are often frightened about both. Bite the bullet, folks, and do it, OK?

(Erm, I have just read this post of mine from a year ago, in which I professed to be terrified of synopses. Silly me. Maybe I've learnt a lot the last year. Maybe practice makes almost perfect, or at

FROM PITCH TO PUBLICATION by Carole Blake

I know I seem to be here but I am in fact away. I am in London researching a novel. This involves pacing around and absorbing the smells and the feel of the air on my skin. In my novel, I am unlikely to tell you the smells and the feel of the air on my skin but I need to know them. Ideas will come, characters will begin to speak, the story will grow legs. Well, that's the plan. Either that or

WHO'D BE A (SMALL) PUBLISHER?

One of the most ignorant and annoying things that a frustrated unpublished author can say to excuse constant rejection is, "Kuh, publishers  -  they're only in it for the money, of course." What? So you thought they were in it for a free passage to heaven?

Publishing is a business. So is writing, though a weirdly unprofitable one. Yes, many of us are passionate about writing, so passionate that

PS re SYNOPSES

Two PSs, actually, because I can never do one of a thing if two are available.Or maybe even three, because I am, if nothing else, intemperate and unrestrained. I blame my fantasising about those chocolate martinis that Lynn Price goes on about, even though I still don't quite believe in them, Britishy person that I am. I need to see them and the whites of their eyes.Anyway, yes, as Mary says,

WRITING A SYNOPSIS

I hate writing synopses. There are two types of synopsis, or reasons you might write one - let's call them Synopsis Situations - and I hate both. Equally. To be honest, I hate them so much that I've even postponed writing this blog post about them. But eventually, we authors have to get tough with ourselves.Talking about getting tough, someone has told me I go on about chocolate too much. So