Writing Wednesdays: Synopses

My latest question from the peanut gallery was about how I write synopses. Or at least, I think that’s what it was about: the entirety of the question, actually, was, “Synopsis?” :) I’ve talked about writing synopses before at least once, in depth, as part of the Great Plot Synopsis Project (warning: that contains the entirety of the (2 page) synopsis for URBAN SHAMAN, and is therefore spoilery). However, that was written in early 2008, and I have Changed My Process since then. Specifically, in fact, I’ve changed it in…

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whoosh!

MAGIC & MANNERS is off to the editor. I’ve lined up a copy editor, the cover artist is working on the cover art (as she can; poor woman broke her arm!), and I’ve got a couple people I need to talk to about book layout. I also need…to think about what I’m doing with ISBNs, and I need to grit my teeth and delve into the Ingrams system, as I don’t see myself suddenly being flush enough with cash to hire someone to deal with that for me, much as…

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We have synopsis!

I *just* about finished up the REDEEMER synopsis last night. In fact, I called it done even though I knew there was more I could put in. I thought it was primarily emotional storyline stuff and probably wouldn’t make *that* much difference to the synopsis as a whole, but in a fit of Covering All Bases (I guess) this morning I decided to go ahead and put those bits in. Somewhat to my surprise, what happened with the addition of those 400 words was the whole thing suddenly came together…

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still synopsizing

I’m still working on the REDEEMER synopsis. I’d been living in this magical-thinking place where I thought I could the half-worldbuilding-totally-SPLAAAH synopsis I was roughing as the Actual Synopsis, since I wasn’t going to have to send it to anybody. Turned out I can’t, even if it’s *not* going to anybody else. It was too chaotic and unstructured, so despite the fact that I’ve got thousands of words of worldbuilding & synopsis, I’ve now got…thousands of words of new synopsis. I did about 8K–actually, including the *original* synopsis, more like…

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two steps forward…

I’ve been working on my detailed synopsis for REDEEMER this week. It’s going pretty well, actually: I’ve done about 5k–well, I’ve probably written 7 or 8K, including random thoughts about worldbuilding and stuff–and I’ve opened it up to my Brainstorming Filter, which–I’ve always brainstormed with Ted and my friend Trent, but previous to STONE’S THROE I’d never done *much* brainstorming outside of them. I needed help with STONE’S THROE and opened it up to a small group of friends and writers (don’t ask, I won’t put you on it), and…

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