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The elusive selling synopsis....
I've been reading (and doing the exercises, thank you very much) a book called WRITING THE FICTION SYNOPSIS: A step by step approach by Pam McCutcheon. I feel I've always had competent synopses--indeed, I even wrote an article once on a smart, five page synopsis style--but between illness and overwork, I haven't been trusting my instincts lately.
Especially, could I change the focus of a synopsis, to try and sell it to another market--without doing a rewrite of the book? If the book needs anything, it needs 1% tweaking. But first, I want to know if anyone wants to buy it. So I must present it to a new market.
So I need to look AT the book in a new way. I heard that Pam's book was a good one, so I thought I'd try her system.
The fascinating thing is, this **is** how I write a synopsis--a working synopsis. Almost topic sentences for scenes, etc. But I've never tried to do this and then pare it down to a selling synopsis.
So I'm halfway through re-reading and writing up topic sentences/paragraphs for each scene. And I've gotten so much out of the book so far, that even if I do not come up with a synopsis I like--I've learned so much about my own thought processes in creation, I think I'll lay out books with her technique before writing them, just to see if it shortens the "fumbling around until the note is true" portion of starting a book.
I'll let you know if I like the synopsis.
Especially, could I change the focus of a synopsis, to try and sell it to another market--without doing a rewrite of the book? If the book needs anything, it needs 1% tweaking. But first, I want to know if anyone wants to buy it. So I must present it to a new market.
So I need to look AT the book in a new way. I heard that Pam's book was a good one, so I thought I'd try her system.
The fascinating thing is, this **is** how I write a synopsis--a working synopsis. Almost topic sentences for scenes, etc. But I've never tried to do this and then pare it down to a selling synopsis.
So I'm halfway through re-reading and writing up topic sentences/paragraphs for each scene. And I've gotten so much out of the book so far, that even if I do not come up with a synopsis I like--I've learned so much about my own thought processes in creation, I think I'll lay out books with her technique before writing them, just to see if it shortens the "fumbling around until the note is true" portion of starting a book.
I'll let you know if I like the synopsis.