It’s quite difficult to reduce the story of seven characters across five books into a one or two page synopsis. In the end I decided to start from scratch (instead of building from the one I wrote for the first book) and approach it from a direction of cheerfully screwing over half my characters. This worked surprisingly well.
Now it reads as if there are only four of them. Which makes me wince. (You can’t see it but I’m doing it right now.) For some reason the cheerful brutality of cutting them out of the synopsis is almost as painful as hitting them with rocks. It feels like I’m telling them they don’t matter. Which… no. I care. I am all about the caring. But five books in less than two pages and suddenly I am being violently frivolous with their dreams and pains.
And I’ve sort of left out my favourite subplot. Which is just sad.
Also, possibly not good. Because sometimes I think I should be selling that subplot. If you’re looking at What makes this different from your average fantasy novel? this is definitely one of those things. But it’s not… okay, it is important. But it’s not the point.* And I’m sort of afraid that if I raise it at all people will think it is.
And… now that I have vagued at you enough to be thoroughly frustrating I’m going to try to sweep this thing into shape.
It’s do-able. I think. Providing I don’t trip over my own feet or walk into a wall or something trying to get on the internet. What? It happens.
* It’d be like getting all wrapped up in the fact that Luke Skywalker is an excellent pilot. He is. And it’s occasionally relevant to the plot. But that’s not what Star Wars is about.
Kandace Mavrick
Paul McLaughlan
David
28/06/2012
Who would have thought the synopsis would be almost as difficult as the story itself? Did you have a prototype synopsis in the beginning to plot the main points in the greater storyline arc?
Kandace Mavrick
28/06/2012
Nooo. I guess I carry that stuff around in the back of my mind whenever I’m working on the book. It’s not getting it on paper in a general form I have a problem with. It’s trying to make it sound interesting and exciting rather than utterly flat. The balance between informative and stylish, I guess. And not wanting to overload the reader with too much information…
David
28/06/2012
You are right how hard it is to get everything covered succinctly, AND keep it interesting. My first book synopsis only mentions two of the fourteen main characters, so the rest are covered in theother six synopses. Personally, a synopsis helps keep focus if other crazy ideas try to work their way in haha.
Rosemary
28/06/2012
Not too many spoilers?
Kandace Mavrick
28/06/2012
ALL THE SPOILERS!