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Query-Synopsis How-to: Stick to the Facts
by Layla Chase

Your project is written, revised and polished until it can be seen from outer space. (well, almost) You're ready to present your baby to an editor to see if it finds a new home-hopefully, with the publisher of your dreams. Now that you've trained yourself to construct your sentences with enough specific detail to create vivid mental images and shown the emotions of your characters, you have to switch gears and tell the story in the query letter and synopsis. Oh, and change verb tense to present.

Provide a Quick Overview

In a query letter, you are providing the editor (or agent) with a quick overview of the story and a small bit of information about you the writer. Three or four paragraphs are a good length. The first paragraph is purely factual-title of work, word count and the line targeted and or sub-genre. "My manuscript, Hanna's Promise, is complete at 67,500 words and is a historical story set on the American prairie."

Not The Place for Backstory

Next, you state the plot in one or two paragraphs giving the characters' goal, motivation and conflict. Some authors create a paragraph for the heroine and one for the hero; other authors weave the two together. This is not the place for lots of backstory. For one-paragraph queries, the characters could be described only by their professions. Here's an example from my own writing.

"In 1874 Kansas, Hanna Jakobsdotter, a 20-year old Swedish immigrant, struggles to keep her parents' deaths secret from the townspeople so she can fulfill a promise. Their last wish was for Hanna to secure the homestead for her younger sister and brother. Desperate to keep her family together, Hanna strikes a bargain with parolee Cord Ballard, a half-breed fighting to clear his name. They agree to a marriage of convenience until fall-with conditions. Once the crop is in and she gains title to her land and Cord discovers who framed him, they'll part ways. Hanna's afraid to love because the folks she's loved die, and Cord yearns to return to the solitude of his family's Colorado land. Too independent for their own good, Cord and Hanna struggle to live up to the terms of their agreement. But working side-by-side and sharing evenings with the children bring them close-closer than they ever imagined. When a tornado strikes, Hanna despairs about honoring her promise until Cord shows her home is wherever a family makes one."

Sell Yourself

A final paragraph relays information about you-list other publishing credits, contest wins, member of professional writing organizations or awards won. If this is your first venture into publishing, don't fill this spot with comments about how much your family and friends love your story. End the letter with a statement like "I look forward to hearing from you regarding [title of story]."

Follow The Publisher's Guidelines

The synopsis goes into more depth than the query letter. Usually, the publisher's guidelines will control the synopsis length. One method is to expand every sentence in the query summation to a paragraph or two. In this example, more details about 'keeping her parents' deaths secret' are that Hanna nursed her parents and other siblings through a horrible winter influenza epidemic and now is maintaining the pretense that her parents have taken the children to a neighboring town big enough to have a hospital. A half-breed parolee definitely needs an explanation.

In the synopsis, include these essential plot points: first meeting of hero and heroine, first attraction, first physical act, realization of love, crisis in relationship, climax of plot and resolution. Be sure to point out the traditional romance hook-reunion, secret baby, woman in jeopardy, amnesia, marriage of convenience, etc. Keep the focus tight on the growing romantic attachment of the characters. Use sufficient setting and research details to demonstrate the story will contain historical and/or contemporary accuracy.

No Dialogue, please

What can be excluded are snippets of dialogue, secondary characters (unless they are pivotal to the resolution of plot), vagueness about the ending, too many details about setting or unnecessary details about plot. Your synopsis should be an example of your writing-sprinkled with humor or sarcasm, world-building or everyday life. The editor or agent needs to get a feel for your voice.

My last hint is to do a final polish edit to make your query and synopsis shine-you don't get a second chance to make a first impression.

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The Proper Care & Feeding of Your Muse
by Allie Standifer

 

Muses, Like Children, Must Be Fed

Today almost every whim we could imagine is available at the touch of a button. Entertainment is streamed through our computers, Wiis and Blu Rays with an easy finger click. With all but the mental challenges gone, how is a romance writer supposed to inspire and grow her muse? Where's the brain fodder for a starving imagination?

There's More To The Little Old Lady Than Meets The Eye

By using everything and everyone around you as fodder for your imagination there are no limits, no boundaries and no legal restrictions in the quest to feed a hungry muse. A boring trip to the grocery store? Not anymore, not when the sweet-faced older lady in the electric wheelchair is really a chameleon shifter scouting for her dinner.

Or the husky man with the uni-brow and bad breath handing you the dry-cleaning? He's an evil Baron cast out of eighteenth century England for crimes against his country.

Waiting in line at the doctor's office is normally such a pain, but not if you're busy growing your muse. The nurse behind the desk, the one you know always secretly snoops through patient's charts, is a spy for a terrorist and is waiting for the perfect moment to stun the city with a list of patient names and their real weight.

Life Is The Best Muse There Is

Life is full of perfect plots, characters and humor-if your imagination is healthy enough to interpret them.

When you're a writer, there are no constraints to what you can and can't do within the limitless boundaries of your mind. Your muse will continue to grow and flourish so long as you care for her properly. This means regular feedings, frequent bouts of mental exercise with various plots and characters and plenty of time to play.

All Work And No Play

Playtime for the growing muse is almost as important as feeding time. Without a break, our muse would grow weary and lack the focus and energy to create a drop of rain much less an entire rainbow.

So read your favorite author's new release, go watch the hunky screen hero battle the six-legged dragon at the movies or pop in your ear buds for a freaky funky dance-a-thon. Better yet, do nothing at all. Simply sit back, close your eyes and let the world pass you by. Think of nothing more important than breathing in and out. This exercise gives your muse a chance to rest and catch up.

You can't keep your muse healthy working her twenty-four seven. Even the most passionate of writers needs to stop every once in a while to color the roses.

Keep your muse healthy and happy by throwing away the reins and enjoy the ride. You'll never know where the journey will take you.

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Time for Weeding
by Betty Hanawa

Spring has come and people are busy in gardens. Not only are they planting new flowers, fruits, and vegetables, they're also busily pulling out weeds to make their gardens the best they can be.

Like a garden, a manuscript also needs to be weeded. Does each word choice enhance the manuscript or weaken it?

How Do I Recognize A Weed?

Look at sentence tags first. "'Speak, speak, speak,' he smiled." is a weak way to get across an emotion. In the first place, why did he smile? Whose point of view is it? Using an action verb (smile, frowned, grimaced, etc.) as a sentence tag doesn't give the reader the emotional turmoil of either the speaker or the listener.

Examples:
1. "Speak, speak, speak," he said, hoping his smile eased the sting of his sarcasm.
2. "Speak, speak, speak," he said.

His accompanying smile did nothing to relieve the humiliation she felt at his sarcastic remark.

Pull out the action word sentence tag. Use "said" and fertilize the emotions for a more interesting read.

Adverb-itis

Another aspect of weeds in a manuscript is overuse of adverbs, adjectives, similes, and metaphors. These slow the action and don't show the characters' emotions.

Example: Her long, flowing locks of dark ebony hair drifted like a curtain across her face. She irritatingly twisted her hair, feeling the silken tresses slide through her fingers, behind her head and secured the figure-eight chignon with a paint brush recently used to paint the vermilion, fully blooming roses. Once again she considered employing a hairstylist to judiciously trim her hair to prevent this type of distraction, but time was of the essence. She hastened to paint once again for the commission she needed to get to pay the rent now in arrears.

Are you asleep yet?

Try it another way:

When her hair got in her eyes, she snatched it with both hands. She ignored the sharp tugs on her scalp as she scraped the long hair into a tight figure-eight and stuck a paint brush through it to keep it in place. The brush's still wet red paint didn't faze her a bit. Acrylics easily washed off. She needed to get the hair cut, but she didn't have time. She needed this commission. The rent was late again.

Don't let weedy words detract from your great plot and terrific characters. A well-tended garden pleases everyone. A tightly written, enjoyable book gets published.

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Spreading the Love Around
by Desiree Holt

Your Reader Is On A Need-To-Know Basis!

Okay, you're sitting at the computer, ready to start writing your story. You have a) a plot idea, or b) an outline or c) a full synopsis, depending on how compulsive you are. You want your readers to fall in love with your characters and you want them engaged in the story. Warning here: be careful. Don't tell them everything at once or you lose them by Chapter Three.

Why I'd rather do ANTHING than write!
by Eve Savage

Perfect Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be

Stop and Feed the Muse!
by Shayla Kersten

 

Has Spring Really Arrived?