The dread synopsis, in theory and practice
I'm not sure how many on my f-list are at all interested in the nitty-gritty of novel writing, but I just posted this on my Amazon blog for Racing the Dark.
And look at this! (Scroll down to page 6)
Theories vary on when is the best time to write a synopsis for your novel. Now, you might ask yourself why you have to write one at all, but the fact is that unless your name is Stephen King or Danielle Steel, you can't sell a novel without a synopsis. So, when to do it? Some people advise you to hash it out before you do any actual writing of the novel. Now, chances are things will change, but the more detailed and the more thought-out your story is before you write it--so this thinking goes--the fewer major edits you will have to make after the fact. In this wide-angle view, you have a clearer look at potential problems, and less emotional stress cleaning them up (oh, it can be so hard to murder hard-written plot threads for the sake of greater good). On the other hand, regimenting yourself so early into a plot before you've really gotten a chance to explore and get to know your characters can kill all of the good parts of a story before you've written them. I can't tell you the number of times I was sure that I would write a certain scene in a story, only to get to the point where the scene should be and realize that previous events had made it impossible to write. Things change when you create a story. It's one of the joys of writing. Thus, I can't get behind the "full synopsis before you write" theory.
The opposite end of the spectrum are the people (like, incidentally, Stephen King) who say you should only have the barest idea of the premise of your story, with detailed knowledge of the characters and let them dictate the course of your novel. It will surprise you and the reader, and feel far more organic than some progrommatic top-down dictation of events. Just write the damn novel and worry about a synopsis later. There are a few problems with this approach. First, as I can personally attest, it is incredibly, monumentally difficult to distill a 400-page novel into a 12-page synopsis. You have to ignore whole chunks of subplot and character development. Scenes that you might have spent weeks crafting are suddenly inconsequential to the condensed story you have to tell. And to make matters worse, it's incredibly difficult to tell which stuff is superfluous and which is central. I've spent weeks rewriting synopses when I've had to do them entirely after the fact. The second problem is that once you hammer your synopsis in place, chances are you will see some major flaws in the structure of your previously free-floating, outline-free novel. And that's when the rewriting begins...
Thus, I'd like to propose a third way, which I have been trying out (mostly by accident) with one of my side novel projects. So, let's say you have an idea for a novel. You're really excited about it, so you spend some time scribbling out vague ideas, character descriptions, possible plot events and (if it's a fantasy or SF novel) the world your story takes place in. None of this pre-planning is an actual synopsis and it's utterly indispensable to the process of writing a novel. Now, what do you do? Do you just hack out 2,000 words a day, wily-nilly until you've finished? Do you struggle to write a bona fide synopsis? Actually, you write the first third of the novel. Just sit down, hang out with your characters and a vague sense of where the plot should go, and write the first third. Then stop. Consider. Edit...and write the synopsis. Once you've done the big "explore all the possibilities" in the first third, you have a clear enough grasp on what probably needs to happen at the end that a synopsis won't lock you into something too onerous. And even better, if your proposed plot has a problem, you'll be able to see it before you've committed all of your energy to the last two thirds.
I suppose I must add a caveat my proposed third way, which is that I haven't actually finished the book and for all I know the finished product will deviate so much from my carefully prepared outline that I'll have to scrap the whole thing and start anew. In which case, I might as well have done method #2 in the first place and saved myself some trouble. I have a feeling, however, that giving yourself some structure after giving yourself the creative freedom necessary to make things interesting is a very good idea. It's pretty much guaranteed that your synopsis will have to change somewhat once you've finished the novel. And I certainly recommend taking a good look at a proposed plot turn if it's giving you writer's block. If you don't know how to write it, then maybe you shouldn't.
But when I've finished this synopsis experiment, I'll let you know how it goes.
Alaya
And look at this! (Scroll down to page 6)
Theories vary on when is the best time to write a synopsis for your novel. Now, you might ask yourself why you have to write one at all, but the fact is that unless your name is Stephen King or Danielle Steel, you can't sell a novel without a synopsis. So, when to do it? Some people advise you to hash it out before you do any actual writing of the novel. Now, chances are things will change, but the more detailed and the more thought-out your story is before you write it--so this thinking goes--the fewer major edits you will have to make after the fact. In this wide-angle view, you have a clearer look at potential problems, and less emotional stress cleaning them up (oh, it can be so hard to murder hard-written plot threads for the sake of greater good). On the other hand, regimenting yourself so early into a plot before you've really gotten a chance to explore and get to know your characters can kill all of the good parts of a story before you've written them. I can't tell you the number of times I was sure that I would write a certain scene in a story, only to get to the point where the scene should be and realize that previous events had made it impossible to write. Things change when you create a story. It's one of the joys of writing. Thus, I can't get behind the "full synopsis before you write" theory.
The opposite end of the spectrum are the people (like, incidentally, Stephen King) who say you should only have the barest idea of the premise of your story, with detailed knowledge of the characters and let them dictate the course of your novel. It will surprise you and the reader, and feel far more organic than some progrommatic top-down dictation of events. Just write the damn novel and worry about a synopsis later. There are a few problems with this approach. First, as I can personally attest, it is incredibly, monumentally difficult to distill a 400-page novel into a 12-page synopsis. You have to ignore whole chunks of subplot and character development. Scenes that you might have spent weeks crafting are suddenly inconsequential to the condensed story you have to tell. And to make matters worse, it's incredibly difficult to tell which stuff is superfluous and which is central. I've spent weeks rewriting synopses when I've had to do them entirely after the fact. The second problem is that once you hammer your synopsis in place, chances are you will see some major flaws in the structure of your previously free-floating, outline-free novel. And that's when the rewriting begins...
Thus, I'd like to propose a third way, which I have been trying out (mostly by accident) with one of my side novel projects. So, let's say you have an idea for a novel. You're really excited about it, so you spend some time scribbling out vague ideas, character descriptions, possible plot events and (if it's a fantasy or SF novel) the world your story takes place in. None of this pre-planning is an actual synopsis and it's utterly indispensable to the process of writing a novel. Now, what do you do? Do you just hack out 2,000 words a day, wily-nilly until you've finished? Do you struggle to write a bona fide synopsis? Actually, you write the first third of the novel. Just sit down, hang out with your characters and a vague sense of where the plot should go, and write the first third. Then stop. Consider. Edit...and write the synopsis. Once you've done the big "explore all the possibilities" in the first third, you have a clear enough grasp on what probably needs to happen at the end that a synopsis won't lock you into something too onerous. And even better, if your proposed plot has a problem, you'll be able to see it before you've committed all of your energy to the last two thirds.
I suppose I must add a caveat my proposed third way, which is that I haven't actually finished the book and for all I know the finished product will deviate so much from my carefully prepared outline that I'll have to scrap the whole thing and start anew. In which case, I might as well have done method #2 in the first place and saved myself some trouble. I have a feeling, however, that giving yourself some structure after giving yourself the creative freedom necessary to make things interesting is a very good idea. It's pretty much guaranteed that your synopsis will have to change somewhat once you've finished the novel. And I certainly recommend taking a good look at a proposed plot turn if it's giving you writer's block. If you don't know how to write it, then maybe you shouldn't.
But when I've finished this synopsis experiment, I'll let you know how it goes.
Alaya