Writing Wednesdays: Synopses

[mizkit]

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)

Comments

[deborahblakehps]

The synopsis I'm working off of for the current novel (#3 in the Baba Yaga series) is 14,000 words long, about 36 pages--for a book I expect to be about 100,000 words or so. I've pretty much come to the same conclusion you have, that if I do more work up front, I can write a LOT faster.

In this case, I did actually run into a major problem at about the 44,000 word mark (argh), but brainstorming with my main CP came up with a solution that will mostly involve reworking some of what I have already and adding in some new stuff earlier on. A pain in the butt, but I will be able to then go back to using the rest of the outline almost exactly as written.

[merlinofchaos]

After you're done with REDEEMER I'd love to see the various drafts, just to get a feel for what kind of detail you put in the synopsis.

For #2, I'm doing a lot of work-as-I-go with a rough outline (that has some huge holes in it) and a constantly growing bin of various world details that are partly organized. But all told that's only 1850 words, so clearly far less detailed than what you've got there.

In this one, I've already gone back 3 times (and I'm only 25K words in) and added new characters that I didn't have any plans for, but needed to be there, and they're adjusting where the 3rd quarter of the book is going to end up (the part that I'm least certain what's going to happen in).

Anyway, thanks!

[merlinofchaos]

In part, my own personal struggle is that I've had a terrible time figuring out how big of a chunk of story a particular item will be. Sometimes things that work as a sentence in my outline actually work out to not much more than a couple of paragraphs. Sometimes they turn out to be entire chapters. That keeps throwing me and I'm fighting a lack of trust in myself on that note.

[clarentine]

I tend to write an unguided first draft, then a detailed synopsis based on that draft, which I use to locate the plot holes and inconsistencies that unguided method left me with. Then I revise from that synopsis, and stall, and stall, and stall. I hate revision. This is a process that's produced something like eleven finished novels, so I trust it to get me through, but man, I wish the later stage was less painful.

I have tried developing a bit of an outline for the plot beforehand for the most recent couple of books. I promptly went offroad in significant ways. :-) As with your own experience, though, I can see that having worked out the more challenging implications of the storyverse and characters does help. Perhaps I need more outline time at the start.

I think the biggest help, for me, in pre-writing a story is understanding what it is about a particular situation (character-in-plot) I want to explore.