Friday, March 13, 2009

Synopses

Two days ago, I wrote my first synopsis for the Genesis contest. Amazingly difficult to do. Condensing a 90,000-100,000 novel to one single-spaced page? Man, you really have to know your stuff. You have to know exactly where you are going with the story, and exactly how you are going to get there. You have to know who your main characters are and who the extraneous ones are that you don't have to include.

You want to be able to wrap it all up by the end of the page, but not give absolutely every little tidbit away. Ideally, the person reading it would be intrigued enough to want to request a partial or full manuscript.

The consensus from my crit partners was that I did a pretty good job. I felt good about it, which is good. But I'm very anxious to get my feedback from the judges, regardless of how I do in the actual contest. The feedback is what I'm entering for.

So, here's to the Genesis contest submissions and my first synopsis!

2 comments:

PatriciaW said...

You said, Jeannie! If I thought the chapter was rough, writing the synopsis was, well, moving Mt. Vesuvius.

You'll be fine. We'll keep writing so that if we get those requests, we'll be ready for them!

Sherrinda Ketchersid said...

Just wondering...how did you find critique partners? Are they writers themselves? Or just friends and family?