Synopsis Critique Seminar #1

After watching writer's struggle with synopsis writing, I decided to start Synopsis Critique Seminars where I post my critiques of the first half of writer's synopsis. Today I have my very first critique of Ashley's YA urban fantasy synopsis. A huge thank you to Ashley for being brave enough to share her synopsis critique with the world. I hope everyone finds these helpful for their own synopsis writing. If you are interested in getting a free critique on my blog please see this post.

As a preface, I will say tend to write lots of comments, ask questions, and try to include examples to explain what I'm talking about and help spur the writer. Since writing is so subjective it is important to note that this is one person's opinion/critique and the writer shouldn't feel obligated to use all or even any of the advice if they feel it doesn't resonate with them and their story.

Without further ado, here is my critique of Ashley's synopsis. My comments are in blue.

Right off the bat, she uses present tense, which is a good way to actively engage the reader in the story. Regardless of what tense your story is in, it's best to use present tense in a synopsis to highlight the action/excitement in the story and draw the reader into the plot.

Adam Shelley usually the first time a new character is introduced in a synopsis you put their name in all CAPS EX: ADAM SHELLEY is sick enough to spit tacks. While the first sentence made me sit up straight and take notice, I found it a little confusing. I can’t tell if he’s actually sick or just sick of something. Based on the next sentence it sounds like sick of being nagged, so maybe consider combining the thoughts in the first and second sentences to get the extra detail to really grab attention without confusing the reader. His Nana keeps riding his ass about the hordes of angry demons chasing him. Which is crap, because demons aren’t real. These last two sentences really help paint a better picture of Adam’s situation and have good voice. Also since this is YA I’d recommend adding Adam's age in the first paragraph.

Too bad his alchemist mom never told him about the devil’s deal she made— and broke— for a Philosopher’s Stone. While this first sentence has some voice I’d consider rewording it a bit to focus the situation from Adam’s perspective since he is the focus. Something like But Adam's mother made a deal with the devil to... (although I'd avoid the cliche I just put in there) After this part I was a little confused, did she break the deal to obtain a philosopher’s stone? And if so maybe a little bit more detail as to what she traded and how this is really going to affect Adam.  Otherwise, Adam might’ve thought twice before chucking his magical ‘mojo’ bag into the river. This last sentence confused me a bit. Adam doesn’t know there are demons but he does know about magic? And I’m not sure what getting rid of magic has to do with the deal his mother made, so if you can connect the two events I think that will help clear up the confusion. Although I’m not sure this sentence is necessary for advancing the plot and you may be able to cut it.

When the demons come to collect, they strew Adam’s guts over the southern oaks like tinsel. What are the demons coming to collect from Adam? And did they really scatter his guts or is that a figure of speech? Sometimes with fantasy and scifi it’s hard to tell literal from metaphorical so try to be as specific as possible. His house is destroyed. His mom is vaporized. The demons probably probably or do? If he isn’t sure maybe say something more like and all clues point to the demons running off with the stone. have the Philosopher’s Stone. And Adam... This reads like the demons have Adam but based on the next paragraph I think you mean that Adam died. If he dies and comes back to life I’d say that because it’s really interesting. Especially since his mom never told him he was immortal!  

By this point I’d also like to have a good idea what Adam’s conflict in the story is. I know he’s just discovered this whole demonic world and that his mother has lied to him, but what is Adam’s overall goal/conflict in the story? Why is Adam’s story so important and what is he trying to do?

Adam isn’t dead. His mom used the Elixir of Life to make him Immortal.

Now he’s caught in the crossfire between the demons and the Immortal Council, rulers of the Spirit World, who fear the Philosopher’s Stone could alter the balance between Heaven and Earth. Here’s the conflict I was looking for. Everything up until now seems like story setup. It’s important to know, however I think you are taking a tad too long to get to this point. So if you can set the story up in one paragraph with 3 or maybe 4 snappy sentences then get to this conflict you will have more time to explain the conflict and how Adam is going to try to resolve it. The Council grants Adam one-thousand days to retrieve the Stone or suffer eternal confinement in Hell. YIKES! This sets up his mission really well, and gives the stakes of the situation if he fails. Nice job!

With his days numbered, Adam and his brother, Nathan, NATHAN embark on the quest a quest to do what? Maybe just say set out to find the stone. That way there is no confusion on what they are doing. alongside their friend, Lilith, and her dad. This is a place where a little more transition would be helpful. So they start their quest, where do they begin? How’s it going? Then we can get to this Halloween party and see why Adam might need some normalcy and doesn’t really get it. But when Adam goes to a Halloween party desperate for some normalcy, a psychotic chemistry teacher finds him in the woods, completely wasted. Why is it important that the chem teacher finds him wasted? The hideously scarred man, Dr. Allan, proves Adam’s blood has the power to turn base metals to gold. Is Dr. Allan the chem teacher? If so introduce him in the previous sentence when he first appears. Also I’m not sure how we got from being found in the woods to his blood. Help connect the pieces for the reader. Just like a Philosopher’s Stone. <- This is really cool!

Adam believes this crackpot chemistry teacher is his key to finding the Stone, so he enlists Nathan and Lilith to investigate him during a basketball game. This is a good next step, a little more detail might help, flush the story out a little more, what makes him think this? What they learn changes everything.<- I’d delete this sentence. It doesn’t tell the reader anything and is taking up space. It’s much better to say what they learn and therefore this shows what is about to change. Dr. Allan is Adam and Nathan’s estranged father. This is a great point for a big reveal. Nice job not holding anything back.

Adam isn’t sure who to trust isn’t sure who or isn’t sure if he can trust his estranged dad? and with no clue where the demons are hiding grows increasingly more moody. I’m not sure you need to tell us Adam is moody, I think saying that he doesn’t know who to trust and doesn’t know where to look for the demons shows that he is frustrated. I think that’s enough. After Lilith’s dad is poisoned at basketball practice, a demon reveals Dr. Allan sold them out. Here’s another place where you jumped a little bit too far ahead in the story. What’s the important piece here that propels the story. That Dr. Allan sold them out. So in order to connect that, can you show that Adam trusted Dr. Allan and then show the betrayal which I’m guessing is poisoning Lilith’s dad. They’ve who is they? The demons? taken Adam’s girlfriend hostage and demand he turn himself over. Uh oh things are looking pretty grim for Adam. I’m assuming they did this to flush out Adam for their own purposes? If you can give a little insight here into the antagonists motivations that might help show how bad things really are for Adam. Adam doesn’t understand why. He was supposed to be after them, not the other way around. I’d cut these last two sentences. I don’t think they add to the overall progression of the story.

From here, Ashley continues on to explain how the book ends as any synopsis should. But for the sake of not spoiling the end of the story, she's requested that I not post the final paragraphs.

A few things that I noticed with this synopsis:

• Ashley did a good job of setting up her story and showing Adam in his world. It could however, be tightened a little to give her more space to talk about the conflict and story. 
• She did a great job of sharing important details in the story and didn't hold back. Overall, she's got the all important plot points in her story identified, which is the hardest part when writing a synopsis. Now if she flushes them out a bit more the reader will really have a good understanding of the full picture and Adam's conflict.
• She had good voice. Synopsis often read really bland and sometimes seem like the writer is saying "and then this happens and then that happens." This synopsis didn't do that which is great.
• Ashley does a good job of explaining Adam's conflict and giving the stakes. What he has to do, the time frame he has and what happens if he fails his mission. All important points to include in a synopsis.

Thanks again to Ashley for sharing her synopsis and critique. Feel free to post additional feedback you might have for her, but remember to keep it respectful. This is a learning experience for all.

I hope everyone found this helpful and I hope to have another critique soon.

Synopsis Critique Seminars

Over the last few months I've seen a lot of writers freaking out over synopsis writing. Synopsis feel so unnatural to us as writers, even more unnatural than queries. Writers complain about everything from them feeling flat, to not being able to boil their story down to one page, to them being their own personal circle of hell.

I get it. Synopsis suck! They're hard. I have a love/hate relationship with them myself. And while not every agent asks for them, many do, and I know it makes writers cringe.

So here's what I'm proposing. If you send me your synopsis, I will consider critiquing. I'll help you whittle it down to the necessary components and help you draw out what is missing and confusing. I'll give my honest feedback on it.

But I also want this to be a learning experience for other writers. There's a lot of advice out there about queries and even blogged critiques for them but not much in terms of posted synopsis critiques. So I'd like to post about half of people's critiqued synopsis on my blog semi periodically so others can learn from them and have examples. I wont post the whole thing because *SPOILERS*, but I'd like to use a portion.

I can't promise I will get to everyone's, but if I do critique yours, you will get a full critique emailed back to you. In addition, I will post a portion of your synopsis critique on my blog so others can have examples. If you specify a cutoff point I will adhere to that. I don't want your most important twists spoiled, but I'd ideally like to post a few paragraphs as a learning experience.

Do's and Dont's

• Do send your most polished version of your synopsis.
• Do have it critiqued by others both before and after this if possible.
• Do have it critiqued by people who have and have not read your story.
• Don't send me a five plus pages of a synopsis and expect me to help you get it down to one page. I have a magical editing axe, but I am not a magician. I will put my best foot forward.
• Don't send it to me if you don't want any portion of your work posted. This is a give and take. I give you a critique, in return, you allow me to post some of the critique so it can help others.
• Do include a cutoff point if you are worried about spoilers being revealed to the world (otherwise I will arbitrarily pick a halfway point or cut it off after a few paragraphs).
• Do be polite. I am doing this in my free time, for free. I don't have to do this, so please respect me and my time.
• Do be patient. This is a process and it will take me a while.
• Do realize that I probably wont get to everyone. I'm sorry but that is the reality of the situation. I'm only one person.
• Do realize I'm not perfect, I make mistakes. And as much as I hate to admit I don't know everything.
• Do not send more than one synopsis. This is a one per person thing. If I have time I might accept from people I've critiqued before, but I'm not making any guarantees.
• Do realize this is one person's opinion. Critiques are highly subjective. Feel free to use what works for you and ditch the rest.

This is a synopsis critique NOT a query critique. There is a difference. For tips and tricks to help with synopsis writing check out my post here.

I will accept synopsis in any genre/age group except erotic, I'd like to keep things relatively PG on my blog. That said, my specialties are YA and MG particularly in the genres of Sci Fi, Fantasy, paranormal, and adventure.

Are you still with me?

If you are interested in a possible critique, AND you wouldn't mind having about half your synopsis posted on my blog for critique then please paste your synopsis into the BODY of an email and send it to: synopsiscritique [at] hotmail [dot] com. (remember to actually put the @ and dot in, I posted this way to avoid spam) I will not open unknown attachments.

Questions? Sound off below.

The Synopsis – The Grim Reaper of the Writing World

If there’s one thing in the world that writers despise, it’s the synopsis? Why because they are the spawn of Satan. They are soul sucking torture that just might kill you! And you know what? I love them! Okay well not love, I have a love/hate relationship with them, but I really do enjoy whacking and hacking with my magical editing axe until I get it down to the one page limit.

What exactly is a synopsis, do you ask? And why does it make writers cower in fear? It’s typically a one page single spaced (see agent guidelines for length) piece that explains what happens in your book. It spoils the whole thing from beginning to end. YES SPOILS. This is not a back cover jacket, or a query letter, this is a synopsis. You put in all the major twists and turns and let whoever is reading know EXACTLY what happens in this book.

But how do you fit an entire book’s worth of stuff into one page? The short answer, very carefully. The long answer well here goes…

There are many approaches to writing a synopsis. When I first started tackling them, I tried to write it from beginning to end and see how long it was. Then I attempted to edit it down to the limit. You know what? I failed miserably! I didn’t know what to cut and what to keep and I got lost in details I thought were super important. Guess what? They weren’t.

So where do you go from there? There are a couple of things you can try. There’s not one right or wrong way to write a synopsis so try one out and see what works for you.

If you outline start there. Look at each chapter and write one sentence that summarizes the entire chapter. What big thing happened? Why is this chapter so important? And if you can’t answer that question, maybe consider re-evaluating that chapter.

1. Once you have those sentences you will need to string them together in a cohesive manner so one item flows into the next.
2. From there identify the main arcs of the story and tighten the threads down to focus on those main points.

If you don’t outline or your outlines are very detailed you may want to try breaking your book into acts. Or grouping your chapters.

1. Once you have your story broken into pieces, again try to write a sentence or two that summarizes the big plot points, and arc of the story.
2. Once you have the main points outlined, string them together in a cohesive way so everything flows.
3. Tighten the threads down to the bare minimum.

In general the big areas to focus on in your synopsis are: the inciting incident, the rise to action/conflict, the point of no return, the climax, and the outcome. The reader needs to know the character’s journey as well as the villain. What are their motivations for acting as they do and how do this progress the story along.

But even doing that, it’s tough to boil an entire manuscript down to one page. So here’s some other things to look out for when cutting and polishing your synopsis.

• Start with the main character and what they want. Set the story up immediately so you grab the reader’s attention. Then you can ultimately show how the character does or doesn’t get that by the end of the synopsis and how things change.

• With each sentence ask yourself if this is the simplest way you can say this idea. While it’s nice to have some voice in your synopsis it isn’t always required. You want to get as much information out there as cleanly as possible. If you have to sacrifice some voice to do it that’s okay. The purpose of a synopsis is to tell the reader what your book is about start to finish. It’s to show you have a complete character arc and story. To prove your book doesn’t have holes in it and to show where things go. You don’t have to reel the reader in like you do with a query.

• Ask yourself if each sentence is carrying the story/plot forward. When you write the book, each sentence of a synopsis should carry the reader to next time, place and/or incident that drives the plot and character arc. The same should happen in a synopsis only on a tighter scale.

• Say what happens. When you write/edit you try to eliminate the X saw, heard, felt, etc. All those sense words you can show without saying the character turned and saw something or heard something because you are already following them or in their head. As you would make something happen in your story, do the same in your synopsis. Make it happen don’t say X heard Y, or A saw B do this, just say B did it.

• Make sure the synopsis shows how the character changes, or if they don’t change what they learned and why they decided to stay the same. Synopsis should show what changes over the course of the story.

• Subplots. You will have some subplots in your synopsis but limit it to one or two that really compliment or add to the main arc in some way. More than that and you start getting bogged down in details.

• Keep travel to a minimum. In most cases, unless it affects your plot/conflict we don’t need to know how the characters got from point A to point B just that they are there and something happens.

• Keep mentions of time passage to a minimum. Phrases like two weeks later, and the next day are empty in a synopsis. They offer nothing. Show what’s happening. In the synopsis it’s usually not important to know how long it took, just that it happened or is happening at that point in the story.

• Don’t repeat. If you’ve already said something don’t bring it up again or rephrase. It’s not necessary and it takes up precious space.

• Realize the reader doesn’t need to know everything. Give enough to eliminate confusion and help them connect the dots from point A to point B. Nothing more, nothing less.

• Use active verbs. This will help you move the story along quickly and concisely. It really helps show what’s happening. It also helps the voice of your synopsis. In most cases you shouldn’t need to be verbs in a synopsis because you’re telling what happens not what is.

• Avoid descriptions. In most cases in a synopsis we don’t need to know what the character looks like or what a place looks like. Unless it’s critical to the plot/conflict cut it.

• Avoid filler words and adverbs. This cuts out on a lot of space, words like that, just, even etc. aren’t necessary. Most adverbs aren’t either.

• Cut back story and setup. You don’t want to info dump in your manuscript and you certainly don’t want to do it in your synopsis. Unless the character’s past is critical to the plot or conflict leave it in the past.

• Avoid clichés. Enough said there I think.

• For every character you introduce in your synopsis (and it shouldn’t be every character in your book) make sure their motivations are clear. Also make sure they somehow contribute to the overall plot and/or conflict.

• Avoid the “and then and then and then” syndrome. While a synopsis is telling what happens as the story progresses, you want to avoid saying and then this happens then they go here and then they do that. Try to weave the story as if you were telling it in person to someone who has never read it. If you just keep saying then this happens you’re going to lose their attention, so make it interesting.

• Transitions are key! They can make or break your synopsis. Just as you don’t want to say and then over and over again you want to make sure your synopsis has flow. It eliminates confusion and it shows how the story is progressing.

• Get feedback. Both from people who have read and haven’t read your book. It should be clear to someone who hasn’t read your manuscript what is going on. Likewise for someone who has, they should be able to pinpoint anything major you left out. Both types of critiquers should be able to help you identify things you don’t need in your synopsis.

By this point hopefully you are seeing a pattern in the tips. If it doesn’t contribute to the plot and/or conflict, it has no business in your synopsis. That’s how you determine what’s critical and what’s not. Simplify Simplify Simplify.

Do you have synopsis tips and tricks you want to share? Please post them in the comments!