Synopsis Writing - An Exercise in Brevity

Lately, I've been working hard on preparing Moonfall for submission which has included, among other things, writing the synopsis.  I've never written a synopsis before, so I scoured the internet looking for advice.  It's amazing how many different suggested tactics and lengths there are out on the web, including one site that made writing a synopsis sound like writing a term paper on my novel.  Bleach!  I finally decided to start by writing a no-holds-barred synopsis, chapter by chapter, in order to get all the main points down on paper.  By the time I was halfway through, I was already condensing chapters and plot points, grouping things together and deciding what to omit.  Signs that I was already learning what I was doing.

That first, barfing-on-the-page draft clocked in at 2,756 words.  Now, I'm fully aware that my writing is puffy in first drafts, and this was no exception.  After editing, I got it down to 2,234 words, which was about seven pages, double-spaced.

I'd already learned, during my excessive researching of synopsis writing, that a lot of places will want things shorter than that.  Much shorter.  The thought of getting it under 1,000 words made me want to cry, but instead I decided to approach it incrementally.  I figured that different agents would ask for different lengths, if they specified length at all, so it wouldn't hurt to have three different synopses in my arsenal that I could whip out as the situation warranted.

So I made some edits, removing the most obvious elements and condensing things down.  That mid-length draft came in at 1,567 words.

So far, so good.  My next goal was to get a third draft at 1,000 words or under, but I started running into trouble.  After around 1,200 words, I found that I had to cut things that felt essential to the plot.  So I decided that instead of three synopses, I'd have four.  The 1,190 word draft was the shortest I'd use by choice, and the shortest draft, painfully edited to 986 words, would be used only when an agent specifically requested something that short.

The interesting thing, though, is that after painstakingly summarizing my 99,000 word novel into 986 words, I realized there were nonessential things still in my longer synopses.  I decided to go back and work on them again.  The results surprised me.

The longest synopsis I edited down from 2,234 words to 1,845
The mid-length synopsis went from 1,567 to 1,372
The shorter synopsis went from 1,190 to 1,181

I meant to write this post a few weeks ago and didn't get around to it, so I have a little distance from my synopses now.  In penning this post, I went back and read them all again.  I still don't like the 986 word query--it feels rushed, though it isn't as horrible as I remember it being.  It tells a complete story, it just doesn't feel like it does my novel as much justice as I'd like.  To my surprise, my favorite versions are the 1,181 and 1,372 word drafts.  Being more concise than the longest one, I think they pack a greater punch.

The moral of the story is that writing the synopsis helped me to strengthen my writing all the way across the board.  It was still an arduous, nineteen-day process from start to finish, and I can't say I really enjoyed doing it, but I think it was a useful exercise.

Have you written a synopsis, or many synopses?  What did you think about the process?

That's a wrap, folks!

I just have this to say:

I'M DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's right, I finished my final readthru of Moonfall today, and it is complete so far as I can make it.  Whoo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll be spending the next week (at least) working out a synopsis and query, not to mention doing all the market research I've completely neglected to do until now.  And soon it will be out under the eyes of agents, who will hopefully recognize its brilliance and offer to represent me immediately!

Some useless numbers, since I just noticed that word has these stats:

• words:  98,921
• pages: 173 (Times New Roman, single spaced)
• Total editing time (for draft 4, the final draft): 4113 minutes.  That's 68.55 hours.  I've been working on this final draft for the last 53 days, which means an average of 1.3 hours per day--which I suppose might be accurate.  I wonder if they count total open time, or just active writing time?
• first draft created: July 20, 2010.  That was 1,158 days ago, minus 92 for maternity leave is 1,066 days.  Of course, there were a lot of days when I let this chill to work on other projects.  But regardless, I've been working on this monstrosity for just over three years!

Here's a word cloud of the novel:

I want a Monster House "Done Stamp" to place on this thing.  Woot!

Summer Stat Check

Hi, is anybody still reading?  Here's the breakdown of my summer, since I haven't been doing the monthly stat checks

• Between June and August, I wrote every day (that's 92 days)
• I finished editing 3 stories for submission, wrote the first draft of 1 new story, did edits on one of my kids' books and sent it to Beta readers, did final edits on a screenplay hubby and I wrote together, did some worldbuilding for a new novel, and edited the heck out of my current novel, Moonfall.
• I am now doing a final readthru (out loud) of Moonfall, which I see to be the last step before it's ready for query!
• Submissions.... yeah, maybe 5?  I've been very lax in this department this year.  Not having duotrope regularly available has messed up my system, and I haven't figured out a way to make it work yet.
• Rejections... haven't really been keeping track.  I haven't even printed some rejection letters yet, since I'm not resubbing at the moment.  Maybe 8-10?
• Acceptances... I wish.  But then, not much is still out there to be accepted, since I'm slacking
• I have 15 stories ready for slush pile circulation, but not all are out right now
• I made 8 blog posts
• I took no days off

Analysis:
I had a very productive summer when it comes to progress on my writing.  June and July, in particular, were whirlwinds where I jumped from one project to another.  So many things just needed polishing that I really felt like I was making a lot of progress.  I reached a reasonable stopping point on other projects and then plunged back into the novel, analyzing the reader comments and strengthening the story.  It's almost time to submit, and I'm both excited and scared.  Scared, because I've never queried agents before, and it's time to jump in with both feet.  Excited because hey, I might actually land an agent and get published in the foreseeable future.  I'm liking this feeling.  It'll be weird to start over from square one, and work on new, rough, unpolished stuff again after so long focusing on my recent projects.  It'll be exciting.

Plan:
I intend to finish up Moonfall, then (provided I get reader comments back) polish up my picture book manuscript, and get queries written for both.  While doing market research and all that, I intend to either a) revisit my most-recently-written story, b) work on another picture book idea I recently came up with, or c) start the new novel.  It'll be some combination of the three, I'm just not sure in what order.

Happy writing!

Well, that's a wrap!

I feel somewhat in awe.  I finished the readthru of my novel today.  It's a pretty cool feeling to know that I wrote a novel, and it is complete, and it seemed to tell a pretty tight story--from my completely-biased-perspective-as-the-author.

I'll be getting readers in the near future and then shopping for an agent later this year.  Whee!  Fun times!

I finally put a good deal of thought into titles, and if anybody is still reading, I'd like your opinions.  Without, of course, knowing ANYTHING about the book itself, which title would you be most likely to pick up and read?

Moonfall
Project Beryl
Escape Velocity
Lunar Eclipse
Lunar Descent
Eclipsed Moon

Thanks for your input!




(Eeeeeek!  What am I supposed to work on now?????!!!!!)

Finished! Or nearly...

Yesterday, I finished editing the final chapter of my novel!  This took a bit longer than I'd anticipated--I thought I would be done earlier in March, but upon reading the last two chapters before editing, I realized that they didn't work too well.  They needed a massive overhaul to get rid of the boring bits, and ultimately they got condensed into one.  But now it's done!

Today, I began the task of reading the novel through from beginning to end.  I finished the first five chapters (out of 37.) If I can keep up this pace, I have a sporting chance of finishing by the end of March--or at the very least, I will only bleed into April by a few days.  I thought it flowed quite well, and I only stopped a few times to make some minor tweaks.  And here's exactly why I'm reading the whole thing through quickly:  in chapter 3, I mention that a main character has brown eyes, and in chapter 5, they're hazel.  Good to catch these little details before a reader does!

I've been trying to figure out how long I've been editing this beast.  I started keeping track of which chapters I edited each day back in June of 2012 (and in June 2012 I edited chapters 6-11), but I mentioned editing the novel as early as October 2011.  I can only assume that's when I began the first readthrough, but really, what did I do between October and May?  During some of that time, I was working on stories alongside it, so perhaps I only bothered with one chapter a month?  I don't know.  It's hard to fathom, considering the pace I've been setting lately, but I suppose that was possible.  It's a little strange to think, after all this time (eighteen months, all told, if I can believe my own notes) of focusing on this novel, that soon I'll have to bend my creative energies towards something else!

The novel still doesn't have a title, although I've bent some brainpower towards that conundrum.  After finishing my readthrough (and giving my baby a name) I'll be sending it off to readers, and within the next few months, it'll be time to start shopping for an agent!  I've never done that before, so I'll be forging my way into new territory.  There ought to be plenty of anxiety attacks here at Science Fiction Mommy in the coming months!

Sometimes it's best to let things go

I suppose that's a rather ominous title for a post after more than a month of absence from blogdom, however, I'm not referring to the blog.  In my absence I've continued to write (or rather, edit my novel) daily, sometimes a lot and sometimes a little.

For the last week and a half, it's been on the "little" side.  I've been working on a chapter that just hasn't been working.  As I set to correct the little details and bring it into line with some changes I made earlier in the book, I just haven't been motivated.  I've wasted time.  I've stalled.  I've finally forced myself to focus, gotten through a small passage, and declared my obligation "done," though in the weakest sense of the word.  Today, however, as I stared at the screen with all signs pointing toward another day of editing doldrums, I suddenly realized that if this chapter has been boring me so much (the first moment I realized it even was boring me), then it probably ought to just be cut.  I could start the chapter later and add a few paragraphs of summary, and instead of dragging me (and very likely, my readers) down, it would arise stronger, tighter, and as a better read.  Hooray!

Except that now I feel like I've wasted the last week and a half.  All that time spent arduously ironing out prose that isn't even going to make it.  My husband tells me they weren't wasted, that I needed that time with the work stewing in my mind before the solution could come to me.  Wise words.  Slightly tempers the disappointment.

Anyway, after restarting the chapter, cutting a little here, pasting a little there, and writing brief summaries, I turned 900 words into 200.  And regained my enthusiasm to keep going.  So it was the right thing to do, but boy, it can be hard to throw out that much work.  Especially recent work.  Such is the work we do.

Now to see if anybody's still reading!

My manuscript is again Riddled with Comments

I've been spending nearly three weeks going over my research notes from my trip to Kennedy last month.

(That's one big rocket!)

I've been doing a lot of rethinking during this time.  Some elements are major, some are minor, but all require figuring out exactly how they fit.  I've begun adding comments to the manuscrit again so I can put my thoughts where they need to be, but not make the actual changes until I read through the story in sequence.  So now I have over 100 comments to consider as I go through--and I'm not even done adding them yet.

I am close to being done, however.  Soon.  Soon I will finish adding comments and start at the beginning again.  Soon.

The sad thing is that most of my new comments are in the first sixteen chapters of the novel--and I've already been through the first fourteen chapters once.  Why can't most of the necessary changes be to parts of the novel I haven't edited yet? 

Because the beginning of the novel takes place in and around Kennedy Space Center, but it branches out for the middle and end, that's why.  Ooh, Murphy, you tease me.

So I am still working.  Steadily.  Slowly.  I yearn for speed, but will bide my time until it all fits.

Some vacation pics:

Here I am, trying to pose at the astronaut van, when hubby pokes his head around from the back and calls "Driver, can you hurry it up?  I've got a rocket to catch."  Ppbth!

Zaxxon with a rocket.  He has LOVED rockets since we got back.  We got him a matchbox space shuttle to occupy him on the flight home and it has been played with a lot, he managed to find a non-fiction little kids' book on the space shuttle at the library, and he's constantly making rockets out of legos.  Methinks he's inspired!

Teaching them how to fly already

Our little astronaut!  This playground was awesome.  Kal'El managed not to learn to walk until just after we got back, but he still enjoyed crawling around after his brother

Research, Mad Research

I've reached a point in revising the novel that is requiring a lot of research.  Stuff that I could have done during the first draft, but didn't because I knew it would slow me significantly and I didn't want to lose my momentum.  Some of it is integral, and some of it is just to make the background or minor interactions be accurate.  The rank of a minor character in the military, for example, or the layout and ambiance of a location.  This is a major cause of slowdowns in my revising.  When I spend a large chunk of my writing time doing research, I don't progress very far in the manuscript.

I'm getting the opportunity to do some major, hands-on research very soon, though, and I'm uber excited.  I'll blog more when I get the chance, but I'll just say that I've been looking forward to this for a while.  It should be fun!

How about you?  Do you enjoy your research, or does it seem like a necessary evil?

Fast and Slow and Fast again

The pace of my revising really ebbs and flows.  I recently pushed through some long chapters pretty fast, and now I'm hung up and crawling again.  I think it may be due to the fact that I just finished several active chapters, and now I'm on one that's more introspective.  Without the action propelling me along, I'm going slower.

This could mean that I need to trim.  It could also mean that I write strong action that needs less work.  It could mean that the introspective sections only seem longer because their pace isn't as fast, or because I spend more time analyzing them.  It probably means a mix of all three.

In any case, I'm still pushing through despite being quite busy and distractable of late.  But that's just the name of the game.

How about you?  Are there parts of your writing that needs more or less work than others?  What do you feel you write most strongly?

Just a note

I think my pace for my novel is quickening just a little bit.  When I look at my most recent work, I do seem to be averaging slightly better than one chapter per week, as I'd been doing originally.  I don't know whether this is because I'm getting better at revisions, better at budgeting my time, or if I'm simply past the parts that needed the most work.

Well, I'm probably not past the parts that need the most work.  More likely between them.  But I can enjoy this section of the novel, no matter what the reasoning.

I must say that I love the internet.  If I couldn't look up most subjects by just typing a few words or couldn't peek down at certain geographical locales from satellite photos, I don't know how I would be able to write.  It would be a lot slower, or would involve making up a lot more (and hoping I'd gotten the little details right.) 

The Case for Worldbuilding

I didn't do much worldbuilding with my novel.  To be honest, I didn't do much planning of any kind, I just got the idea and dove on in.   There were times when I knew research of planning was needed, but largely I just blazed past them, making notes to come back.  The result was that I managed to keep working through without losing my thread or my enthusiasm, and I finished my first novel.

The downside is that I have a LOT of work to do on the rewrite.  I knew that this would happen, but I hadn't anticipated how much there would be to do.  In addition to all the elements I left behind, there are lots of things I didn't think about ahead of time but which ripple forward and back through the narrative, and nearly all of them wouldn't be issues if I'd done proper worldbuilding.

My novel takes place on Earth about 30 years out.  My opinion of the future is that many things are going to be the same.  Unfortunately, I left too many things the same.  It's so easy (and ingrained) to say a character picked up the receiver of his phone or pulled the computer keyboard closer to himself--but as I read through these references again I'm realizing that one way in which the world will change dramatically in the next 30 years is in the technology.  So now I'm stopping to examine all references to technology and figuring out how they should evolve, which is eating up a lot of my time.

The lesson:  worldbuilding benefits everyone, even if your story isn't too far from the here and now.

Novel editing progress

"Novel editing progress" is the name of the email I'm sending to myself daily now.  As a backup, I'm emailing any modified documents to myself each night.  It gives me peace of mind.

Greater peace of mind comes from the fact that I'm actually making editing progress these days.  It's slow, but not as slow as it has been before.  I'm catching the rhythm of what I'm writing and more easily incorporating the changes that ripple throughout the novel.  I keep asking when I'll reach a chapter that won't require several major changes--my husband's response was "when you move on to the next draft."  Yeah, that's probably true.  At least at the moment, I'm motivated.

What keeps you motivated through the long slog of editing a long piece of fiction?

Revising with comments

The revisions of my novel are progressing, albeit progressing slowly.  I'm discovering that the often-very-short writing time I have each day makes novel revisions difficult.  With such a big piece of work, there's more story to get back in the mode of, and just reminding myself of the atmosphere surrounding a necessary change can take up nearly all of my time.  I finished with all of the edits I can make in a short, jump-in jump-out fashion, and that left me wondering what to do next.

Finally, I decided that the only way I was going to maintain the thread of the story for the remaining revisions was to go through the novel from beginning to end again.  In order to keep track of what needs to be done as I go, I utilized the Comments feature in Word, converting my to-do list into comments placed approximately where they will need to go.  Now I can (hopefully) make one big sweep and fix nearly everything as I go.  If there's anything I think I'll need to do later, I'll be sure to leave a comment again so I can find it easily.

This big process ought to start tomorrow, unless I feel the need to tackle part of my monthly story goal first.  I wish I could say it will happen fast, but I know it won't.  I imagine I may get only get through one or two pages on some of the slower days.  But if I manage to fix everything as I go through, it'll be ready for critiques from others by the time I'm done.

How about you?  I've never edited a novel before--how do you usually tackle taking on such a large piece of work?

Revising Drudgery

I've been stuck in a bit of a rut these past few weeks when it comes to revising.  When I did the first read through of my novel, I printed it up so I could make notes in the margins and I read it out loud while nursing Kal'El.  That was a great way to get back into it after months of focusing on stories.  None of my first edits were permanent (which is good because I've rejected some of them) and it also gave me a great way to combine working on my novel with doing something else.

Then I began actual revisions...or at least entering in the ones I made on paper during my first reading.  I realized that I needed to work backwards because otherwise my page number references--and the entire landscape of the story--would change before I made it more than ten pages in, making it that much more difficult to find where I was supposed to be.  So that's what I've been doing lately:  entering revisions into my novel backwards.  And I'm bored.

I think this is partly because I've already made these revisions so I'm not actively doing as much, but mostly because of the reverse order.  I'm not getting a sense of the novel's plot as I spottily work through it in the wrong order, so I'm not even getting involved in my own story.  As a result, I've been highly distractable and have stopped several times to work on short stories for a few days.  I'm somewhat torn on whether I should be allowing myself to deviate.  On the one hand, stories almost always flow best from me when the ideas are fresh, and many ideas are fresh right now.   On the other, if I get too distracted from my novel, I may never finish it.

The good news is that I'm nearly done with my first pass edits.  Soon I will be able to make more macro edits, do more research and add in several details that I glossed over on the first draft, and go through it in the right order again.  Soon.  And I'm hoping that will hold my attention much more readily, because I don't want working on this novel to be a chore.

I want to enjoy my work, the way I sometimes usually do, because it's the best work in the world.

Critters and Rewrites and Screenplays, Oh My

I've got another story going out to Critters today--bang, bang, bang, they're really piling up on each other.  I'm nowhere near finished reading the critiques I got last time (the stopped trickling in just last week.)  I got 21 critiques for the last story.  I knew it felt rough but wasn't sure why, and so far people have agreed with my "rough" assessment.  I have, at least, gotten a few good assessments to help me see what needs work.  And it definitely needs work.  This one will require another major rewrite.

The one going out today I'm pretty excited about.  I like the premise and the story as it stands, so I'm hoping people will mainly provide simple ways to make it better.  Even if I determine, based on critiques, that it needs a lot of work, I'll probably work on this one before beginning a major rewrite of the previous one, just because I'm a lot more enthused about it and would like to get it submitted before baby's arrival.  We're at a month as of yesterday, so I'm really starting to feel the crunch.

Hubby and I are continuing to make good headway on our screenplay, which is also good considering the time crunch we're now under.  That, analyzing critiques, and revising have comprised the bulk of my writing projects these days.  What's a little frightening is the fact that I haven't really come up with many new story ideas recently.  I did a fast spate of new stories shortly after finishing the novel, but haven't had any "wow, that's an awesome idea" thoughts in a while.  I guess, perhaps, that means it's time to start the first rewrite of the novel, where I can let story ideas pile up again.

Actually, I did have one story idea.  It wasn't so much a new idea as a new thought on something that I'd been mulling over for a while, and I stupidly didn't write it down.  I distinctly remember being in the dark bathroom getting ready for bed, thinking "huh, that's a neat idea, I'm sure I'll remember it tomorrow," and doing nothing about it that night.  And now nothing.  Ppbth.  Lesson learned.  Never, EVER put off writing the idea down.  (Usually I do, but for some reason....)  Alas.

I have had it with my depressed immune system!!!

Okay, so babies are parasites.

I'm not saying this in any derogatory way, but the fact is that a baby is a parasite in its mother's body.  As such, the mother's body depresses her immune system so as not to attack this loveable parasite.  And I'm thinking this has got to be partially responsible for the sheer number of colds I've contracted since Christmas.

Sure, my son has been sick a lot, and he usually gives his colds to me, but generally I'm a pretty healthy person.  And lately I've been trying really hard to keep him healthy--especially making sure we remember to wash our hands the instant we return from any outing, etc.  Well, this time he didn't even get sick.  Just me.  And I'm so tired of filling up every trash can in the house with kleenex.  I think I'm ready to have this baby so my immune system can go back to normal.  And so my hip joints will stop feeling like they're about to fall apart on me.  And so I can walk without waddling.  And stand up without hefting myself.  And tie my shoes the normal way again....

*sigh* 6 more weeks.  And the baby needs them.  We do too, to finish the nursery, make a few purchases, and agree on names (hee hee.)  Just six more weeks.

In other news, I finished revising the last story I got critiques from Critters for.  It was a bit of a challenge since it's a piece of flash fiction (1,000 words or less) and people wanted more details/characterization.  I had two words to spare when I started, so I had to figure out what could get cut in order to add tidbits here and there.  (I didn't add much, figuring keeping the character generic would help show that he could be anybody, but I did clarify a few things.  Besides, it's flash!)  But in the end, I wound up with 14 words to spare!  Still not quite sure how that happened, but hey, I'll take it!