Writing a literary synopsis -- the short road to a long tale

 In my previous post about writing literary query letters, I teased the possibility of one of their complements, a story synopsis. At last, I'm willing to discuss synopsis writing. In fact, I just wrote one myself.

But not entirely by myself. Because once again I climbed on the shoulders of other, better writers of this form. As with the previous post, I urge actually reading the complete words of wisdom from writers Caro Clarke (The synopsis: what it is, what it isn't, and how to write it) and Susan Dennard (How to write a 1-page synopsis).

Are there whimpers of panic at the mention of one page?

Unless our agent insists on a single page, synopses can run a bit longer, maybe one to two pages. But remember, as with agent gripes about too-lengthy query letters, their patience can run short on the overly-long.

First, a little housekeeping. As previously mentioned, the query letter itself should be written in third person to avoid confusion about which words are the author's and which are the character's. The synopsis, however, is strictly first person. The only words it contains are those of the author (although giving glimpses of a main character's voice may be OK).

Image by Melanie from Pixabay

Did I neglect to state what a synopsis is? It's an outline of the story, although without Roman numerals and all that stuff we may have learned in high school English class. It's not the novel's themes, relevance, or even comparison titles. Just the facts, ma'am. What actually happened, all the way to the end. Spoilers included.

So, we've got a several-hundred-word novel to boil down to one (maybe two) pages. How is that even possible?

For this, I particularly love Dennard's outline, imagined as a movie:

1. Opening image -- setting the stage for the story
2. Protagonist intro -- a few words about the main character and what they want
3. Inciting incident -- what prompts the main character to take action
4. Plot point 1 -- the first action/decision that changes the story's direction
5. Conflicts & character encounters -- new life, new people, plus antagonist/villain
6. Midpoint -- the 180 degree change from which there is no turning back
7. Winning seems imminent, but. . . -- the main character thinks they'll win but oh no!
8. Black moment -- the main character must find the guts to get through this nadir
9. Climax -- the final struggle between the main character and the antagonist
10. Resolution -- happy ever after (or not), plus typing up loose ends
11. Final image -- has the main character succumbed or built a new life?

Sounds a lot like the Hero's Journey we probably took a class about, yes?

Dennard's outline is based on her favorite movie, Star Wars (A New Hope). But not every story needs to feature do-or-die stakes or light saber-flashing action. To steal another example from the book How to Tell a Story, courtesy of public radio's Moth narrative experts, what the main character wants can be as simple as "I'll get these pretzels out of this (expletive deleted) vending machine, even if I have to break the glass!"

Finally, a few more housekeeping issues. Avoid subplots unless there's a half-page of blank space (as if!) at the end of your first page. Ditto, limit named characters to the protagonist, possibly a side kick or love interest, and the antagonist (Evil Vending Machine?).

If any other characters must be mentioned, use only their titles/descriptors (alien princess, repair person, etc.). Some writers (agents, editors, etc.) want the first mention of characters' names to be ALL CAPS/BOLD FACE. When in doubt, check the agent's/editor's website for specifics.

***

Still to come -- comparison titles. I blogged about agent Amy Collins' takes on these in my March 3, 2023, post, "From manuscript to published book: Part 2," but other agents have suggestions as well.   

How not to fear DFW Con's query Gong Show

 So, did vitally important Texas literary events get left out of my previous post? You bet! Will the omissions be rectified? Maybe. But not until the still more vital prepping for the DFW Writers
Conference's (DFW Writers Conference) (in)famous Gong Show takes place. 

Sure, I post about this in its aftermath. But what writers really need to know now, now, RIGHT NOW! is what's going to happen. This Sunday, October 6, at 8 a.m.

For those who have never read this blog, and/or never been to a DFW conference, here are the basics of the Gong Show. Writers submit their anonymous literary query letters to a panel of agents and editors who strike table-top gongs to signal the point at which they would stop reading if they received one of these queries in their own emails.

Image: Pixabay

OK, maybe some readers are now wondering, what the heck is a query letter?

Here's the PSA: In the literary sense, it's a business-like introduction from a writer to an agent asking whether the agent is interested in representing the writer's work.

The basic format includes a brief description of why the writer chose to contact the agent ("your website. . . "), ("you represent my favorite writer. . . " etc.); the title, genre, and word count of the author's manuscript; the story's "hook" (attention grabbing sentence), and a brief summary; and the author's credentials, if any.

The entire letter typically occupies no more than one page -- approximately 300 words in email format.

Now, back to the Gong Show basics.

Writers can be gonged once, even twice, by any panel members without stopping the reading. But three strikes and they're out!

What are frequent triggers of the dreaded gongs? 

• Generic, trendy, cliched, or overblown language
• Opening with unlikeable characters, gross-out language, or depressingly sad situations
• Assuring the agent that the story is "intriguing," or a "good fit" for them. (They like to decide that for themselves.)
• Querying for sequels or a book series (although some agents are OK with mentions that a book is stand-alone with sequel/series potential)
• Misspelling the agent's name. (Really!)
• Spending too much word space on plot

A few quirks: at the 2023 Gong Show, although panelists realized entrants had no idea who they would be addressing in the contest, the salutation "Dear Agent" hit sore spots for those who've received too many similarly addressed queries too many times. Expect this issue to be addressed in the 2024 edition of the show.

Honorifics can also be tricky, especially if the agent/editor has not indicated which they prefer, or if they are nonbinary individuals. Best advice, once writers have selected an actual agent to address, is to simply use "first name + last name" as indicated on the individual's or agency's website.

What will stay the hand of a panelist itching for the gong?

• Getting to the point! An agent last year suggested using no more than two short paragraphs to describe the "heart of the story." (And no, you don't need to tell the ending.)
• Telling the "stakes" of the story -- main character, their goal, who/what they must overcome to achieve that goal, and the consequences of reaching that goal -- or not.
• Listing the story's genre and word count. (If unsure of appropriate word counts, numerous information sources are available online, including Reedsy's How many words in a novel. If unsure about the story's genre, check where it would be shelved in a bookstore, or what genres are included in its description on sites such as Amazon and Goodreads.)
• Exercising sensitivity about issues such as gender/ethnic stereotypes, disabilities, and racial language

***

After last year's Gong Show, a writer unable to attend asked plaintively, what do agents like?

Aside from the listed items, the specifics of what a particular agent likes are beyond the Gong Show's ability to answer. It depends, obviously, on the agent. The first steps are checking the agent's website and Manuscript Wish List if available.

Additional sources of information include:

•  Query Tracker, offering lists of agents and links to their websites and other published information. The basic version is free, or pony up $25 annually for more info.
• Publisher's Marketplace, listing deals (sales) by the agent, their market performance, and more. $25/month or $10 for "Quick Pass" with more limited features. There's also a free Publisher's Lunch version.
• Your favorite authors. The acknowledgement sections of their books often list their agents.

Addendum: Although I've never heard it addressed at the Gong Show, an issue that agents at conferences often mention is that of "comparative (comp) titles." These are books in your or similar genres, usually published within the past two to three years, with similarities to your own.

That's not similarities of plot. As one agent has said, if it's the same plot as something already published, why would I want it? Instead, the similarities can be in tone, setting or point of view. They also need to be books which have significant readership.

For readership info, check Amazon, Goodreads, and USA Today -- all free. (I previously posted that the USA Today site was on hiatus but -- it's back!)

Got it? See you Sunday! 

Character-driven plots & what never to include in a query

What a summer it’s been for writing conferences! (And yes, with temperatures still in the 90’s here in North Texas, I’m counting September as summer.) I’ll start with the most recent conference, last weekend’s writing workshop of the Dallas-area science fiction/fantasy conference, Fencon. This year’s workshop leader was Angie Hodapp, director of editorial and literary content for clients of the Nelson Literary Agency. In that capacity, she's read incredible numbers of manuscripts as well as helped would-be authors whip their writing into shape. Since she's also an author (including Do You Need a Literary Agent) and married to an author, she knows both sides of the agenting process.

Angie Hodapp

I can’t divulge all her secrets – for that, you’ll have to attend one of the many workshops she gives – but here’s a sampling.

The answer to the writer’s equivalent of “which came first, the chicken or the egg” – “character or plots” is, both. And since we can’t have a plot without characters, here, especially for those gearing up for the upcoming NaNoWriMo, is Hodapp’s fill-in-the-blank, plot-generating engine:

Heroes, Henchmen, and Sidekicks: The Characters-First Approach to Plot

#1. Statement of genre and setting

This ___ [genre] story will take place ___ [time] and ___ [location].

#2. Hero statement

My hero, ___ [name], is a ___ [role*] who is also a ___ [role].

#3. Sidekick statement

My hero’s sidekick or best friend, ___ [name], is a ___ [role].

#4. Love interest statement 

My hero is drawn to ___ [name], who is a ___ [role].

(Note: love interests aren’t just for romance, but not all non-romance stories need a love interest. However, adding one to the mix upfront generates even more possibilities for story conflict, so play along.)

#5. Antagonist statement 

My antagonist ___ [name], is a ___ [role] who is also a ___ [role] and who wants ___.

After writing #1 - #5 as a single paragraph, brainstorm ideas or questions about each item you underlined. You'll probably realize you need more characters, and plot ideas will begin to percolate. Begin to think in scenes and arrange as required!

*About those roles:

Here’s a sampling of Hodapp’s list of occupational roles: accountant, assassin, cult leader, kidnapper, mercenary, mob boss, nun, sheriff, tarot reader, or veterinarian. (I’ve included occupations from her antiheroes and villains lists, because, hey, a job’s a job!)

And for nonoccupational roles, here are more samples to inspire: amateur, cross-dresser, husband, hypochondriac, recluse, or transgender. Don’t forget your character’s gender (including trans, non-binary, etc.), age, history, or health status.

***

And a sampling from Hodapp’s question and answer sessions: 

Q. What are your thoughts on writers who follow both traditional and indie (self-publishing) routes?

A. “Hybrid publishing (a mix of traditional and indie publishing) looks bright and will probably become the norm. Those who do well (as indies) also brought readership from their traditional publishing.” (Hint: be sure any contracts with traditional publishers don’t exclude the ability to self-publish.)

Q. Why can’t more writers get literary agents? Does failure to get representation mean we’re bad writers?

A. “It’s not because the talent pool isn’t there, or that the writing isn’t fantastic. It’s just that taking on clients is a lot of work. That limited number of seats on the bus kind of thing.” Besides, she added, “No agent is better than a bad agent.”

Q. What can indie writers do to make themselves more marketable?

A. If you want to know how to market and brand yourself in any genre, get with RWA (Romance Writers of America). Romance writers do a great job of marketing (and) they move faster than traditional publishers can.” Whether traditionally published or indie-published, though, “authors must participate (by) coming out to conferences and actually meeting people. There’s not a lot that can beat that connection.”

And a final Q&A, for laughs – I hope!

Q. What’s the most awful query letter you’ve ever seen?

A. The most-awful variety is so frequent, Hodapp said, that her agency keeps a file – the “penis file. There are writers out there who admire their penises and think other people would too, including the 10-foot penis, the detachable penis” (don’t ask!) and more!

A smorgasbord of info from 2018 DFW Writers Conference

Hungry for the feast of information from this year’s DFW Writers Conference? Here’s sampling, starting with YA author Scott Westerfeld’s keynote address.

“Teenagers are the strangers among us. A couple of hundred years ago the term did not exist. In the U.S. Civil War, an 11-year-old got the Medal of Honor. A 13-year-old commanded a ship at Trafalgar.” Although the word “teen” didn’t appear in the Oxford English Dictionary until 1921, and “teenager” until 1941,” during the 19^th century, partly sparked by the Industrial Revolution, “a space expanded between being a little kid and being an adult.”

Co-existent with the evolution of teendom was the emergence of novels as “the supreme methods of storytelling.” The superpower of novels is their ability to lay out “agony, limits, feelings, beliefs, fears and hatred on the page.” Humans also have a superpower – empathy.

image: pixabay

“The novel is the outgrowth of this ability. Readers don’t just bond with our characters, they become those characters.” And the supreme time for that becoming, that trying on of different ways of thinking and being is during the teen years. “Novels exercise our empathy and strengthen it.” Is this a scary process? Yes, “and scarier for teens because they are the strangers among us. So I hope you keep making more books – and more readers!”

***

Or maybe you wanted to know what agents really like (or not)? Try this discussion from the "Ask An Agent Anything" panel with agents Malaga Baldi, Amy Bishop, Uwe Stender and Maximilian Ximenez.

Q. Is it OK to resubmit to an agent after a rejection?
A. Absolutely, kind of, depends.

“The agents are rejecting the book, never you,” said Uwe Stender of Triada US Literary Agency. “Feel free to offer another work.”

Maximilian Ximenez of the L. Perkins Agency noted he’s even OK with resubmitting the same work after extensive revision. 

Q. What are you looking for in a query letter?
A. That depends. . . 

“Really know your enemy,” said Malaga Baldi of the Baldi Agency. “Know what they represent. We all have our own bugaboos and our own strong points. (However, note that she hates letters addressing her as Mr. Baldi!) 

And on the “knowing the enemy” front, “Please be upfront with relevant data, genre, word counts, etc.,” Ximenez said. “I don’t want to read the whole query before realizing it’s not something I can represent.”

“Do your research, like everyone says,” was the advice of Amy Bishop of Dystel, Goderich & Bourrett LLC. (Among the things she looks for are comparison titles.)

Q. What turns you off from a (potential) writer client?
A. Forgetting we’re in a business!

“If I get the feeling that you’re unreasonable,” Stender said. “What I want from you is someone smart and professional.”

“I really want your relationship with your agent to be a long-lasting one,” Bishop said.

“I have had to, unfortunately, drop a lot of clients because of their rejection of what I suggest. It’s like a job interview. You need to know what you’re willing to compromise about.”

Baldi agreed. “I’m not your best friend. It’s a business relationship.”

Q. What’s the current market zeitgeist?
A. Do you really want to ask?

“It’s scary,” Baldi said, claiming she loves fiction but finds it a hard sell. “My bread and butter is nonfiction.”

“The word that’s been rising lately is platform,” Ximenez said. “Generally, it’s social messages but also the bonafides of the writer, especially in YA (young adult literature), themes of social justice and deconstruction (a method of questioning and revising received ideas). There’s deconstructionist cycle in all genres about every 15 years.”

“A lot of fantasy in a non-Western setting,” Bishop noted. 

And then there was Stender’s take. “I really don’t pay any attention to the market currently. I’m fully aware of what people want, but I will not respond to that when I get the book. The U.S. is always decades behind everybody else. It’s not like I’m ignorant of (the current market). I just don’t care.”

***

And if that doesn’t explain everything, agent Patricia Nelson’s workshop, “Avoid Rookie Submission Mistakes,” dealt with some definite no-nos. 

·       Targeting the wrong audience. Think middle grade, young adult, or adult. Nothing is one size fits all! (See the next no-no also – where is it shelved?)

·       Wrong genre. Think – where would the book be shelves in a bookstore?

·       Wrong agent. Research sites such as Agent Query, Query Tracker, and Literary Rambles (for YA and MG client lists).

·       Wrong comp titles. These can include comparison titles that are too old, too famous, outliers of your genre, or just plain from the wrong genre. Comp titles preferably should have been published within the last 3-5 years, be well-known but not necessarily long-time New York Times best sellers. Comparisons, for instance, to the Harry Potter series simply can’t be taken seriously. Nelson’s rule of thumb: If it was made into a TV show or a movie, it’s probably too big.

Wordcraft – What happens after you send the query

If there’s anything fantasy writer Seth Skorkowsky knows, it’s how to write a query letter to a literary agent. Skorkowsky, after all, was the first writer to get through the DFW Writers Conference’s infamous query gong show without being gonged out (an event chronicled in “Beating the gong” at this site May 6, 2013).

Sure, the three to five sentences of story description that comprise the heart of a query letter are the hardest things any writer has to compose. “But that’s not what I’m going to talk to you about,” Skorkowsky told his audience at last weekend’s Fencon science fiction/fantasy convention in Irving, Texas. “What I’m going to talk to you about is all the other stuff” that happens after the query letter is written,” the things no one tells you about querying a novel.

The things that happen after querying are also something he knows about, with the publication this month of his third book of sword and sorcery tales. And he’s got some rules about what happens (and what to do) in that time that elapses after crafting that killer query letter. (For more hints about query letters, see “Spawn of the QueryShark, part I” and “Spawn of the QueryShark, part II,” also at this site.)

The first rule deals with research – knowing the genre (and as important, the subgenre) of our work; finding agents who deal with that genre/subgenre (starting with the agency website, but then checking Google for interviews a potential agent has given within the last two years.

As we’re hitting “Send” on that now-magical query, consider Rule #2: organization. Skorkowsky prepares a spreadsheet listing the agent, genre and subgenre of submission, the date the submission was sent, what was submitted (sample pages, etc.), expected turnaround time (usually available at the agency website), miscellaneous information (date open to submissions, other agency at the agency, notable clients), and rejection date. Yes, rejection. Because it will happen.

He suggests pacing ourselves by sending not more than 5-6 queries at a time. This will allow time to revise the query if needed and prepare for Rule #3 – "the experience of crushing self-doubt.”

Rule #3’s list of things not to do includes not responding to rejections unless invited to do so by the rejecting agent, not taking rejection personally, and never, ever venting about those rejection online. “Mark your spreadsheet to list the rejection, move on and send the next query.”

Rule #4 : how to deal with the paranoia that waiting inevitably leads to. Again remembering not to vent, instead stalk the agent nicely, via Twitter or QueryTracker and consider starting a different project to get your mind off the waiting thing.

And finally, Rule #5: closure is better than rejection. “If their website says they respond within eight weeks and you haven’t heard (within that time), mark your spreadsheet ‘rejected’ and move on.”

Skorkowsky said his spreadsheet shows that he sent 83 queries for what would become his first published novel, Dämoren. From those he received 44 rejections (the quickest within one day, the longest after 11 months), 38 non-replies (two of them received – make that, not received – after agents had requested full manuscripts. And one acceptance. And that, dear readers, is all it took.

(Next Tuesday, words from the FenCon writers’ workshop).