In summation, I hate summaries. But I hate synopses more. Or maybe I hate them evenly. Lots of hate.

[taste_is_sweet]

Yes, it's that time again. I've finished a novel except for the (hopefully; please, God, hopefully) last beta-read and putting the info on the title page, so now I have to write a summary of the damn thing. Fuck, fuckity fuck fuck damn it.

Yes, exactly.

A summary is the shorter version of what the book's about, an important distinction that I'm sure I'll forget again as soon as I've finished writing one. Normally I've found the synopsis to be worse, because it's longer while still requiring pithiness, and its hard to figure out what bits are important enough to mention when I'm trying to describe the plot in as few pages as possible. My agent (which makes me sound wayyyyy more famous than I am. Like, enormously way more famous) prefers the synopsis to be no more than two. Publishers don't have much time to read stuff, yo.

And I'll just let the irony of that go unmentioned.

I remember gnashing my teeth and lamenting to the very kind sgamadison about writing the synopsis for Black Hawk Tattoo, though the short summary was pretty easy. But with this novel, so far it's been the other way around.

That's the thing about romance novels: the relationship is the point, so anything that happens that doesn't directly relate to the two protagonists' journey to kissyface can be safely left out. But unlike BHT, my current novel is a fantasy, where the romance is important but far from the only thing that happens. I could, actually, leave the kissyface out and still describe the plot, but these days it seems you can't sell a novel without romance; so mentioning somewhere that yes, the heroine meets a hero for kissyface and mutual lifesaving is probably important.

So, bearing that in mind, how's this?:

This book has magic in it.
There is kissyface.
Lots of bad stuff happens.
No one actually dies.
Then end.

Perfect, right? :P

Okay, break's over. Back to work. Yay. I love writing. No, really.

It was a lot more fun making duck movie posters

Comments

[sgamadison.livejournal.com]

I think this is an EXCELLENT synopsis! Let me know if they go for it! ;-)

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

LOL. Thank you. I'm sure they'll know they have an automatic best-seller on their hands.

[sgamadison.livejournal.com]

*grins*

I forgot to say congratulations before!

[taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :D