I have one day, three hours actually, to finish my Fairwood Writer's submission. The novel excerpt? Jah, done and done. No problem, chapter 2 didn't have any serious editing problems that I saw. But, here's the barbed hook, I have to submit it with a synopsis of not more than 1000 words.
This SHOULDN'T be a problem. I actually used an outline to write Mageborn Mechanic. I have it, it hits most of the plot points and emotional points accurately. It's only slightly too long and slightly too Mark-shorthand (some of the notes only make sense if you know who the Knights or the Unfettered are, for example). I SHOULDN'T be having a bloody nightmare of a problem cutting and rewriting it down for submission. But I am. I tried twice last night to write an interesting summary of the plot. The first attempt was 1400 words. The second attempt was as dry as a saltine. I have looked at the online references Norwescon directed writing workshop members to (the same as last year's links). They give conflicting advice. One link says it should sound like the back copy of a paperback. BUT when I tried that last year, I was raked over the coals for it. The 'helpful' feedback being that it read more like a query letter and less like a synopsis. If I had hair, I'd pull it out. I'm going to start from scratch tonight. I have, with frelling bus commutes, maybe 3 hours of writing time tonight. In the end, if I can't trim it, I don't know...is it better to just not submit the synopsis, the worst they can say is 'there wasn't a synopsis', or do I send out one too long and suffer the slings and arrows, etc? I seriously need to find a synopsis-writing class.
2 Comments
11/29/2011 10:57:55 pm
Wow, 650 words, I literally don't know how you did that. :)
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AuthorI'm a lightly-published author with several novels completed and I hope to have them up on Amazon shortly. Archives
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Mark Andrew Edwards |
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