A few years ago, I worked withsomebody who wanted me to put together a synopsis for a book I hadn’t yet written.
I’ll be honest, I think my mind almost shut down. I’d never attempted to write a synopsis before and nobody else I’d worked with had ever wanted them. I was still writing only for epubs at the time, and this was an epub. I sent her the best I could do-it was about 1.5 pages, but it was the best I could do. I’m not the sort of writer who does a synopsis, especially when the book is still in the early stages, or…worse, not even written.
She sent it back, wanted more. When we had first corresponded, I had told her that eventually, I wanted to write for New York…eventually. When she emailed me about about the revised synopsis, her words?
“You will never write for New York if this is the best you can do.”
Oooookay. I forced out another half page and told her that was the best I could do, because I am not one who writes a synopsis-how can I, when I don’t even know where the story is going?
You know the plotter vs pantster arguments? The one who plots versus the one who writes by the seat of her pants? I’m the one who writes by the seat of her pants. This doesn’t mean I’m not plotting the story out in advance, but it’s almost an unconscious thing. For the past few months, while I’m working on the first book of my romantic suspense trilogy, I’ve been tinkering out the aspects of book 2, but if I try to put them down on paper? All tinkering stops. I can’t force it to come.
I know vaguely what will happen. And my idea of vauge is…
Guy meets girl.
Girl and guy like each other, sexual hijinx and lots of emotional messes get in the way. Plus danger, as this is a suspense.
They will save each other.
The end.
See? VAGUE.
Now some people are thinking…but you can’t sell a book like that.
Actually…yes, you can.
Read below the cut-it’s the synopsis for the book CHAINS, which was bought on proposal-that and the first chapter only. My editor bought it just based on those two, and I got paid just paid on those two. Once I turned in the final MS, I got paid more, and when the book released? More. Beware-if you haven’t read chains, this does give a run down…you’ve been warned, thus the reason it’s below the cut…
FYI, beth’s name was changed to renee.
Three interconnected stories centered around three women who return to their home town fifteen years after one of them was attacked and nearly raped. Their homecoming, however, isn’t going to be the quick, hi-how-are-you visit they’d planned though. Somebody isn’t too thrilled with their reappearance.
The book opens in 1993, at one of the last parties of their high school year. Not friends, the three girls, Beth, Lacey and Sherra have nothing in common save for the fact that they all got to the same high school, and they all attend this party. Held at the ‘golden’ boy’s~JD~home, the party gets a little wild, a little too crazed and Sherra is nearly raped. Lacey and Beth intervene, but it left deep marks on the three of them. Especially Sherra & Beth, because it was Beth’s boyfriend, the town golden boy, JD, that tried to rape Sherra.
His friend and would be accomplice is killed that night. Their lives changed forever that night and none of them were eager to return home.
First novella, tentatively titled
Chains of Rebellion
Featuring Beth and Deacon~Deacon was Lacey’s boyfriend in high school and they’d only had minimal contact in school, and none since they both left town 15 years earlier. Beth’s parents were very controlling, tried to force Beth into doing what was appropriate, what was expected. When she breaks up with JD after he tries to rape Sherra, her parents try to force her back with him, insisting that he was a good, decent boy and wouldn’t do what Sherra had claimed.
She refused. She also refused to go to the college they’d selected and in the ultimate act of rebellion, gets drawn into the BDSM lifestyle in college. Never hardcore, she leaves it behind easily enough after graduating and breaking up with the guy who had led her into it.
Deacon and Beth meet up a hotel, without recognizing each other, and they end up spending the night together. Deacon is a Dom, although not as hardcore as some. This book does contain some BDSM elements~not sure if they will be present in the other two stories. Probably not.
Although the sex is fantastic and they both seem to feel a connection, Beth slips away without leaving her name or phone number, expecting never to see him again.
Upon returning home, she stays at her parents’ house. It was left to her when they died but this is her first time back. The first night she’s there, somebody breaks into the house.
The protagonist will remain unknown through the first novella, and probably most of the second.
Second and third novellas will have stories about Sherra, who hooks up with a new character that wasn’t around in high school, and Lacey, who ends up with Sherra’s twin brother, the town bad boy.
That was the synopsis for Chains. It’s a whopping 470 words. I know, cuz I checked it with MS word just now. It details the first story of a single author anthology and as you can see, it doesn’t even detail it particularly well.
Now, does this mean all editors will buy based on a synopsis like this? Nope. One thing that’s probably worked into my favor is the fact that my editor knows I’m not going to tell her I’ll write a romance and she pays me for a romance, and then I deliver something that’s chick-lit, or something that’s western, or nonfiction…or egads…a mystery with no happy ending. I’m writing for a romance publisher, after all, and they need a book that is a romance. Before I started writing for her, I’d already had probably 20+ erotic romance ebooks out, and every single one of them had a HEA. Maybe she just felt she could trust me to give that. Maybe she’s one of the editors that doesn’t need one-I know not all editors need them-my agent kept patting me on the cyber-hand every time I started to spazz over things when we started discussing things with my new editor at Ballantine. My editor at Berkley knows me, know how I am… a new editor…choke. Sputter. What if she insisted on a synopsis???? But my agent was right, she didn’t, and I once more breathed like a normal human being.
Oddly enough, I remember talking to my editor at Berkley about Hunting the Hunter when I looking into submitting a full length book to her. I was terrified, and I mean terrified she’d want a for-real synopsis. I had the first few chapters. And I could vaguely, with a bit more detail than my normal, tell her what I was going to do, but a synopsis? No. She told me not to worry. The first few chapters, the rough, skeletal synopsis I had given her was enough for her.
It was enough.
I remember then thinking about the editor who once told me:
“You will never write for New York if this is the best you can do.”
About a year or so ago, I was talking Cindy (my Berkley editor) and I mentioned that comment to her. Yes, I’m going to tell everybody how childish I was. I mentioned that comment and said, “So…am I allowed to go… nyah nyah nyah…”
Cindy laughed.
“Yes,” she told me. “Absolutely.”
Every editor, just like every author, is different. Some authors, like me, can’t plot out in advance worth jack. I’ve successfully plotted out less than three books in advance and all of them were done after I’d sold them and more as a tool for helping me navigate choppy world-building or murder/suspect issues. Some editors are probably going to want the book plotted out. Others aren’t as likely to need it.
The only thing I guess we need to remember is that if you ever have somebody tell you:
“You will never write for New York if this is the best you can do.”
Don’t listen to them. Always try to improve, but if a certain way of doing things doesn’t work for you…it just may not be your thing. That doesn’t mean you won’t sell.