PS re SYNOPSES

Two PSs, actually, because I can never do one of a thing if two are available.

Or maybe even three, because I am, if nothing else, intemperate and unrestrained. I blame my fantasising about those chocolate martinis that Lynn Price goes on about, even though I still don't quite believe in them, Britishy person that I am. I need to see them and the whites of their eyes.

1. Anyway, yes, as Mary says, once the book is sold to the publisher, the synopsis will never be looked at again by your editor. In other words, you don't actually need to follow it. Follow It??? What an extraordinary idea! However, do beware of this scenario, as I have mentioned before, because lurking somewhere in a cupboard in your putative publisher's place is a frighteningly young person who will READ your synopsis, and nothing else, and she (for it will be a she) will one day write a glorious Amazon blurb based on this synopsis. So, if you have not followed it and have not reminded your editor to tell the child that you did not follow it, your crap synopsis will be There For All To See. And then little old ladies in Frimpton-on-Sea will complain that you said that there was passionate activity on the moonlit beach when in fact it was only in the church hall, which will have disappointed them.
   
2. Yes, as Jane says, the synopsis is not the first thing that the editor or agent will read. Nor is it the thing that will draw them in and engage them with an undeniable fervour. Indeed, it's the covering letter that hooks them, and the sample pages that make them salivate, but it is the synopsis which shows them that you do actually have a book that hangs together and doesn't just get off on a stunning beginning and a thrilling concept.
   
3. I can't remember what 3 was.
4. Oh yes - various people on various blogs today have been angsting about the transatlantic divide between blurbs and queries and covering letters and synopses. So, let's get this straightish:

• blurb - you find it on the back of a book or on a website - it's a teaser, something short and with wow factor, that makes someone (reader/agent/editor, who cares?) drool to read the full book. (In the US a blurb sometimes means what we in the UK call a puff / quote by a respected reviewer, just to be extra confusing ...)
  
• query - a letter or email which you send to an agent or publisher on its own, to ask if they'd like to see more. So, it is very blurby, brief and snappy. It entices and teases and inspires and causes unpleasant salivation. In the US this (not salivation, query letters) is common practice; in the UK and elsewhere, it's perfectly acceptable and seems to be growing. Whatever, it means you don't send more at this stage, which is a) good because you don't have to spend on postage/printing etc and you can multi-send easily but b) bad because it's the only chance you'll get with that agent/editor. Do it, but do it brilliantly.
  
• covering letter - included with your synopsis + sample chapters. If this is your first approach to that pub/agent, it's your first chance to wow them so do it well, tightly, succintly, blurbily and follow my advice in this post on covering letters.
• synopsis - much more than a blurb or covering letter, more factual, though still sparky and readable and stylishish and it DOES give the ending. It outlines the plot. Why am I going on about this when I just did a big post (below) on it earlier today?

Jane mentioned Beth Anderson's advice, so, kindly though crabbit old bat that I am, I tracked it down and you will find it here.

And now, frankly, if there's any excuse for not being able to write a brilliant synopsis, I'd like to know it.

WRITING A SYNOPSIS

I hate writing synopses. There are two types of synopsis, or reasons you might write one - let's call them Synopsis Situations - and I hate both. Equally. To be honest, I hate them so much that I've even postponed writing this blog post about them. But eventually, we authors have to get tough with ourselves.

Talking about getting tough, someone has told me I go on about chocolate too much. So I won't go on about it at all any more. I will continue to eat it, however, if that's OK with you. Not that you have any say in the matter.

Synopsis Situations

1. when you've written the book and you're trying to sell it to agent / publisher
2. when you haven't written the book and you are trying to plot it out, to give yourself something to follow
3. yes, I know I said two, but this is a minor third, which I'm not going to treat as properly separate, but I want to stop you all piling in and saying, "What about ..., you ignorant woman?" It is: when you're already with a publisher and you're trying to explain your next idea to your friendly editor, hoping for a contract before writing the book.
   

If you're an unpublished author, or at least you don't have a friendly publisher lined up for your WIP (Work in Progress), you will need to become adept at No.1 so that's what we're going to talk about. No.2 is a very useful tool, one which I should make much greater use of, but there are no special skills involved and no rules to follow. It's just a matter of sitting down at your desk instead of vacuuming behind the fridge.

Trouble with synopses is that they reduce your beautiful words to something much plainer. They can seem stark and reveal all your flaws (which is actually one of the reasons why they are so useful.) They are your glorious self stripped bare and made to stand in front of the cameras in an Edwardian swimming-costume under bright lights with no make-up. You're shuddering, I know you are. It's like being in one of those programmes - you know, How To Look Good Naked (shut your eyes or get drunk?) or Ten Years Younger (and $40,000 of cosmetic and dental surgery later, as well as very clever make-up).

But to continue the anology about as far as it will go, if you were on one of those before and after programmes and had to stand there virtually naked and actually frightening the wood-lice, you would be doing certain things to make sure you looked as OKish as possible, wouldn't you? I mean you would not really be letting your abdominal muscles slide earthwards - you'd be holding them in; you'd put your shoulders back, chin up, lips gently smiling.

Actually, what you'd be doing would be trying to show that IF you had clothes and make-up and corsetry on, you'd look sensational. Your synopsis, despite being your story naked, needs to do this. It needs to stand with confidence, poise, structure and form. Use those muscles - they're in there somewhere. Or they were once.

In a minute I'm going to direct you to some articles and blogs which will give lots of advice. Thing is, some of it conflicts. So, I want to distill the essential points, so that you can then decide what to do with the conflicting stuff.

Essential Rules

1. It must be short. Some publishers and agents specify either max 1 or max 2 pages. Don't cheat with this - a page, like a page of your actual MS, must be double-spaced, decent sized font, with normal margins. A shorter synopsis is preferable to a longer one, and if it's too long it will really mark you down. So, edit and pare, edit and pare, edit and pare.
   
2. It is not a teaser - so, DO say what happens in the end. (But if you are writing a synopsis for your website - Synopsis Situation 4, I guess - do NOT give away the ending. SS4 is entirely different from SS1-3.)
   
3. You give, in the order in which they appear in the book, all the main events. Leave out minor characters, and small incidents. Distill to the most important elements of the story.
4. It should retain a flavour of the book's style and voice. Don't just say "this happened and then that happened and eventually the guy dies."
   
5. It should contain no GPS (Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling) errors. It should be nicely laid out and easy to read.
6. The present tense works well for synopses, but it's not a rule, despite being in a list entitled Essential Rules.
   

Here are some resources for you.
Sadly, the other day I came across a brilliant blog piece about an author's search for how to write the perfect synopsis, and I a) wrote a comment on it b) made a note of the blog address and c) lost the note. I knew I wasn't eating enough chocolate. (Sorry.) So, if that blogger happens to see this, could she please identify herself by commenting below and I'll add the URL? I have a feeling it was someone who follows this blog, but I'm not sure.

USEFUL RESOURCES

AbsoluteWrite has a very useful piece here by Lee Masterson The only thing I slightly disagree with is the bit about not asking open questions. I agree that they should be under-used rather than over-used, because you are supposed to be explaining your book rather than simply enticing (which a blurb would do), but I don't know of agents / editors who would mark you down for using the odd open question, if that's relevant to the story-line. Lee's point about then needing to answer the open question is a good one though.

A Literary Agent's tips (from the US) Nathan Bransford seems to have had the same problem as me getting this blog piece done. But he's done it and it's very succinct.

Finally, I came across this one from Marg Gilks and it's excellent. She makes some important distinctions between types of synopsis and strikes the right balance between blurb and outline. (Small warning though - it was written in 2001 and although I hadn't realised that anything much would have changed synopsis-wise in that time, there are two things which I should clarify: first, DEFINITELY double spacing, please, and second, DON'T be tempted to do a ten-pager; two is really the most you should do, unless you've written Anna Karenina, in which case leave out the farming stuff and that should help a lot.)

Anyway, I have to say that Marg Gilks has converted me. I am now positively looking forward to writing a synopsis. In fact, I am am going to engineer a Synopsis Situation. Bring it on.

On another note entirely, since this post has been on the teachy side rather than the chatty side and since you have been working very hard, and since you need an explanation as to why I haven't posted for a few days, I thought you might like another funny story from the mad world of doing author events. So, do read my "My Brain Causes Airport Security Incident" story here.

Meanwhile, the deadline for my Worst Query letter competition is about to close and I am going to spend the afternoon re-reading the entries and trying to decide. You have produced some absolute classics - well done and thank you for some brilliant laughs! I hope to bring you the winning entries in the next few days.

TIPS FOR SUBMISSIONS: PART 2 - COVERING LETTERS

Having written a previous post with a title containing the words Part 1, I suppose I set myself up for having to write Part the Second, didn't I? Actually, it being such a gorgeous sunny day here in Scotland and the recessionary gloom engendering an unaccustomed what-the-hell type abandonment, I'm going to lay my head on the line or stick it above the parapet or something and say that I am sure there'll be a Part the Third. Scary stuff.

For readers who have recently joined this journey to success, I do suggest you read Part 1 first, because I will otherwise blithely assume that you are up to speed. You will remember that I banged on about how important the covering letter was. Well it is. And this post is going to focus entirely on it.

Oh and by the way, I should warn you: I am majorly in crabbit-old-bat mode today, despite the afore-mentioned sunshine (about which I was in fact lying).

1. Why is the covering letter so important? Surely it's the sample material that's important because surely it's the book and not me that's the main thing?
But if you can't write a brilliant letter, how come you think you can write a brilliant book? If you care so little for your book that you would send it out dressed in thin rags, why should a busy editor/agent care more about it? Or if you think it's so damned fantastic that you need say nothing about it, then why don't you self-publish it and see what happens when you can't persuade anyone apart from your parents to buy it?

Your covering letter is your shop window - it's the only way anyone's going to see what you're selling. Would you walk into a shop that had a load of rubbish in the window? Or a shop that gave you no idea what was in it? Or the wrong idea? And, for crying out loud, it's a FREE shop window. What's not to use? Trust me, only a complete idiot would not try to do the very best covering letter possible. Or someone who didn't fully appreciate the power of words. And if you do not fully appreciate and also bow down in abject worship of the power of words, then you don't deserve to be published.

If you don't believe any of that, believe this: many publishers and agents simply will not read on if you have not a) impressed them and b) whetted their appetites with the beauteousness of your covering letter. So, write a rubbish letter, and your utterly astonishing novel will never be read. Write me a rubbish letter and I will simply refuse to open the first page of your utterly astonishing novel. Your novel can be as secretly astonishing as it likes: I won't be reading it and, anyway, there are many other genuinely astonishing novels waiting for me to read, written by authors who care enough to spend a bit of time writing a little letter.

OK, I think I've made my point. And it's still freezing cold outside so the crabbit mood continues. Why don't I live in Australia? (Ebony, was it Melbourne where you said your chocolate-loving writing group hangs out? I have been known to reduce my already-reasonable speaking fees for warm climates.)

2. What should I put in this amazingly brilliant covering letter then?
You should put you in it, that's what. And your book. The covering letter should be the essence of you and your book, in fact. Distilled, purified, perfect, alive, compelling, capturing you both. My agent told me that another agent told her (sorry, brain frozen and have forgotten name but will get it to you when the sun comes out in a few months' time) that the covering letter should contain the book, the cook and the hook. (qv in COMMON WORDS YOU SHOULD KNOW)

If you look on the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook website (see list on the right somewhere) and click on the advice section, you'll find a sample covering letter. Because the W&A Yearbook is a serious, straight-down-the-line book and because they are giving very general advice, this letter a) technically ticks most of the boxes but b) lacks inspiration or "voice". To be honest, if I was a busy agent or editor I would probably find a surprisingly large number of much more interesting things to do than reply to it, let alone hang around waiting for the postman to deliver a synopsis / sample of such an unzingy-sounding novel. I might find myself suddenly desperate to enter a cream cracker-eating competition or something equally fun.

Good points about that letter: it's short; it's addressed to an actual person; it gives useful facts (eg length) about the book; it identifies what sort of book it is (contemporary, characters downmarket of Joanna T - hmm, sounds fab, I don't think - where was that cracker-eating comp?); it's polite; it tells the recipient a bit about the writer (incl that she has two other novels in mind, which is a useful place to keep them).

Bad points about the letter: it gives absolutely no reason to suppose that the writer can write (other than the ability to string some words together and spell/punctuate - which is a good start but only a start); there's no character, no voice; it makes it far too easy for the editor to ignore it and have a cup of coffee, during which time I am 100% convinced he/she will forget it and go off to find a cracker-eating .... Yes, I know, I'm labouring the point.

I urge you to read this recent post on the excellent and expert Behlerblog. In fact, you should have the blog on your regular reading list. In that particular post, you will see exactly what I mean by voice in a covering letter and a very good paradigm of how not/to do it.

3. Hang on a sec - didn't you once say we were supposed to send sample chapters + synopsis as well as covering letter? That's not what the W&A Yearbook letter is saying ...
Yes. Or even possibly no. Again, the W&A is trying to be very general and careful and to follow all the rules. My more specific and daring advice is that you should either a) follow exactly the guidelines of the specific publisher / agent whom you are approaching, if you are a rule-follower and/or like the rules they give or b) otherwise not. My advice on this is clear: all rules are there to be broken if you are clever and bold enough. Picasso didn't get where he is today (yes, I know, he's dead, but at least he's dead famous) by following rules. So, what I'd do is follow this clear 4-step plan:

1. Closely research which publishers take the sort of book you've written
   
2. You need two envelopes. One bigger than the other, but the smaller one big enough for 30 pages of A4, unfolded. In the smaller one, which has your address and sufficient stamps, but is unsealed, you place the first 30ish pages of your brilliant novel, and the brilliant synopsis (which is ideally one page long and never ever ever more than two - and no cheating by using tiny print).
   
3. You put this smaller envelope inside the bigger one.
4. You also put the brilliant (yep, you're getting the hang now) covering letter inside the larger envelope. This covering letter is so brilliant that it makes the recipient drool and gasp and cry out for more. The letter includes this : "If you are interested in reading my work, please consider opening the enclosed envelope, in which you will find a synopsis and the first ___ pages. However, I do understand how busy you are and that your list might be full - if so, I would be very grateful if you would post the envelope back to me." If your covering letter is brilliant enough and if you have targeted an appropriate publisher/agent, the smaller envelope WILL be opened.
   

4. For those of you who like rules and templates, here's mine: short para saying why you are contacting her/him; para selling/describing/distilling your book; shorter para saying who would the readers/market be, eg "readers who love Sophie Kinsella / Ian Rankin / Steven King (no, NOT all three); short para about you, including only info relevant to you as potential author - eg anything you've had published, other things you've written, how long for, whether any other ideas; snappy end para which shows that you understand the system and how busy the editor/agent is, thanking them etc etc etc and being polite and professional.

5. Are there some things I really really mustn't do in this covering letter? I'm so glad you asked that. Yes, indeedy, there certainly are. First, please do read COMMON MISTAKES and THINGS NOT TO SAY. From that, you will learn, for example, about not being arrogant ("I've written an astonishing book"), or naive ("my grandchildren laugh out loud when I read it to them and are always saying, Oh, please read it again, Grandad"). Essentially, you mustn't be long-winded, boring, old-fashioned, hectoring, whittering, sycophantic or unnecessarily and irritatingly funny, though appropriately and delicately witty is fine if that's what your book is like. You mustn't negatively criticise published writers (unless you are the non-writing celebrity who apparently said she wanted to write a children's book because she thought children's books were all rubbish - and you wouldn't beLIEVE the slating she got on author message boards. If vitriol could be bottled ... Anyway, don't let me get carried away.)

Oh, and although it IS helpful for the editor / agent to know what sort of book / author is landing on the desk, here are some other things which do not go down at all well (except when the agent/editor meets up with other agents/editors and they all fall about laughing while regaling each other about the extraordinarily useless submissions they've received):

• Some people have compared my writing to that of Norman Mailer.
• My novel is Moby Dick meets On the Road meets Lord of the Rings. With, I feel, the occasional hint of an early James Joyce.
  
• This could be the next Harry Potter. But even better.
  

That just about covers covering letters. However, it's really important that you've also read THINGS NOT TO SAY. And I'm betting some of you haven't. No, I'm not psychic but I used to be a teacher and I am a crabbit old bat who is still in quite a bad mood because of the cold weather and chapped skin which makes me look older and drier and grumpier than I'd like to. So, if you wouldn't mind, please go and read it now if you haven't already and then, as a reward for your diligence and patience, you can have some chocolate.



Sorry, not much left, but for me it's a case of Chocolate in a Cold Climate.

TIPS FOR SUBMISSIONS: PART 1

OK. Right. A load of people have said, "Please can we have the tips for submitting to publishers and agents?" Look, I'm trying to have a life here. But I suppose I did promise it. So. Maybe this could be Part One, because I'm in a bit of a hurry to get packed for a worky trip. And then there will have to be Part Two, which will consist of all the things I forgot to say in Part One.

And by the way, while I'm here, thank you for the fantastic emails and other feedback I've had about this site. Seems as though publishers and agents are going to use it as required reading. One of them said, "Where have you been for the last ten years?" Well, here mostly. Just waiting to be appreciated.

Without further ado. (Oh, and I am assuming that you've already discovered the basics, as I've several times said you must. Like typing it on single-sided A4, black ink on white paper, normal sort of font, nothing to scare the birds, no confetti / glitter/ free condoms in amongst the pages etc etc)

1. Write the right damned book. I've said that before. If you haven't written the right book, it really doesn't matter how you approach a publisher. You can paint him or her in chocolate and it won't make a blind bit of difference. Though I've never seen the attraction in that. With all respect to my publishers.
   
2. Follow the instructions in the Writers' and Artists' yearbook etc etc etc and on virtually every publisher /agent website.
3. People agonise over how much material to send. One really annoying person once made the point to me that "it" said he had to send three chapters but his chapters were each 30,000 words long - did this matter? Of course it matters - it's a rubbish book if the chapters are 30,000 words long. (Unless it's Anna Karenina in which case it's a classic with way too much farming detail). Look, just be reasonable: the agent/publisher needs to see a sensible but not boring amount. An amount which will show him how brilliant you are. So, something like 5-10000 words. Or a bit more or a bit less. Trust me - it doesn't hugely matter because they'll stop when they're ready. (Addendum: another common measurement is 30 pages - double-spaced, decently-sized font etc).
   
4. Make your covering letter perfect. I don't mean glittery and, like, totally amAZing: I mean perfect. It should not be too long or too short or too boastful. It should not tell the story of your life or exaggerate or be coy or irritating or weird or gimicky. It should briefly (and if you can't do this briefly you are lost) advertise the incredibly interesting thing that is your book. It should say neither too much nor too little. It should show your potential agent or editor that you know your stuff, know the market, know the business, love writing, plan to continue to write after this book, are willing to learn. And it should convince him/her, in thought, word and deed, that you have written a gem. (I did say SHOW: you should not say this - it should speak for itself. "Show not tell" is something we may come to, though it may be in the section on "clichés that your creative writing guru may well come up with and which need to be analysed properly and taken in context" - and that's a long section, I can tell you.)
5. Your synopsis should be no more than two sides of A4. And this does not mean squashing it into 4pt marginless text so that your reader can't read it without a magnifying glass. The synopsis should prove that you have finished the book and that it works. A synopsis is a really hard thing to do well. I could write a whole blog about synopses but I won't because I'd prefer a life. But be seriously warned about synopses: not that you perhaps care about this right now, but in your potential publishing company there dwells a person (probably female and probably about 12 years old) who will read your synopsis later and who will use it for the blurb for Amazon when your book is published. The synopsis, as every writer knows, bears no relation to the book you will eventually produce and the Amazon blurb, as I very well know, is there for ever and ever and ever and is copied by every website in the universe. So, one happy day you will get letters from people complaining that your book didn't actually feature a girl who was obsessed by turquoise boots (I'm getting suspiciously autobiographical here - never do this in novel-writing but do do it in blogging) and you will not know what they are talking about because you will have forgotten the synopsis you wrote before you were published. I tell you this not to teach you anything about writing synopses but to warn you about life as a published author, which I am determined you will know about, even though it is very weird.
6. So you have done your brief and succinct covering letter and your amazingly inaccurate but fascinating and deliciously tempting synopsis; and you have printed off your first however many words of your oeuvre. You might, if the publisher/agent's website suggests it, and definitely if you are a non-fiction writer, include a brief and tidy CV, which includes (in the case of non-fiction) your credentials for writing about microfluidics. What next? You get a nice clean envelope, so as to look really professional, and you put the stuff in. You address it neatly - no, your hand-writing doesn't matter but you are trying to do everything right. Now, the thorny issue of return postage. Depends whether you want it back once it's been spat on. Frankly, I wouldn't. Frankly, I'd politely and sensitively suggest that they recycle it. But if you DO want it back, you must include a properly stamped addressed envelope. With enough stamps.
   
7. Then you wait. And you wait. Oh I forgot, no you don't - you send it to some other publishers at the same time (saying to all of them that that's what you are doing). If submitting to agents, it's slightly different - for a large agency you can do multiple submissions, but for a small independent you can't. Well, you can, but they won't like you and if they don't like you they won't read your work. Which kind of defeats the object.
   
8. And you wait.
9. But meanwhile, you .... WRITE. Because you are, remember a writer, not a person who waits for the post every day.
10. Oh, and by the way, you have not emailed your oeuvre, unless the agent or publisher has specifically said that's ok. Currently, it's not usually the preferred option but this may change. Things do.
    
11. I will be back, trust me. Once I've checked that the Amazon blurb for my next novel is going to bear no relation to the synopsis I suspect I may have produced when trying to persuade my publisher that I knew what the hell was going to happen. Do as I say, not as I do.