So Joshua Palmatier asked me a couple of weeks ago to take part in a sort of group project where a lot of writers would all post their synopses, and we’d all link to each other, and I said yeah, OK because that’s basically how I operate: if you ask me nicely to do a thing I will do that thing.

For the unitiated, the synopsis is a thing you put together when submitting your book to agents or publishers.  It can be a page, or five pages, or ten pages, depending on the submissions requirements of the particular agent or publisher.  It’s a marketing tool, essentially.  It is horrible to write a synopsis.  To distill your book to bare plot bones and upbeat marketing cliches!  To reduce all your attempts to build atmosphere to two, maybe three adjectives!  It is the bane of the aspiring writer’s existence.  Lend me your ears: let me whine to you of the horrors of the synopsis.

The point of this group exercise is supposedly to help aspiring writers get a sense of how a synopsis works, how there are all sorts of different successful synopsis formats out there, etc, etc.  I suspect there’s also an element of public masochism for the writers — that’s certainly what I’m getting out of it.

Here is a synopsis I wrote up for Thunderer.  Spoilers, obviously, for all major plot points, as blunt as possible. 

The bad news is that this isn’t actually a successful synopsis.  I submitted this awful thing to about fifty agents without success, and finally landed an agent without a synopsis through the dark art of networking.  The second book was sold without a synopsis or anything else on the basis of the first.  It’s very probable that this is a very bad synopsis indeed.  I think my discomfort with the format shows through, which is deadly.  I offer it as a cautionary example.  I’ll probably take it down it a few days: it’s oddly embarrassing having it up on the internet.

 UPDATE: That’s enough of that, I think.

 As an apology for wasting your time, here is a video of three muppets singing Danny Boy.

 And here are the other participants:

Patricia Bray:  http://www.sff.net/people/patriciabray/synopsis.html

 

Chaz Brenchley:  http://desperance.livejournal.com

 

Mike Brotherton:  http://www.mikebrotherton.com

 

Tobias Buckell:  http://www.tobiasbuckell.com

 

S.C. Butler :  http://scbutler.livejournal.com

 

Barbara Campbell:  www.barbara-campbell.com/inside.htm

 

David B. Coe:  http://davidbcoe.livejournal.com

 

Jennifer Dunne:  http://jennifer_dunne.livejournal.com

 

S.L. Farrell:  http://sleigh.livejournal.com

 

Diana Francis:  http://difrancis.livejournal.com

 

Gregory Frost:  http://frostokovich.livejournal.com

 

Felix Gilman:  http://www.felixgilman.com/wordpress/

 

Jim C. Hines:  http://jimhines.livejournal.com

 

Jackie Kessler:  http://www.jackiekessler.com/blog

 

Mindy Klasky:  http://mindyklasky.livejournal.com

 

Misty Massey:  http://madkestrel.livejournal.com

 

C.E. Murphy:  http://mizkit.livejournal.com

 

Naomi Novik:  http://naominovik.livejournal.com

 

Joshua Palmatier:  http://jpsorrow.livejournal.com

 

Maria V. Snyder:  http://blog.myspace.com/mariavsnyder

 

Jennifer Stevenson:  http://smokingpigeon.livejournal.com

 

Michelle West:  http://msagara.livejournal.com

 

Sean Williams:  http://ladnews.livejournal.com

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