The Sin and Sepsis of SYNOPSES

{All right, that title^ is cleverish by half, and lame to boot. But I had to take my angst out somewhere.}

 

Agents and editors may ask for a synopsis. Synopses are most writers’ least favorite things. Rejections hurt less, some will tell you. Synopses feel like whacking a seven-layer cake into a pancake. It’s all still there, but the air is out.

 

Now that’s done, let’s sympathize with a writer who has just reduced her fifty-thousand-word lusciously layered lyrical story to five hundred words, while retaining some of the voice, all of the major plot points, all the major characters, and giving away the surprise end.

It was painful.

 

The best part about this beast is that even if editors or agents don’t ask for it, it will help a writer notice major plot holes or weakness in the full manuscript. Summarizing delineates the arteries of a story.

 

But otherwise, they are evil.

 

There are a lot of superb sites that give helpful advice about tackling the synopsis. Here are a few I found helpful:

 

https://janefriedman.com/novel-synopsis/

http://www.marissameyer.com/blogtype/6-steps-for-writing-a-book-synopsis/

http://www.writersdigest.com/editors-picks/learn-how-to-write-a-synopsis-like-a-pro

 

Here’s a bit I found helpful that I didn’t see anywhere else. I found that I write an effective synopsis if I had not re-read or looked at the story for a few weeks.

Yup, this helps me extract the essence and not be tempted to include many of my favorite parts. I can see the arc more clearly. It feels less like homework, and has a clarifying effect.

 It works for me, anyhow.

 

 

 

Now back to work, revising the synopsis. Not funny, Yea. But a necessity.

 

 

PURIM, the Festival of Lots

As written in the Book of Esther, it means a "lot.” Purim is the plural form of the word `Pur', and thus means "lots.” The festival is called Purim because of the lots cast by Haman. The word Pur is also related to the Hebrew word `porer,' which means to dismantle, break, destroy, or break into crumbs.

 

Purim is around the corner. It has few reverberations outside of Synagogues and Hebrew schools in the United States. But when I was growing up in Israel, it was THE HOLIDAY for us kids. Think of it as Halloween for dress-up and merry making, and then take out the ghoulish creepers. Unless you consider the historic back story, which is re-told and re-read in synagogues at that time, and includes the first of many hateful men who set out to kill all the Jews.

 

When the miserable haters bent on destroying us are part of a people’s reality from time immemorial to today, we don’t need skeletons and zombies to make merry. Besides, this is a story of triumph over adversity. I still remember the end of the story, with its joyous exclamations about Haman being hung from a tall tree along with all his children. I remember NOT being too happy about that, but I got over it with some delicious Hamantaschen (literally, cookies shaped like Haman’s ears) and the promise of competing in Best Costume with a prize to boot.

I did win first prize once, in fifth grade. For the life of me I can’t understand why. I can only assume my “Mad Man in Pajamas” was so pathetic it was a pity-prize.

 

While we ate our rectangular filled cookies, the grown-ups were commanded to get so drunk they could not tell the difference between the evil Haman and the pious Mordechai. That’s the same as between the bad and the good, and the injunction to drink was a commandment, not a suggestion, folks.

 

Add to it that this holiday is named for “lots,” and extend that to the lottery, gambling, and other vices-- and you get one happy party. That it sometimes fell on or near my birthday didn’t hurt.

 

What can I say? I miss it.

 

  

OUTLOOK~

Or—

IT'S ABOUT HOW YOU LOOK AT IT

 

We know the saying— perception is reality. I never bought this completely. Some reality just is. But one’s outlook {not the so-named by Microsoft ;=) } does make a load of difference.

 

When I write from different points of view, I realize that my inner dialogue is transformed as well. The characters’ outlook shapes how and even what they see, and this in turn changes what I see. I hope that together we take the reader to a different vantage point.

©Shelagh Duffett

 

But the life-lesson, for me, is that a good deal of experience is internal and within the realm of choice.

 

I am reminded of an old family friend who passed this wisdom to her daughter with an evocative image. “Girl,” she said, “being born is like having been given an invitation to a party. Not every part of it is joyous, and it can get too loud. But while we’re here, let’s dance.”

©Shelagh Duffett

The Gore and the Glory

P.S.

It’s all glorious!

 

A short time ago DS went, on a lark, to audition for a role in a movie. He is not an actor and this was just going to be an experience, a la “why not? I won’t get it.”

 

He was notified that he got the job. We called him, in jest (and some amazement) the movie star.

But stardom didn’t last. After a few emails and even a rehearsal, as well as more fun details about his part, an email notified him of a change in the project’s direction and that his part has been cut.

 

Easy come, easy go? Well, it’s never easy.

 

I was reminded of my first traditional book contract. It came out of the blue from a small but traditional publisher. The advance was paid, the illustrator hired and everything was moving full steam ahead. The contract, in retrospect, was very generous on all counts. The experience of working with the editor and watching my story be illustrated was joyous.

 

And then it wasn’t. The small publisher closed its doors.

 

I think about a former neighbor, a talented writer who got her first contract to publish a thriller with one of the publishing giants, and a six-figure advance. For a year everything was on track, and then… By now you can guess. The project was canceled. Gone. Bye-bye.

 

Oh, it was great while it lasted. If only…

Back in Paris, where he’s in graduate school, DS was feeling bummed out. Then he did a few things right. He called his sister at Juilliard in New York, and they skyped for two hours. She told him about her many setbacks, (competitions that fizzled and auditions that didn’t work the way she hoped) and together they helped each other. I am so happy for my kids that they have the relationship they do.

The second thing he did right is write up a schedule for the next few weeks, one that is both productive for what he has to do and includes some things he wants to do, so he has what to look forward to. All in all, a positive response that makes me feel optimistic for him.

 

As one who has had quite a few “almosts” in publishing in addition to projects that made it to publication, I know well that nothing is until it is.

 It’s how you respond that matters. Abandon ship? Get back on the horse? These literary clichés have actual and practical meaning. Navigating is not simple, because real life, if it’s worth living, does not come with MapQuest directions.

DS started out just looking for the experience. He got that. Nothing can take that away. It’s all glorious, in the end.

My Turn…

Yup, I get one!

I get to be silly.

 

I was (almost) born on February the 29, which would have made me one quarter of the age I am now

 

You think?

 

Hint: thinking is free

♫♫©♫♫

From the Mouth of Babes, Again

A conversation I overheard at the children’s books’ section of my favorite neighborhood bookstore, yesterday afternoon—

 

Kid: “This is not a good book.”

Mom: “Why? The writer is very well known.”

Kid: “The story has a happy ending and the good guys win.”

Mom: “That’s a good story, (kid’s name). Don’t you like happy endings?”

Kid: “The bad guys were so much stronger the whole time and they should have won.”

Mom: “In stories good wins over evil.”

 

Kid: “In some stories I don’t mind. But there was no way in this one.”

In all my years of reading eloquent reviews and how-to books on what kids like and expect, I have never heard it expressed better.

 

Now that I think of it, my two favorite stories from second grade were The Little Prince and The Little Match girl. Sad endings and no fixes for the imperfections of this world. And yes, I got it, and read and re-read these for years.

Summer Reader

©By Shelagh Duffett

 

 

A reminder to self: don’t write happy endings that are just tacked on. Don’t underestimate your readers, no matter what anyone else says about “kids won’t get that.”

 

 

Cold Got You Down? Get Some Whiskers!

The Love Holiday just passed, and if you did it right you kissed a lot of people. This could mean you are now laying low and lying down, felled by an old fashioned cold.

It is imperative to have good comforting company to look onto occasionally.

A good pair of slippers. These were a gift from DS, called Freudian Slippers. The label says they were made by The Unemployed Philosophers’ Guild.

And a good book to read~

 With someone to read it to you~

© LOVE makes the world go around ©

Let’s consider these famous quotations about LOVE

St. Valentine’s Day, with the heart-shaped chocolates and musings about love, is shortly upon us.

 

Years back, DS asked me why almost all the popular songs are about love. I answered that love is, well, popular. The accoutrements and trimming attached to love have always been popular. Speaking about love is a perennially popular topic, and singing about it is “the popularest.”

 

This got me thinking about famous quotations from venerable sources that, when you stop to think, don’t quite hold water. Don’t get me wrong, they all contain some truth. But in the main they come short.

 

“Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

 

Erich Segal

Really? Me no likey this one.

 

“Love isn’t something you find. Love is something that finds you.”

 Loretta Young

Very nice Loretta, but it ain’t so, darlin’.

 

“Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.”

 Mother Teresa

Oh, brother! I mean, oh, mother—sometimes yes and mostly no.

 

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”

 Aristotle

And I thought Aristotle was the earthbound thinker. Really, Ari.

So while all of these are nice enough, though sorely lacking, I find this last one, not as pithy or as poetic, to be much more satisfying:

 

“Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.”

Ann Landers

~~~

 

My sixpence-worth is that Love is a mystery. Just like life, and all of creation.

Keep singing, and send chocolates. That part is all good.

Getting the Voice (age) Right

When writing for younger readers, feedback from beta readers, agents and editors may include comments such as these:

“The voice reads too young for the MC age.”

“The voice sounds too adult.”

“The voice sometimes sounds too young.”

“The voice weaves between the appropriate age and that of an adult.”

“While the voice is spot-on for the age, I didn’t care for it.”

“Whatever else you change, do not revise the voice. It’s terrific.”

“The voice is stilted and unnatural.”

“The voice has a natural flow that kids will relate to.”

One of my novels got all of the above before it was published. Yup, since I have only one published to date, it’s not a mystery which book it is.

 

What to do? When personal feedback shows no consistency and is even directly contradictory, I think of it as honest, well intentioned, but subjective. There is nothing I have to do, because if I were to take it to heart I would get an incoherent stew as I attempt to revise.

 

Here is when feedback makes me spring to action:

*When it instantly resonates

**When it repeats from different readers

Getting the voice to hit the right note of authenticity for the age is a challenge those who write for their own age do not have to worry about. Getting feedback from younger readers is also good, but keep in mind— each is still an individual.

 We who write for children must keep the reader’s age in front of us always.

Groundhog Day

If ground-hog day was bright and fair,
The beast came forth, but not to stay;
His shadow turned him to his lair,
Where six weeks more, he dormant lay
Secure in subterranean hold—
So wondrous weatherwise was he—
Against six weeks of ice and cold,
Which, very certain, there would be...

~H.L. Fisher, "Popular Superstitions," Olden Times: or, Pennsylvania Rural Life, Some Fifty Years Ago, and Other Poems, 1888

Well, then— it’s today, and it’s all right if we missed it. GROUNDHOG DAY is for many young’uns an excellent Bill Murry movie, played over and over since its release in 1993. But the odd Farmer’s Almanac-like   custom is much older, and not less bizarre when analyzed. Does the groundhog see its shadow? Six more weeks of winter? Heh?

I think of it this way— the weather is uncontrollable. We want control. Give us some grounding from where we will navigate.

But I like to leave this post with a much more spunky quotation that should take us through the next six/eight/ten/please no more weeks:

“It's a holiday entirely based on the power of a psychic rodent. If that isn't the epitome of awesome, I don't know what is.”

~Flying LlamaFish, "7 Reasons Groundhog Day is the Ultimate Holiday," 2010, PunIntended.com

Constructive Feedback

Ever been asked to give feedback to an essay, a story, or a novel-in-making?

I bet the answer is yes, many times yes, whether you’re a teacher, a parent, a writer, or someone who knows someone applying for something. Bet you’ve asked others for such, also.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I thought I’d expound on what sort of feedback I find useful on the receiving end. By extension this post also touched on what feedback is not helpful, which, ahmm, is the opposite of what is. All right, this last sentence could be revised. 

Feedback isn’t helpful unless it is specific.

Example: “Where aunt Edna doesn’t care for the soup little Pooky made, you could make it a lot funnier. Aunt Edna could be trying to not show her distaste by contorting her face in order to swallow that swill, while Pooky lists the ingredients.”

{Not helpful: “The story could be funnier.”}

Example #2: “Use evocative and active verbs, such as a play on “soup.” Think spit, swallow, swerve, spin, stir, slam, slide, strike.”

{Not helpful: “Use varied verbs.”}

Example #3: “The part where Pooky is thinking about how good her soup will turn out to be could be cut. One sentence showing her doing the Soup Sashay says it, and more visually.”

{Not helpful: “Some parts can be cut.”}

 I think you get the idea. Specific, even including suggestions, is helpful. The writer doesn’t have to accept the specific suggestions, but it is clearer as to what/where/why/when help is needed. As to the who, that’s a given.

PROOFREADING ISN’T FOR THE TIMID

“There were grammatical errors even in his silence.”

Stanislaw Lec

I’m on record that the hardest of all the technical aspects of writing, for me, is finding and discarding typos.

It isn’t a matter of poor typing (no court stenographer, I) or missing le mot juste. It is about seeing, or NOT seeing, to be exact.

Here are some helpful hints from wise and experienced people who write. These suggestions apply to proofreading one’s own writing. For some reason proofreading another’s is much easier, and may not necessitate all the techniques below. But for my own writing I find that I need all of them, twice.

·         Enable mechanical spell/grammar check programs, but don’t count on them nor follow slavishly

·         Read out loud, correcting on the spot

·         Change the font and font size, and re-read

·         Put away in the drawer and re-read a few days/weeks later

·         Get a kindly friend to read and correct, specifically one who is a good proofreader

Obviously the last two suggestions can’t be practical for sending quick Emails or posting replies on chat boards. The last one, enlisting another pair of eyes, should only be called upon for the most important writing, as you’ll risk running out of friends.

And here’s the kicker: even after all that^, let go of the idea of perfection. The average number of typos in published books by major publishers is seven per book. Those were read by editors and line editors.

Doing what I can… Good luck.