Synopsis Writing Workshop

This is my follow up post to a previous blog "RWA Group Grant Success".

If you are like me, the thought of writing a synopsis will have you scrubbing the toilet in no time *grin*. To try and overcome this hatred of synopsis writing my writing group, WIKS, invited Denise Rossetti to present a 'synopsis writing workshop'.

Three intensive hours focussing on the dreaded synopsis. Wow. Denise covered a series of topics, including:

• why write a synopsis
• what to include in a synopsis
• what to leave out
• some examples

Of course, we were required to write elements of our own as we went along, and then swap with a neighbour or share with the group - nothing like pressure to make you perform *grin*.

We started with an elevator pitch, then we wrote the main emotional steps our hero and heroine take throughout their journey. From these points we started to develop our synopsis.

For me, some of the key points from the session were:

• summary of the plot and a synopsis are very different
• you can't overdo the emotion
• do not hide the ending from the editor (no cliffhangers)
• tell not show
• language is your ally

Now I just have to put the theory into practice!

RWA Group Grant Success

My face-to-face writing group, WIKS (writers in kinship) recently applied for a grant to have a guest speaker present a writing workshop. We are very thrilled to be able to say our grant was successful!!

 

We applied to the Romance Writers of Australia Group Grant Scheme: To provide financial assistance on a case-by-case basis to RWA groups for use in advancing the writing careers of their RWA members.

As a result of our successful application, Denise Rossetti is presenting a three hour workshop on synopsis writing, that necessary element of writing guaranteed to elicit groans and moans from most writers (me included). Hopefully, at the end of the session the word 'synopsis' will no longer have us quaking with fear *grin*.

For those of you fortunate enough to have been to Denise's 'Deep POV' workshop at last week's national RWA conference, you'll know wwe are going to have to push up our sleeves and work our socks off for those three hours. But I know it will be worth it.

Our workshop is in just a few weeks, after which I'll report back here, so stay tuned!

RWA Conference 2010

Wow, what a weekend. I've just returned from RWA's annual conference and have to say I've had a ball. Learnt heaps, socialised just a little *wink* and left invigerated and enthused about my writing - what more could you want?

Some things I've learnt:

• I'm not supposed to be able to write my GMC in one sentence. Nuh-uh. If the GMC guru herself, Deb Dixon, can't drill it into me, no-one can. I can write a goal, and a conflict, and a motivation. But I cannot for the life of me write it in that neat little "character wants goal because motivation but can't because conflict" sentence.
• But I also learnt that it's okay if you don't do it that way, and Deb showed us the way she does it, which isn't a little sentence but a detailed table - now that I can do *grin*.
• To write a dominant impression for your character (again Deb Dixon). That is, an adjective + descriptive noun. For example, Hans solo is a cocky smuggler and Princess Leia is a royal rebel.
• That I now view Pretty Woman through very different eyes after Melanie Milburne's From Bin to Bestseller session. Melanie used Robert McKee's five story parts to demonstrate why Pretty Woman works - and in doing so how to apply it to your own ms.
• Denise Rossetti's key to deep pov: you (the author) are in the character's head looking out their eyes, hearing what they hear, feeling what they feel (and that verbs are your friend).
• Any would be muggers need to beware because thanks to Ray Floro I now know how to maim and kill an attacker - and how to turn anything into a weapon. There should probably be a lot of scared husbands around the country right now, lol.

Give it a few more days and I think I'll have to revisit my notes because after such an intensive few days I don't want to let anything slip out of my head.

Thanks for an awesome event, RWA, and I can't wait for the 20th anniversary conference in Melbourne 2011.