Dreaded Synopsis Time Again

I'm starting a new manuscript and have been in the early stages of planning. I'm about to embark on the next stage of my plotting process - the DREADED SYNOPSIS. I've decided it helps with my plotting, keeps me focussed on the hero and heroine and their conflicts, and to be honest, gets the icky bit over with so I can relax and enjoy the writing *grin*.

I just hope synopsis writing gets easier with practice, although I have a sneaking suspicion it doesn't. Just how difficult it is to write a synopsis is obvious by the software I found (see image). If they were easy people wouldn't have seen a market for the software. Mind you, if the software was that good I think it would be embraced and talked about in hushed and worshipping whispers everywhere.

I guess there is nothing for it but to dig in and write (with a good supply of chocolate at my elbow *grin*).

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!