I’ve been thinking a lot these last few days about what I wanted to write my next blog post about and the thought that popped into my head was about writing a synopsis.
What is a synopsis?
Except, here is the kicker, in most cases it can only be one page long. You have to take your entire book and tell everyone about it in one page. For some, this process may be easy. For me, it is definitely one of my least favorite things.
So why write one? Well, as I’ve found out as I started trying to query agents, most of them ask for four things: a query Letter, the first 10 pages of your manuscript, an author bio, and a one-page synopsis of your book. Not all agents ask for this but so far about half I have looked at do.
It was a very painful process. This is not me whining, this is me telling you that writing my book was easy compared to this. But here’s the thing. It can be done and like writing a book, it will take several drafts and revisions to get it right.
So, what’s my purpose of this post? To let all of you other authors know, you’re not alone and to tell you not to give up. Do your best and then ask for some help. My first draft ended up being nearly 2 pages long. I looked at it for several long minutes and literally groaned. It seemed like such an impossible task to get it down to just one page. I kept thinking, why am I doing this? What if no one likes my book? What if I never get it published? Then this will all just be a waste of time.
You know what I did next? I took a deep breath and started trying to shorten it. Trying to take out anything that was too wordy or wasn’t absolutely necessary. Why? Because I love my book. And I’ve put a lot of hard work into creating it. I owe it to myself and to my book, to do everything in power to get it published.
My next step was sending it to my editor. She showed me where we could cut some words and what the most important points to tell were. After several revisions and a lot of back and forth between the two of us, I think I finally have it nailed down.
Is it perfect? Ha! I have no idea. I’m still second guessing myself about it. I’m not an agent, I have no idea what is going to grab their attention. What is going to make them say, “I need to read this book.” But that’s what my editor is for. She is from the business side of the literary world and I trust her to let me know what agents are looking for. What is going to be the best way to get an agent to pay attention to my book. If you don’t have an editor, that’s ok. Get a trusted friend to read it for you. Never underestimate the power of a beta reader. But I can also say, that hiring my editor was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Because I know that I can’t do this 100% by myself and I need to draw on her knowledge and know how.
On the other hand, maybe you don’t have the money right now to hire an editor. Thankfully there are other places you can start. We are very fortunate to live in such a technological world, where we can get online and literally thousands of resources are at our finger tips. Including access to our writing communities with millions of other authors who have either gone what we are going through or who are currently going through what we are going through.
So if you love writing and creating, keep going. Don’t give up even when you come to something like this. You’ve put too much time and energy into your craft. Keep going.
I just want to give a huge thank you to my editor, Heidi Brockbank, at Eschler Editing. I really couldn’t have gotten this far without you!
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