The Joy of the One Page Synopsis - Part Two

Righto, now I shall reveal all my secrets... :-)

Seriously, I am not setting myself up as an expert in this so please take my advice with a fairly hefty grain of salt. The final judge will always be the editor. However, I have learned a few things in the past year and doing it this way does make a lot of logical sense to me. Whether you feel the same though is up to you! :-)

Okay, so I've rewritten my Kate and Alex synopsis the way I would do it now, given what I've learned.

You start with the internal conflicts:
The sole survivor of a car accident that left the rest of her family dead, environmentalist Kate Weaver is used to taking care of herself. But the loss of her family has left her with a desperate need to protect herself from emotional harm: falling in love is far too emotionally risky for Kate.

Millionaire property developer Alex Woolf lost his parents young and a series of violent foster homes ensured a lesson he never forgot: only the strong survive, never admit weakness. Love is definitely a weakness and one he will never fall prey to.

Then you have the story opening:
Kate and Alex meet at a protest that Kate has organised against a development by Alex's company in an Auckland mangrove swamp. Sparks fly and the chemistry between them is red hot. When Alex suggests a weekend together, Kate cannot resist: she doesn't want love but surely a little sex is okay?

Then there is the growing attraction (why do they fall for each other?):
Their weekend together is unexpected. The sex is sensational but there's more to it than that. Alex, used to control and not showing weakness, is drawn to Kate's uninhibited passion and her blunt honesty, while Kate is attracted to his intellect, the way he makes her laugh and by the vulnerability she senses, something he is trying to hide.

Then you have the emotional turning points of the story, such as the moment when each falls in love, why they fall in love, and the black moment. These points should be active - the characters make decisions and choices based on their internal conflicts.
After the weekend, they agree to keep seeing each other. Alex tells her not to expect any more than a fling but Kate is happy with that, it's what she wants as well. But an incident at a party forces her to revaluate this: Alex defends her from an over-amorous suitor and it's the first time anyone has taken care of her. It tips her liking for him into love.
Defending Kate felt natural and right to Alex but he doesn't know why he did it. He's only ever looked out for himself, not anyone else, so why does he feel the need to protect now? Deep down he knows the reason but he shies away from it: he must stay strong and admitting feelings for Kate is a weakness.
And then Kate finds out that their weekend has consequences: she's pregnant. Kate wants the baby desperately, wants to have a family again. Since Alex defended her once, maybe he'll have a change of heart when he hears about the baby?
When Kate tells him about the pregnancy, Alex is appalled – a child is the one thing that demands unconditional love, a weakness. And yet latent protective feelings stir in him. His own childhood left him scarred; he would never wish that on a child of his own. So he decides on a compromise: he'll provide for the child in every way, but he will maintain a physical and emotional distance.
But Kate will not settle for half measures. She wants a family and that means Alex in her life and in their child's. She demands to know why he can't provide this so he tells her about his childhood and why he cannot give her anything more. Kate asks him whether her loving him makes any difference and Alex, desperate to protect himself, to be strong, angrily tells her that no, it doesn't. She will have to be satisfied with what he gives her.

Then the resolution (how do they resolve their conflict and why?):
Kate is heartbroken but the need to provide for their baby gives her the will to fight. She involves Alex in the pregnancy every step of the way, setting him an example that being strong has nothing to do with denying love. Alex sees how determined Kate is to be there for their baby and he realises that it's love that makes her strong. It's not a weakness to be fought. The example she sets allows him to finally admit that he loves her, that he wants the family he never had just as much as she does. Together they will make it work.

Easy eh?

Okay, okay, so not easy. And this is by no means a perfect synopsis. Kate's emotional journey is truncated - why does she fall for Alex, out of all the men in all the world? What does she learn from him and how does she learn it? I'm sure you can spot other things too.
But the focus of the synopsis is solely on the basic internal conflict. And that's the main difference to the previous one - I've actually given Kate and Alex some internal conflict (the loss of their childhoods/parents). Also, there is no external conflict in here apart from the opening set up and the bit with the amorous suitor. Introducing this has Alex having his hero moment but should this come from an outside source? Still, it has him making the decision to defend Kate and her reaction to that defence.
There is no secondary characters included, and there is no 'voice'. The voice is for the partial - nothing but cold, unadorned facts in the synopsis. What I've done is shown the editor how their romance will play out and how it will eventually be resolved, via the main emotional turning points - initial attraction, why they fall for each other, Alex's hero moment (Kate falling in love), pregnancy and reaction, black moment, resolution. It'll be up to the editor to decide whether this makes enough sense and whether the story is strong enough for her to want to see the rest of it.
The formatting is a little off (thanks Blogger) but this synop, in Word, is one page with a blank line between each paragraph.

And if you're wondering, this synopsis isn't actually the way I've written this story. Not sure of the ethics of posting an unpublished synopsis that I'm hoping to submit (one day!) so this is one I based on my original story, which was eventually rejected. :-) Anyway I hope it gives you a bit of an idea on how to proceed. Feel free to ask questions or anything, or even let me know if there's a better way to do it! Like I said, I'm no expert...

The Joy of the One Page Synopsis

This is a killer, right? You're not wrong. How do you get everything you want into one page? Well, it's not easy but it's entirely possible. After Michelle S gave me her critique of my sorry synopses, she suggested that I try doing them in one page. This was really hard but in doing so, I had a bit of an inkling about how an editor might read it and why certain things were important.

Now, obviously I am no expert in this but I thought I'd share my insights just in case they're helpful.

To help illustrate points, I'm going to use the synopsis I subbed for the FTH contest. This was two pages double-spaced and quite frankly, not very good. See if you can spot why.

When Alex Woolf, Auckland millionaire property developer, discovers eco-activist Kate Weaver protesting at one of his constructions sites, his self-contained world is suddenly thrown into chaos by a sudden attack of the lustful kind. But Kate is wary: he's the very antithesis of her green ideals and is also, unfortunately, incredibly attractive. Unfortunate because she's susceptible to physical chemistry and has learned from past mistakes that it means nothing in the end.
Incensed by the blatant way Alex shows his interest, Kate organises a protest outside his offices but this turns nasty and she ends up being rescued by him. Naturally she tells him exactly what she thinks of him. His response? A kiss to her palm that leaves her trembling. Alex is hooked on the chase. He tracks Kate down with a demand: dinner at her house or he presses charges regarding her protest: Kate has no choice but to agree.
At dinner, Kate tries to scare him off with her blunt opinions but Alex is even more attracted. The evening ends with him pulling her into his arms and kissing her senseless. Then he goes further by manipulating her into having lunch with him at his Waiheke Island home.
Kate, hating to be manipulated, fears the worst but over the course of the afternoon, realises that her initial impressions about him are misplaced. There is a vulnerability to him that she, champion of the vulnerable, finds very intriguing. But, worse than that, he makes her laugh.
That night, finally unable to resist her own sensual nature, a side of herself she's always mistrusted, it's Kate who does the seducing. Their lovemaking is a transcendent experience, a true meeting of both bodies and spirits, and it changes everything between them.
The next day circumstances force Kate into staying on the island but after the night she spent with Alex, she feels she knows him, is sure he would never hurt her. He brings out her humour, her sense of fun. Things she'd hadn't even known she'd lost. She soon doesn't want to leave. Alex too is changed by the experience. A lonely childhood has led to a life of emotional self-sufficiency but passionate Kate has opened a door in his heart. A door that leads to a world where caring about someone does not lead to dependency but emotional fulfilment.
But the spell breaks when they return to the mainland. Attending a party with Alex, Kate is served with a reminder about how out of place she is in his world: a chance meeting with her ex leads to bitter humiliation and it's enough for Kate to decide that it can never work between her and Alex. They're too different and she's too afraid of being hurt again.
Alex feels betrayed at Kate's rejection after the party. He defended her – stepping in to help someone else was a huge step for him in the first place – so why did she throw it back in his face? He wants what they had on the island but he still can't reconcile these feelings with what he's been brought up to believe: that being dependent on someone else for your happiness makes you weak. Way out of his comfort zone, he decides that perhaps his parents were right after all, that looking after number one is the most important thing.
But then they discover that their island tryst has had consequences: Kate is pregnant. She's appalled. Not only is she in love with someone she doesn't want to be in love with, she's also having his baby! Alex is horrified too – the ultimate in dependency requires the ultimate in unselfishness. But now it's happened, he realises he wants it more than anything in the world. So he challenges her: she must get over her fear of not being good enough for him and understand that their differences need not divide them. Kate answers with a challenge of her own: if she'll do that for him, can he get over his need for emotional self-sufficiency and commit to her as well as their child? But for Alex, admitting finally that he loves her, there's no need to compromise. He'll do whatever it takes to have her and his child in his life. Permanently.

I think I put everything but the kitchen sink into that synopsis but anyway, here's what's wrong with it:
Firstly and most importantly, where are Kate and Alex's conflicts? They're not in the first couple of paragraphs and because they're not, nothing the characters do or feel really makes any sense. When an editor reads a synopsis (this is just a guess here folks 'cause I've actually got no idea. It's more how I would read a synopsis) she'll want to know immediately why these two feel they can't be together. If she knows straight up, then she'll be able to see why/how the characters make the decisions they do and if they make sense.
If not, she'll be left asking herself questions like these:
What were Kate's past mistakes? Why does Alex's interest incense Kate? Why is he vulnerable? Why is that attractive to her? What made her lose her sense of fun? What does being not of his world have anything to do with their romance? Why are they too different? Why will it never work? Why was it a huge step for him to defend her? Why did he learn this lesson from his parents?

You see? I'm sure you can spot the other questions in the subsequent paragraphs too. But all these questions pretty much stem from the same reason - what are the conflicts here? And the short answer to that is: there aren't any. Not anything internal anyway. All the baby stuff etc, scene with the ex, is all just me trying to cover the fact that there was nothing to keep Kate and Alex apart. There's hints - Kate's past mistakes, Alex's parents, but nothing concrete.

So if that's not a very good synopsis, what's a good one? I'm not the world's greatest synopsis writer and I'm certainly not setting myself up as one, but I can do better than the above these days. Next post I'll redo the synopsis the way it probably should have been done the first time and you can see if it's better or not.

Light and Flirty Modern Heat: Yeah, Right.

I'm worried about my sub. So what else is new right? Well after reading the transcript of the editor chat on eHarlequin, I've got several worries:

Firstly, I'm worrying that my sub is too angsty for Modern Heat. The problem is that I love deep, emotional internal conflict. And I love a strong, tortured hero. However, I also like humour which makes an uncomfortable mix between Presents/Modern style internal conflict with the Modern Heat flirty/sexy hero. With MH, you can't have your hero standing around brooding endlessly. There has to be some humour/flirtiness there, which makes it hard if you have a deep internal conflict for him. I think my hero isn't too broody (which makes him sound like a chicken!) but towards the end, he's pretty conflicted. Will this be a sub-killer?

Secondly I'm worrying about the whole 'fresh twist on an old theme' thing. The fact is, my setup isn't particularly fresh or original. They meet in a nightclub - how original is that? I like to think I spiced things up with the presentation of it a little but maybe I didn't. The whole fake engagement thing I had going on there was supposed to make it a little bit different to the marriage of convenience thing but I've now taken it out, I haven't even got that. Is my sub too boring?

Thirdly, I'm not sure I pushed the boundaries enough. I wanted to get this one right and in doing so, I'm worried I may have played it too safe. The transcript seemed to imply new and innovative is the way to go, but really, how far can you go as an aspiring author? What, exactly, can you get away with? Perhaps, as Kate Walker says, it's all in the execution. In the sub that was rejected, my hero and heroine didn't physically meet until page 6 or so but they did have a sexy online conversation. This was not mentioned as a problem in the feedback I received so maybe you can get away with a certain amount of rule breaking.

Lots of worries, huh? Anyone else worried about their sub? Perhaps I need to put up the scarecrow again...

Home Again or Completely Gratuitous Shots of New Zealand Countryside

Okay, 4055kms later, I am finally back home! And already feeling the post holiday blues... :-) Stupid eh? But had a lovely time. Travelling the country has given me a new appreciation for how beautiful New Zealand is. If any of you are down this end of the globe, make it your mission to see the South Island, especially Fiordland. And most especially, Doubtful Sound. A more beautiful place on earth I have yet to visit... (Picture on right is Lake Te Anau. Picture on left is taken from the Cardrona ski field in Otago, looking towards Queenstown)



Yes, it rains in Fiordland. A lot. And apparently people have been known to complain to the local tourist information bureau about the fact that it rains. As if the tourist bureau has anything to do with the weather. Reminds me of the time we were Morocco, on the edge of the Sahara and how a couple of our tour party complained to the tour guide because clouds meant they couldn't get their desert sunset photo... These waterfalls at the right are in Doubtful Sound and only appear when it rains.

Here's me being blown about on the front of the boat in Doubtful Sound. Well, I suppose there has to be one shot of me but no one took one of me in front of anything scenic so this will have to do. :-)






And here's my eldest daughter taking a wander along the shores of Lake Whakitipu near Queenstown.







Now the holiday is over, it's back to the wait - 13 weeks! Not to mention thinking about the next writerly blog post... Hope everyone else has had a good couple of weeks!
P.S. Please excuse the big lines of nothingness in between the photos. Blogger sucks when it comes to formatting posts with images.

A Missive from the Deep South - On Heroines

Still adventuring in the wilds of New Zealand's South Island. We're in Dunedin, the southern most city and I have been searching in vain for wireless internet. I think poor old NZ is rather foot-dragging when it comes to providing free wireless hotspots because there ain't none around here. Luckily Dr Jax has an iPhone and it can provide me with the access I have come to require, nay demand.

So, had plans for doing lots of lovely writing/editing while I've been away but they came to nought. Probably a good thing to have a complete break but it does lead to frustrated writer syndrome (symptoms include grumpiness, impatience with long suffering family, and general wistful imaginings about all the lovely things one could do if only one had enough time on one's laptop) - which isn't happy for either me nor my family. Loving the holiday though (especially the three days of unexpected and superb skiing) but will be looking forward to getting back into the swing of writing again.

Anyway, while we've been away, I came across an article in the Guardian about writing for Mills and Boon. It was extremely interesting, especially about 'the heroine problem'. Apparently, according to this journalist, writing M&B heroines is extremely difficult. This is because they provide the reader with the conduit to the hero - in other words the reader needs to be able to imagine herself as the heroine in order to experience the love affair with the hero. But in order to do this, the heroine has to appeal to as wide a range of people as possible - basically she has to be bland enough to appeal to everyone and yet interesting enough to appeal to everyone. Hard, yes? It's good to know I'm not the only one who thinks so!

This is pretty much my problem with my heroines. I give them things like nose rings and tattoos. Or make them geeks with no self confidence. Or make them flawed in some way. But as soon as you do this - make them extreme in any way - you instantly alienate the readers who don't understand or can't relate to that kind of heroine. Which is why my FTH contest heroine didn't work - she was too extreme in both her views and her appearance, and thus alienated a whole lot of potential readers.

In fact, I had a rather interesting conversation with Dr Jax about this particular issue. I was running my new idea by him and he was asking me why a woman recovering from breast cancer was more acceptable than a recovering addict. I had to point out that addiction was more alienating and less sympathetic than breast cancer, not to mention it was a subject you couldn't wrap up nicely in 50k or less, even if it did happen in the past. He argued about this but even if a recovering addict was worthy, it doesn't provide the requisite fantasy or escapism element that you need to have in an M&B.
Even breast cancer may be pushing it. You can't wrap that up easily either but am thinking I'll have to make her in total remission, with all her treatment in the past, and, bearing in mind the whole appealing to the widest range of people possible thing, probably not having had a mastectomy.

Of course, I'll have to hear back about my current sub first before I send anything else out. Sigh.

What does everyone else think about the whole heroine thing? Do you find them difficult to write?

In the Millionaire Playboy Psychiatrist's Penthouse

Two out the four statements in the above title are true and I'll leave you to figure out which ones are which...

Yes, it is a little bit sad to be posting a blog entry while I'm on holiday but a) wouldn't you know it, I have a cold and am holed up in our apartment and b) my eldest also has a cold and is holed up with me. The cold is helped marginally by the setting - a penthouse suite (one of the true statements, see photo) on the shores of Lake Whakitipu, which has all the mod cons including a deck with a spa pool that looks onto the Remarkables Mountain range. Dr Jax outdid himself with the accommodation it has to be said. We have broadband, we have heated floors, we have flat screen TVs... Happy days.

In fact, the setting and the apartment are all extremely Modern Heat - I'm inspired despite the cold! Queenstown is pretty young, urban and hip - certainly judging from all the trendy snow people I saw in town yesterday - with lots of bars and restaurants. Could be a great location for a new story. In fact, I even have a great idea to go along with it. Shows you what an obssessive writer I am that even on a family holiday with a vile cold, the creative urge never stops. Am kind of itching to get into writing it and if it wasn't for those meddling kids... :-)

But I can't think of new ideas at the moment. Too many old ideas to edit, not to mention angsting over the partial under consideration. Coming up for 12 weeks next week but I'm not holding my breath for an answer just yet. In fact I should be doing more NTAI - ing. Unfortunately my main method of NTAI-ing is more writing....which I can't do...

Ah well, shall try and distract myself by reading the new AS Byatt I bought with me, though as much as I love her writing, it probably won't provide as much escapism as Lucy King's new book did (great going, Lucy!). Isn't it lucky I also have Kate Hardy's latest too? ;-)

Holidays!

Woohoo!! Yep, we're going on holiday for two weeks on Thursday! Be the first holiday for me in months (no, two nights in Rotorua does not count) and I can't wait. We're going to Queenstown (see piccie) in the South Island for a conference that Dr Jax is attending. Queenstown, for those in the northern hemisphere, is kind of like NZ's answer to Switzerland on a much, MUCH, smaller scale. :-) Remember those mountains in Lord of the Rings? Those are the Remarkables (again, see piccie). Remember Rohan? That's the kind of country where we'll be going. Anyway, not sure of the wisdom of driving over a thousand ks with two small kids but hey, if you don't try you'll never know right?

Of course the other advantage of going away is that it's the perfect NTAI distraction. It's been ten weeks since I sent in my sub and the twelve week mark will pass while I'm away. I'm thinking I won't hear, considering the busy-ness of the London office. Sigh. Oh well, I am taking the laptop with me just in case (does that make me sad?). Can't do without my email and can't do without my lovely blog friends. :-) And perhaps I'll even have time to do some writing. There's lots of hot alpha skiers, snowboarders, climbers and general extreme kind of guys down there... Hmmmm....

Modern Heat set in Queenstown anyone?