One Step at a Time
Rather than being daunted by the enormity of such a task, break it down. Do it step by step.
The first step, of course, is realizing that you're going to have to write a synopsis -- if you intend to market your novel, that is. The best time to realize this is just before you sit down with your manuscript for the final reading preparatory to declaring the thing completed.
Sit down to that final reading with a pen and paper beside you. As you finish reading each chapter, write down a one- or two-paragraph summary of what happened where, and to which character, in that chapter.
Notice any themes running through your chapters as you're reading? Symbolism you didn't realize you'd woven through the story while you were slogging away at the computer for all those months? (The subconscious mind is a wonderful thing.) Take note of themes, too. You may just discover your one-line story summary that agents and editors like so much, if you didn't know what it was before. Or even if you thought you knew what it was, before (surprise, says the Muse, you were wrong).
What you will have when you are done is a chapter-by-chapter novel outline, what I call my author's outline. This is pretty dry reading, and since chapter-by-chapter outlines seem to have fallen out of favor with editors and agents, this will likely remain one of your most valuable writing tools, and that's about it. Don't throw this away when you've done your synopsis, either. You may know the story intimately now, but you do forget details over time. You may decide to revise the novel in the future, and this outline will help you. I've used mine to make sure I'm not duplicating character names from one project to the next. (The subconscious mind can also booby-trap you.) Reading an outline is much easier than leafing through or rereading an entire novel.
Anyway. There is an immediate use for that outline. What you are doing, basically, is distilling the story down into smaller and more manageable packages, step by step. So, you pinpoint the most important plot points in that outline, and you put them into a synopsis.
Notice I said the most important points. We're talking about only those events and motivations that moved the story forward in a major way. We're talking about only the most important characters, the ones your reader will ultimately care about, not the bit players. Right now, we are striving for bare-bones.
"Yup," you say, "that's bare-bones, all right, and just as boring as ever."
Yes, it is. It's also probably still too long, but don't worry about that right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment