About Me
- Satima Flavell
- I am a writer, editor, reviewer and dance teacher based in Perth, Western Australia. You might enjoy my books - The Dagger of Dresnia, the first book of the Talismans Trilogy, is available at all good online book shops as is Book two, The Cloak of Challiver. Book three, The Seer of Syland, is in preparation. I trained in piano and singing at the NSW Conservatorium of Music. I also trained in dance (Scully-Borovansky, WAAPA) and drama (NIDA). Since 1987 I have been writing reviews of performances in all genres for a variety of publications, including Music Maker, ArtsWest, Dance Australia, The Australian and others. Now semi-retired, I still write occasionally for the ArtsHub website, and I still teach dance at Trinity School for Seniors, an outreach program of the Uniting Church in Perth.

My books
The first novel of my trilogy, The Talismans, is available as an e-book from Smashwords, Amazon and other online sellers. I do have paperbacks of The Dagger of Dresnia at the low price of $AU25 including postage within Australia. I also have a short story, 'La Belle Dame', in print - see Mythic Resonance below.
Book two of the trilogy, The Cloak of Challiver, will be available again shortly.
The best way to contact me is via Facebook!

Buy The Talismans
The first two books of The Talismans trilogy were published by Satalyte Publications, which, sadly, has gone out of business. Book one, The Dagger of Dresnia, is up on the usual bookselling web sites as an e-book, and I have a few hard copies to sell to those who prefer Real Paper. Book Two, The Cloak of Challiver, will be available soon.
The easiest way to contact me is via Facebook.

Buy Mythic Resonance
Mythic Resonance is an excellent anthology that includes my short story 'La Belle Dame', together with great stories from Alan Baxter, Donna Maree Hanson, Sue Burstynski, Nike Sulway and nine more fantastic authors! Just $US3.99 from Amazon.
Got a Kindle? Check out Mythic Resonance.

For Readers, Writers & Editors
- A dilemma about characters
- Adelaide Writers Week, 2009
- Adjectives, commas and confusion
- An artist's conflict
- An editor's role
- Authorial voice, passive writing and the passive voice
- Common misuses: common expressions
- Common misuses: confusing words
- Common misuses: pronouns - subject and object
- Conversations with a character
- Critiquing Groups
- Does length matter?
- Dont sweat the small stuff: formatting
- Free help for writers
- How much magic is too much?
- Know your characters via astrology
- Like to be an editor?
- Modern Writing Techniques
- My best reads of 2007
- My best reads of 2008
- My favourite dead authors
- My favourite modern authors
- My influential authors
- Planning and Flimmering
- Planning vs Flimmering again
- Psychological Spec-Fic
- Readers' pet hates
- Reading, 2009
- Reality check: so you want to be a writer?
- Sensory detail is important!
- Speculative Fiction - what is it?
- Spelling reform?
- Substantive or linking verbs
- The creative cycle
- The promiscuous artist
- The revenge of omni rampant
- The value of "how-to" lists for writers
- Write a decent synopsis
- Write a review worth reading
- Writers block 1
- Writers block 2
- Writers block 3
- Writers need editors!
- Writers, Depression and Addiction
- Writing in dialect, accent or register
- Writing it Right: notes for apprentice authors

Interviews with authors
My Blog List
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Feedback on my books… - Dual Visions and Vashla’s World have a ringing endorsement and great feedback from a recent recipient of signed copies. His wife gave them to him for a bir...4 days ago
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Favourite Sites
- Alan Baxter
- Andrew McKiernan
- Bren McDibble
- Celestine Lyons
- Guy Gavriel Kay
- Hal Spacejock (Simon Haynes)
- Inventing Reality
- Jacqueline Carey
- Jennifer Fallon
- Jessica Rydill
- Jessica Vivien
- Joel Fagin
- Juliet Marillier
- KA Bedford
- Karen Miller
- KSP Writers Centre
- Lynn Flewelling
- Marianne de Pierres
- Phill Berrie
- Ryan Flavell
- Satima's Professional Editing Services
- SF Novelists' Blog
- SF Signal
- Shane Jiraiya Cummings
- Society of Editors, WA
- Stephen Thompson
- Yellow wallpaper

Blog Archive
Wednesday, 20 March 2013
Write a decent synopsis


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When an
agent or an editor at a publishing house asks for a sample of your work, s/he
will usually want to see a synopsis as well. Even if you’re self-publishing and
have done the right thing by engaging a freelance editor to help prepare your
manuscript, you will usually find that she’ll want a synopsis. In fact, when I
do a mini-assessment for you, it’s one of the things I’ll ask for, too.
Why?
Because from a decent synopsis, an agent or editor can see whether your story
will 'work'. Does it have interesting characters doing interesting things? Is
there an underlying conflict that holds the plot together? Can the climaxes be
made to occur in the right places? Is it original? Does it remind the reader of
another book? (This can be either a good thing or a bad thing – a good thing if
your book has an original take on an idea that has sold well before: a bad
thing if you’ve obviously written still another re-hash of Lord of the Rings,
Harry Potter or Twilight.)
The first
time you sit down to write a synopsis, you’ll probably tear your hair out when
you realise that it’s going to take a lot more than the standard one or two
pages to fit the whole story in. (It’s usually fine, BTW, to present your
synopsis with single spacing – but be sure to note the requirements, if any,
expressed by the person who will receive it.)
The very
idea of compressing a 120k story into 700ww or even less throws many people
into a tizzy as the task looks impossible! But relax! There’s trick to it – and
that trick is that you don’t need to tell the whole story.
The Four
Essentials
Any story
can be summed up by looking at four things:
1.
Who is the main character?
2.
What does s/he want?
3.
What's stopping him/her from getting it?
4.
How does the MC set about defeating this opposition?
As an
example, let’s take a look at Pride and Prejudice. (I’ve chosen this
rather than a spec-fic novel because almost everyone has read it, seen the
movie, seen the TV series — or all three!)
1.
Elizabeth Bennet, the second of five daughters in a family whose estate is
entailed to the nearest male heir, is a self-sufficient young woman who
disapproves of her mother’s determination to marry the girls off
advantageously.
2.
Elizabeth wants to marry for love.
3.
There is a dearth of even halfway-loveable men in her social circle, yet when
two new eligible bachelors arrive in the area, she soon becomes prejudiced
against Mr Darcy, a proud man of good family who looks down on those who don’t
meet his high expectations.
4.
Elizabeth must conquer her prejudice and convince Mr Darcy that he needs to
overcome his pride before they can find happiness together.
Ok,
that’s the bare bones of the story. Now, to put flesh on those bones we need to
add:
1.
Other important characters, their goals and motivations
2.
Important events in the story
3.
The eventual outcome, at least in general terms.
What you
need to do first is to meld those four things into what’s often called an 'elevator pitch' – a short resumĂ© that you could use to interest someone in
your story in a very short space of time. It’s really just like a back cover
blurb.
So, a
blurb for Pride and Prejudice:
Elizabeth
Bennet longs to marry for love, but for financial reasons it has to be to a
wealthy man, and finding one who is both rich and loveable isn’t easy. When she
meets the proud Mr Darcy, she quickly becomes prejudiced against his snobbery
and his critical manner. Yet Mr Darcy is not all bad – and he is the one who
can save the reputation of Elizabeth’s admittedly embarrassing, socially inept
family. But can he overcome his pride, and she her prejudice, so they can learn
to love each other?
Once
you’ve done this, you have a handy tool for promoting your book – at the start
of a query letter, for example.
Now let’s
add more flesh to make our blurb into a real synopsis:
Elizabeth
Bennet is the second of five daughters. Their family’s estate is entailed to
the nearest male heir, the sisters’ obnoxious cousin, Mr Collins. Elizabeth
wants to marry for love, and resents her mother’s determination to marry the
girls off advantageously – but at least one of them must marry well to ensure
the welfare of all five, once their parents have died and the estate has passed
to Mr Collins.
The five
sisters are quite un-alike, varying in character from sweet (Jane, the eldest)
to sinful (Kitty and Lydia, the two youngest, whose main interests revolve
around shopping – and flirting with army officers from a nearby garrison.)
When a
wealthy bachelor, Mr Bingley, rents a nearby estate, Mrs Bennet’s hopes of
pairing off her daughters rise. Mr Bingley, with his two condescending sisters
and a well-born friend, Mr Darcy, attends a ball at the local assembly rooms,
and it is apparent that Jane and Mr Bingley are attracted to each other. But
Elizabeth overhears Mr Darcy criticising the company in general and her in
particular, and she immediately writes him off as proud and snobbish.
One of
the army officers, Mr Wickham, befriends Elizabeth. He tells her that he has
been cheated out of his true vocation — the church — by Darcy’s mean behaviour,
and Elizabeth, already prejudiced against Darcy, believes him.
Mr
Collins proposes to Elizabeth. She dislikes his obsequious yet conceited manner
and turns him down, much to her mother’s ire. The angry Mr Collins then
proposes to Elizabeth’s best friend, Charlotte. Being just as poor as Elizabeth
but more practical, Charlotte marries Collins at once.
On a
visit to the newly-weds, Elizabeth runs into Mr Darcy and his cousin Colonel
Fitzwilliam, who tells her that Darcy has separated Bingley from Jane. Then,
unprepared, Elizabeth receives a declaration of love from Darcy. She confronts
him about his ruin of the budding relationship between Jane and Bingley and
Wickham's account of Darcy's mistreatment of him. Darcy leaves, too shocked to
reply, but he sends Elizabeth a letter telling of his estrangement from
Wickham, who had tried to seduce Darcy’s young sister, Georgiana. Darcy also
confesses his repugnance for the behaviour of certain members of Elizabeth’s
family, which is why he persuaded Bingley to stop courting Jane. In this
Elizabeth has to admit he is right — her mother and younger sisters often
exhibit quite unseemly behaviour. Her opinion of Darcy softens.
Elizabeth,
with her aunt and uncle, visits Darcy's estate. He unexpectedly returns home.
To Elizabeth’s astonishment, once they have both overcome their embarrassment,
he makes an obvious effort to be friendly.
The
cautious new start to their relationship is interrupted by news that Lydia has
run away with Wickham, apparently with no intention of marriage. This will reflect
badly on the entire family, and Elizabeth is convinced that any chance of a
relationship between her and Darcy is in ruins.
However,
news comes that Lydia and Wickham are married. Elizabeth learns that this was
almost entirely due to Mr Darcy’s intervention – he paid Wickham to marry
Lydia. Bingley returns and proposes to Jane – and Darcy once again proposes to
Elizabeth!
Et VoilĂ !
That’s
just over 500 words – one single spaced A4 page. The bare bones of the story
are there — enough to give agents and publishers an idea of whether or not you
have a workable storyline, and whether or not it’s the kind of thing they are
looking for. You don't need to mention all the characters and you can leave
sub-plots out altogether unless they impinge on the main plot in a big way. You
will notice that I haven't mentioned Eliza's father or Lady de Vere at all, and
the story still hangs together.
If you
start with those four basic elements - the main character, what s/he wants,
what’s stopping him/her from getting it and how s/he sets about defeating the
opposition – and build up from there, you’ll come up with a decent synopsis
every time.
This article first appeared in the now-defunct webzine, The Specusphere, on 10 September 2011.
This article first appeared in the now-defunct webzine, The Specusphere, on 10 September 2011.
(Picture courtesy Wikimedia Commons: © 2007 Nuno Pinheiro & David Vignoni & David Miller & Johann
Ollivier Lapeyre & Kenneth Wimer & Riccardo Iaconelli / KDE / LGPL 3)
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4 comments:
That is brilliant! Have you been a teacher at some point? This is the kind of activity I could use with my advanced students.
I would love to read your thoughts on pitching to editors and publishers. When anyone asks me what my books are about, I freeze. It's so hard to put it into succinct, appealing words!
Glad you like it, JB! I was a dance teacher for about 25 years, but I do sometimes think I should have been an English teacher. However, my pedantry is probably better suited to editing!
Most interesting post and very well constructed. Thank you!
I'm curious though. Most books these days deal with a single protagonist and this formula works great for that. But how does the formula change when there are multiple protagonists, say in an epic fantasy series or similar? If I choose only the most prominent protagonist in my first manuscript, the synopsis feels woefully incomplete.
I'm glad you liked the post, Jeff!
What I'd do if I had a story with several protags is this: pick the one who has the most to lose and make him/her the MC. Make sure that s/he is in the first scene and the last. I'd mention the other important players in the synopsis - it's even possible to mention what each one wants, if it impacts on the MC's journey.
By and large, readers will bond with the first character they are introduced to, that's why it's desirable to make one character's needs prominent and to ensure that s/he stays with the story from start to finish. (You might like to check out my post on "Readers' pet hates" at http://satimaflavell.blogspot.com.au/2009/03/readers-pet-hates.html)