My thoughts on the Synopsis Struggle

We all need to know how to write a synopsis. My kids get asked to do this all the time with their reading, and as writers know, people who are working with you on your book often want a synopsis so they can quickly encapsulate the book's content. Great.

I think most of you are aware that writing a synopsis is nothing like writing the original book.

I'm currently writing a couple of versions of a synopsis - one at a length of 1-2 pages and one "detailed." I thought I'd give a little description of my process in case any of you are working through the same task.

My first piece of advice is this: don't try to work off the text. Any attempt I have ever made to "reduce" my book to a synopsis has resulted in a long, winding, completely pointless waste of time. If you have an outline, use it as your basis. If you don't, work off the major arcs as you understand them. I went back to my outline and pulled line items out of it to start, so that I wouldn't miss any of the really critical events. The result of this was a list of events. A list of events is not a synopsis, because it lacks cohesion, and more importantly, feeling.

Perhaps the toughest part of synopsis writing is encapsulating the book in a way that makes people care. Essentially, goals and stakes and emotional connection are just as important in a synopsis as they are in the book - just expressed differently.

It's worth giving some time and words to your inciting event, especially if (as is often the case) it sets the major arcs of the book in motion. I found myself describing it in more detail than I expected, but at the same time, its events are fundamental to understanding the stakes, so I just went with it. That actually made it easier for me to outline the continuing arcs thereafter.

Arcs are really important to a synopsis. The synopsis isn't going to have room for any but the most major ones. This novel has three point of view characters, each with two major and often several minor arcs. But only one character is the "backbone character," so it's his arcs that have to define and organize the synopsis, and in fact, only one of his two major arcs (the power arc that organizes the book's events chronologically) gets most of the attention. His goals, and his emotions, have to organize all events and any mention of other characters. I think of it as being a little bit like a very tight short story where you know everything has to serve the central point. Everything in the synopsis has to serve the central drive. It may be that in your story you have two people who are so equally responsible for the plot's events that they are well-balanced. Not so here. Things are going to drop out. A few things are going to change.

No, of course you don't want to report your story's events inaccurately. However, if you keep them in the precise order in which they occurred, down to the tiniest detail, you can end up with a synopsis that blows up in length awfully quickly.

I'll compare it to the way that Peter Jackson handled The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien told each main character arc completely separately, leaving readers to interpret their interrelation; Peter Jackson alternated the main arcs constantly. Jackson's is the technique that's most common in books and movies I have seen recently, but when you're synopsizing, you might not have time to do a lot of switches back and forth. It's okay to take some concurrent events and separate them out from each other a la Tolkien, to reduce the number of times you need to say, "Meanwhile..."

Once you've got all your events down in an engaging way, check to make sure that each thing links to the next, and that you have mini-arcs evident in your synopsis. In this case, mini-arcs mean three mentions of something important (as in my post Three Points Make a Story Arc). Also, make sure there are no events that seem to have no relevance to the whole. It's a good idea to have other people read and critique the synopsis and ask the questions, "Does everything make sense?" and "Do I care?"


The last step for me has been to ask myself whether there is anything missing that might contribute to the emotional impact of what I've already included. It's an interesting question, and I've found a couple of places which will make a lot more sense (especially on the emotional level) if I can add a few words. In the case of my current synopsis, it's hovering right at two pages long, so every few words I add have to be counteracted with streamlining in other places. It's always a good idea to strive to find the most economical way to express what you want in a synopsis, but particularly if your book is on the long side, you want to use all your words well. Don't give a reader the impression that you aren't able to use words efficiently, or they might guess the whole thing is padded unnecessarily.

It's a lot to think about, and still something I haven't done enough times that I feel entirely confident. However, the process itself has become easier and more logical, more subject to my own control. I guess practice makes us better at all kinds of writing!

I hope you find these musings helpful in your own process.

Video: Religion in Worldbuilding 2 (Daily practices and religious diversity)

Here is the video from our hangout yesterday. I had seven guests, and we had a great, in-depth discussion that centered largely on the question of daily religious practices, but also on the various kinds of evidence that appear to suggest the presence of a societal religion. We also talked about religious diversity of various kinds. I hope you find the discussion illuminating.

Many thanks to everyone who attended! I hope to see you all again soon.

Next week's hangout will be at 11am PDT on August 23, and we will be discussing Dining - food, eating implements, etc. I hope to see you there!

TTYU Retro: The scariest question - "Why should I care about this story?"

Have you ever gotten a critique that said, "I'm not sure I care about this story"? It could be the most frightening comment out there. Not "the setting needs work" not "the characters aren't coming together" - no, seemingly everything is working but the reader just doesn't care. This question is a complete deal-breaker on a story, but very often, a critiquer who wants to ask the question doesn't dare, because he or she knows how terrible it will sound to the person being critiqued.

That's why you need to be asking yourself.

There are two optimal times when one can ask this question. The first time is when you're designing your opening hook. After all, the hook is going to have a much harder time "hooking" if the reader doesn't care! The next time is when you've finished a draft and are going back to make sure it's all working as planned.

So what is it that makes a reader care?

This is a tricky question, and not everyone will answer entirely the same way. However, the best place to look is at the protagonist and their goals, and what will happen if those goals are not met. Typically I'd recommend doing the check by asking three (pairs of) questions:

1. Is this a protagonist I feel like following? Why?
2. What is the protagonist's goal? Does it seem worthwhile?
3. What will happen if this goal is not achieved? Is it bad?

Question 1 is really about how relatable your protagonist is. Likeability can be a plus, but if that person shares some general concerns with the reader, that can make them more relatable. Also if the protagonist has very unusual skills or other features that make them fascinating, that is a great help.

Question 2 is a bit sneaky. Occasionally I'll have trouble with it - not because my protagonist has no goal, but because my sense of the protagonist's goal might not make it out of my head onto the page. If the protagonist doesn't want anything, it's hard to get on their side. It's also hard to see where the story might be going. So make sure that you're checking to make sure your lead character has a direction to go.

Question 3 is about stakes. As Janice Hardy would say, if a character has a choice, and both are fine so it really doesn't seem to matter which one he/she picks, then why should we care? If my character's goal is to eat the ice cream, that's not necessarily worth caring about. If my character's goal is to keep from starving, that's a bit more meaningful. Or if my character's goal is to eat the ice cream without permission and thus pull a prank that will make him/her the god of all kids at the school, risking getting in serious trouble with the principal, then that could work too.

In my experience, this is the comment that hurts most from a critiquer. But it is also one of the most critical. I therefore encourage you all to ask it of yourselves before you have to hear it asked by someone else!

The (frightening) power of a good story

We all know that good stories can be very powerful. They can broaden our minds, put us through the emotional wringer, even teach us things that are relevant to our real world experience.

Then, of course, there are times when they teach us things that are wrong.

Not long ago we saw a really good - and hilarious - video describing the real sound that swords make when they are pulled from a scabbard (which has unfortunately been taken down since). Essentially, it explains that the noise we commonly hear in movies when we see swords drawn is incorrect. Swords do not say "ssshhhinggg!" when they are drawn. But we've heard the "story" so many times - so many more times than we've heard the real sound - that it's hard to hear the actual sound in our minds! We can easily end up writing that "ssshhhingg" into our own stories without even thinking about it. And thereby we perpetuate a myth.

This is something that also happens with internet memes, where we engage in the repetition of a story. Sometimes the story is true, and sometimes it isn't. I know I've been caught out before, accidentally passing on a story that was incorrect. I generally try to let everyone I passed it to know that I made a mistake, but I still feel bad. I've been helping to perpetuate a myth.

Stories have real power. A story that is shared by thousands and millions of people doesn't just exist on its own any more. It persists as a kind of language - a vocabulary shared by all the people who have shared the story itself. I think of the way that geeks of all stripes will trade quotes from their favorite books, often supplying the first line of a pair and waiting for the other person to supply the second as a kind of password. The world is now full of people who know what "muggles" are. And words like "chortle" have become part of the general English vocabulary because of Lewis Carroll's success.

At least we know the sources for those stories. It's far more dangerous when the stories told are told about real life. Here is an article I found both dismaying and fascinating, about characters we create. The characters of our reality myths can be the most damaging of all. "Fake geek girl" is a current one, which has been accepted by the members of a particular social group as a shared story, a shared character, a shared overlay upon reality. Anyone who has ever had such a character overlaid upon them knows how frustrating this can be. The character becomes the lens through which you are seen and understood by whoever accepts the underlying myth/story. The character also serves as a blind that covers up and attempts to streamline the complex reality of a person.

Stories are important. We turn the events of our lives into stories, which we share with others. These stories do fall into patterns. However, they can't be entirely regularized. Every person's story is unique. Furthermore, we can't help but understand other people's stories in terms of our own. It's when we stop at the borders of the story as we have understood it that the story has the power to shut down understanding and create problems.

It's something to think about.

Google+ Hangouts to resume tomorrow, August 8th

I'm excited to be starting hangouts again! Our first one will be tomorrow at 11am PDT, and our topic will be Pets in Worldbuilding! I hope you will come to join us for the discussion.

Here are all the hangout topics for this month:

August 8th:  Pets

August 15th:  Religion Part 2

August 22nd: Dining
August 29th: Schools and Education


I look forward to seeing you! Tell your friends! :)

Culture Share: Japan - A Banquet by any other name...and Cormorants!

This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share.  Juliette Wade discusses the city of Kyoto, Japan.

When I was in Japan last month (the jet lag is just wearing off!), my family was invited to a banquet. It was such an astonishing experience, and so entirely escaped my default vision of a "banquet" that I thought I should share some of it with you. It just goes to show how, when you change the underlying cultural values and assumptions, lots and lots of little attendant details change as well.

I'll tell you about the evening and how it happened.

We had gone to a lunch restaurant run by one of my friends - a friend I have had for 22 years, now (yikes!), ever since I was attending my senior year of university in Kyoto, Japan. It was my first chance to introduce my kids to my friend, and she was as always extremely welcoming and the best cook I can think of (the kids are still raving about her donburi). She asked us if we would like to go out to dinner with her the following day, and to do X. Never having heard the vocabulary for what X was, I asked her to clarify, and she said, "We're going to watch the birds eat." My husband and I both agreed that dinner and watching birds eat would be wonderful, and made arrangements to attend.

We had no idea what "watching birds eat" meant. However, we are always ready for new experiences. Also, we know there are many seasonal activities in Japan which happen in conjunction with eating and drinking in some way. Hanami, for example, is when you go out and eat and drink under the cherry blossoms in April. Tsukimi is when you go to an evening party in the autumn and watch the moon.

Note for people writing Japan-based stories: always, ALWAYS know what season it is during the story you are telling. And do a bit of research on that season and what it signifies in Japanese culture.

So the following day we met my friend and took a taxi out to the far northwestern district of Arashiyama. Arashiyama is famous for its hills covered with maple leaves which turn red in the autumn. This particular area is also known for the monkeys which come down from the hill to drink and play by the riverside, and for the temple that the monkeys visit. We didn't see any monkeys while we were there.

The banquet was in a big formal restaurant. This is the approach to the restaurant after dark:

We went in, removed our shoes, stepped up into the slippers provided by the restaurant, and were led upstairs to the room where the banquet was to be held. First to arrive in the room was my son, and he received a round of applause from the people assembled there - I assume because my friend had been telling stories about us and announced that we would be attending. This group is made up of about eighteen to twenty people, a group of friends who have been getting together for events like this for quite a number of years.

The room was rectangular, with one of the short ends of the rectangle (and the corner) all in windows looking out onto the river and hills. The people were arranged in two parallel lines. Each person attending the banquet got an individually sized table about two feet across, and these tables get lined up in two facing rows, each with its own high-backed chair. This was not a tatami room (i.e. with rush mats). I suspect that in one of those, the tables would be of the same size but far lower height so people could sit on zabuton cushions on the floor. In between the two rows of tables was a staging area for the servers, who wore kimono. On my table as I sat down was a copy of the evening's fixed menu, which had been originally written in near-illegible (for me) calligraphy. I could read just enough to get a vibe off of each entry and know when I'd be seeing fish, or meat, or something boiled or fried etc. I was sitting beside my friend on one side, and my family on the other, and my first impression was that I probably wouldn't be speaking to anyone else for the duration of the evening, since the people who would have been across the table from me were actually about eight feet away. Here's a photo which shows many of these details:

If you have ever eaten a traditional Japanese meal, you will know that it often has many small dishes with different little things in them. In the photo above, you can see that my kids were served special bento boxes, and also plates of tempura with dipping sauce. And tea, of course, and an orange soda (the label reads, "Kirin Drink up! Enjoy refreshing times."). This was the children's meal option. The adults drank mainly cold tea or beer, and our own meal came in waves, most of which involved only a very few bites of food. This was fortunate, because there were so many of them. Many of the things which I hadn't figured out on the menu were just as opaque to me when they were put in front of me, and a few remained mysteries even after I had eaten them! The theme of the evening's menu was dishes appropriate to the Gion Festival season in mid-July. One example of a dish was a single mouthful of minced beef with seasoning on it, which came in a tiny glass bowl just the size for the food it held. Another was a red flower that looked almost exactly like a small red pepper, which when you opened it contained a single yellow-dusted bead of gelatin candy, only mildly sweet. There was also a banana leaf that had been curved up into a boat shape and had three individual bites of different foods on it. Here was another item, somewhat resembling a miniature shabu-shabu, thin slices of pork over bean sprouts that cooked on the table before you, and which you could dip into one of two dipping sauces:

The tiny dish in the foreground holds a pinch of grated daikon with red spice on top, and some finely sliced green onions, to be measured as needed into one of the dipping sauces. You can also get a glimpse of the menu there behind the cooking dish. The quantity of dishwashing required after a meal like this is prodigious.

As the meal proceeded, people began talking more and more, and several members of the party got up and walked around the tables (both outside and inside) to chat with other people while they ate. In fact, by the time we were all finished eating, the atmosphere had become a lot less formal and more friendly. People were joking and talking, and my daughter was exchanging waves and signs with some ladies across from her.

Before we left on our trip, my husband and I had decided to teach our kids some short Japanese songs to sing while we were in Japan. We proposed, toward the end of the banquet when everyone was feeling more comfortable, that we might like to sing them. This suggestion was enthusiastically accepted, and the four of us got up in front of the windows and sang "Haru ga kita" (Spring has come) and "Mikan no hana" (The Orange Flowers), to rousing applause. Several people even sang along with the first song. Of course, they weren't suited to the season of Gion festival (oh, well) but everyone really appreciated the songs. Time and again during our trip we were shown that this was a really good thing to have done.

After dinner we all came back down to the front of the restaurant, passed by a beautiful arrangement of flowers which are only displayed during Gion Festival season, and crossed the street to the riverside. There we walked down a gravel area to the river's edge, where a boat was waiting for us. We boarded one or two at a time by getting into the stern of the boat, taking our shoes off and putting them in plastic bags, then stepping over a little bench into the flat center section of the boat, which was covered with tatami mats. The boat itself had a roof over it, hung with white lanterns. Each lantern had pictures of cormorants on it. Once we had all gotten settled into places on the mats, the boat pushed off. It was poled out into the middle of the stream and then came to rest against a set of small pilings that separated one level of the river from another (with about a step-sized waterfall). There we rested and watched the cormorant fishing.

I struggle to describe what this was like. There are moments when you realize that there is magic in the world, not as it exists in stories, but as it exists in the atmosphere of experiences that you have not anticipated, had never imagined, and may never experience again. It was dark, except for the dim white lanterns and the lights of the Arashiyama buildings reflected on the water. Then from further up the river came wooden fishing boats, each managed by three men. One of the men poled the boat, another carried an oar, and the third (who wore a straw skirt) held six cormorants on rope leashes. These birds apparently are not fed the morning of these excursions, so they will fish avidly. They have rings around their necks to prevent them from swallowing the fish they catch. There is an iron basket of burning firewood suspended over the water from one end of the boat, and its light attracts fish. The cormorants are released into the water, where they dive after fish. When the bird-handler notices that one of the birds has caught a fish, he reels it in on its leash, wrestles the fish out of its throat while it flaps its wings indignantly, then tosses the fish into the boat and the bird back into the water. My kids were rather indignant on behalf of the birds, but we were at least assured that once they are finished fishing, the cormorants get to go home and have a big meal of their own. We watched this process for about twenty minutes before returning to shore. This is the best photo I was able to get of the fishermen.

I hope this gives you some ideas for stories, some thoughts about different ways of life and different definitions for familiar words, and maybe the idea that you should visit Japan someday. Not just for Pokémon and Studio Ghibli, either.

New Column out in Blue Shift Magazine!

Today I was excited to see that Blue Shift Magazine is available! This is a brand-new science fiction magazine from White Cat Press, and I have a worldbuilding column in the inaugural issue. Go check it out, here!