I’m pretty sure I’m not the only writer who tries to run from writing a synopsis.  In fact, I haven’t spoken to anyone yet who says, “Writing a synopsis?  Yeah, that’s a cakewalk.”  But the question is why do so many of us struggle with them?  I mean, a synopsis only has to be two or three pages.  If you’ve put down a 70,000 words novel, that should be nothing, right?  Sadly, no, that’s not right at all.

 For me, since I’m a wordy by nature, it’s sort of like trying to squeeze an elephant into a mouse hole.  I have thousands and thousands of words in a manuscript, and in my humble opinion, they’re good words.  I used each and every one of them because I thought they had value, but now to create a synopsis and use hardly any of those cherished words.  Eek!  On top of that, a synopsis should only include scenes and characters that are pivotal to the story.  But every scene and character is important!  I wrote them, so they must be!  But there again, the truth is, not every character and scene in a book is needed to make a good story, or to at least get the point of the story across.

My awesome editor at MLR Press, bless her for her patience and understanding, was well aware I was procrastinating on writing a synopsis for this novel.  And when I finally decided to quit procrastinating, progress was slow as I had other things to do; eating breakfast, going to the grocery store, cleaning the house, checking email every two minutes, playing games on Facebook.  You know, important stuff.  This same day, my editor and I were chatting, and got talking about the synopsis. 

 As we were finishing the discussion, I said, “Yeah, I guess it doesn’t really have to be creative, it just has to get to the point.”  Bingo!  Hallelujah!  By Jove, I think I’ve got it!  And that, in a nutshell, is the whole point of a synopsis.

 It’s true, you want a synopsis to be somewhat engaging, but I think if the story itself is engaging, that’ll come through in the synopsis.  A synopsis and a story have two different jobs.  The story’s is to entertain and be creative.  The synopsis’ is to relay information.   

Everybody has their own way of writing a synopsis.  I like to start mine off with a character list describing the main characters and their roles.  This way, my editor has easy access to who the important players in the story are.  But for me, my stories are heavily character driven, so that’s why I focus on them in a synopsis. 

Following the character list, I’ll put down about three pages of what the story is about, hitting on all the major events, and mostly the moments of high emotion and high action.  Once I have all that down, I check over the finished synopsis to make sure I have the basics in it.  Is it clear where the story takes place?  Whether the story is set in Chicago, or on Alderaan, (yay for a random Star Wars reference), I think it’s important to have the setting in there.  Do I introduce the main characters and their relationship well?  Do I muddle things with letting too many minor characters say hello?  Am I keeping on track with how the main conflict is introduced, developed, and resolved?  Is it clear what genre the story is, m/m contemporary, m/m paranormal, and so on?  And the biggest of all, do I reveal exactly how the story ends? 

If you’re like me, giving away the ending of your book before someone has actually read it boarders on sacrilege.  But when it comes to a synopsis, it’s not only okay, it an absolute must.  You’re not spoiling the story for an editor, you’re helping them to understand it better.

Now, I’m by no means an expert on synopsis writing.  Sure, I’ve written a few in my day, but it was only with this most recent one that I truly got a sound understanding of its purpose.  So while I always used to look at a synopsis as an author’s worst foe, I’ve come to accept mine as a friend.  Maybe not a friend I want to hang out with all the time, but certainly a helpful friend.  There’s no denying they’re an editor’s friend, and what’s good for the editor is always good for the author.

By:

S.J. FROST

This new e-book from Untreed Reads is, in fact, the very first non-erotic story I’ve had published. Sure, I’ve had a few LGBT romance stories published, but this one is a whole ‘nother kettle of fish. It’s lesbian literary fiction.

So, if UGLY NAKED PEOPLE isn’t about an ugly naked beast with two backs, what is it about?

Ugly Naked People

By: Giselle Renarde | Other books by Giselle Renarde
Published By: Untreed Reads Publishing, LLC
ISBN # 9781452443492

Categories: Lesbian Literature Short Stories

Rave is concerned about her girlfriend Astrid’s rapidly declining weight and health. As Astrid’s eating disorder begins to take its toll on the couple’s relationship, Rave hopes that a dramatic move on her part will save both Astrid and the future they could have together.

You can buy UGLY NAKED PEOPLE now from just about any reputable seller of ebooks, including Smashwords, AllRomance ebooks, and many others.

Hugs,

Giselle Renarde
Canada just got hotter!

http://gisellerenarde.webs.com

http://donutsdesires.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/GiselleRenarde
http://audreyandlawrence.viviti.com/

Seriously, though, I know which one I‘d choose.  Cowboys.  To me, they seem almost as fictional and idealized as pirates & ninjas, since I hadn’t come across a real, live one until I was mid-thirties. I spent most of my life in Toronto.   I’d be willing to bet there’s not one real cowboy in Toronto, unless they wandered away from the Calgary Stampede and got seriously lost (it‘s a loooong way between the two).  Horseback riding, chaps, tight jeans… Yep, I totally get the cowboy as romantic hero, in historicals, contemporaries, or even futuristics – Firefly, anyone?

Zombies as romantic heroes…  I don’t know.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love zombies.  I adore zombie movies (I was even an extra in a funky little movie called Enter, Zombie King).  I could go on ALL day about my favourites, but in them the zombies are generally villains.   If there’s any heroic hotness, it belongs to the last humans trying to survive.  Zombie as romance hero?  I think that might qualify for one of my absurd, yet insurmountable mental blocks.  Because in my mind, zombies = rotting flesh and I’m pretty sure I know which parts are going to be immediately vulnerable.

That’s right.  Noses.

Okay, so I’m lying.  I was thinking of other bits, but no sense in making everyone think I have an unhealthy obsession… it’s a perfectly healthy obsession, I assure you!  But I am talking about romance, and sex is usually a big factor.  Of course, that does give me an idea for a bittersweet tragedy about a zombie eunuch…

Regardless, it would have to be a stellar idea to solve for the rotting bits to make me accept (writers, I may be throwing down a gauntlet here) a zombie hero.  Paige Tyler came up with a great take on the zombie as romantic hero (I believe it‘s coming soon).  Clearly, it can be done.  Who knows?  Maybe there’s a lot of you out there who think zombies are poor, misunderstood creatures who only need the love of a good man or woman to fix them.

Our scenery didn’t come with this guy…

But it did inspire…..

I see several outdoor scenes in my current work in progress.  Not only was the surroundings recharge me but the ease of the days.  My mind was able to focus on my writing (or okay, the bear and how to use the bathroom), or just wander. 

It was a great trip….that I’m sure will fuel many scenes in the future.  One thing it did remind me of…the importance of using ALL aspects of nature. The chipmunk running across the trails, the squirrels chattering, and feeling of really being ‘small’ in a very large world. By including what aren’t the first things to come to mind when you look at the above pictures, I as a writer, can bring you closer to what it really was like.

Hope eveyone has a great day!

Lyncee

In general, I’m a simple woman. I like simple things.

You. Me. Food. Yum.

That describes last night’s dinner of Quartermaster subs from Buccaneer Pizza. Rott’s had everything on it. Mine was minus the tomato (I’m allergic) and the mustard. (So not a mustard fan unless it’s on hot dogs or corn dogs or pastrami.) Simple food devoured quickly so Rott can return to the NASA channel and I can continue to delete email.

Since I like simple things, you’d think I’d write simple stories, but nooooo. I have to write complicated scenarios with simple answers. And the answer is…

Love Conquers All.

Yep. That is the Deal in my author world. No matter who you are, what you do, how bad you act, if you are the hero or the heroine (or hero #2) you will discover that Love Conquers All and you will be given a Happily Ever After. You could be dead (as is Ashworth Stone in Fire Storm, the 7th Tales book.) You could be living your life in the Netherworld instead of your own world (as does Alfred Stone’s mate in Rain of Tears, the 9th Tales book.) You could be an asshole (like Vahid Delrey in Ride the Lightning, the 4th Tales book.) You could be straight with a same sex mate (like Holden Antaeus in Fire Season, the 3rd Tales book.) You could be the black sheep of the family (like Eden Antaeus in Hot Water, the 2nd Tales book.) Or maybe just be a damned stick in the mud (like Marius Granville in Common Ground, the 5th Tales book.) You could lose your entire family including your mate because you’re a mean SOB (like Ruan McCallan in Thunder and Myth, the 8th Tales book.) You could also give up too soon (like Declan Antaeus in Shifting Winds, the 1st Tales book.) Or you could be a loving brother and mate, an arrogant bastard, a brilliant strategist, a nosy Machiavelli, and a force to be reckoned with (like Sean Antaeus in Force Majeure, the 10th and final Tales book) and STILL end up on a knife edge of uncertainty, a hair’s breadth from losing your mate of many years and unborn child on the operating table after a harrowing car accident…only to have Love save the day.

Love IS the Deal. It’s what spins every plot, brings every character to life, and gives the world one romance book after another. In the end, it doesn’t matter if the stories are het or gay. It’s the Love that makes the book worthwhile.  And the tears you shed at the happy ending.

I write across the genres because that is what keeps me motivated. A surfeit of het romances are just as likely to happen to me as a surfeit of gay romance. I like to mix things up and enjoy everything there is to offer. (Yes, I’m one of those people who tastes a little of almost everything on a buffet. *eyeroll*)

Keeping myself entertained by writing and reading across genres is important to me. One of the things this helps with is staying fresh. If I bounce around the genres I won’t get bored and my work won’t suffer for it. God forbid I give you a boring story! I’m not easily pleased with romance books and I imagine the millions of readers out there aren’t all easily pleased either. I try to give them credit for not being dumb and easily lead when I think out a plot. I also try not to write one genre back to back to back. Which leads me back to my first paragraph.

Sure, I don’t understand those het women who read nothing but gay romance. I can’t do it. I need my M/F action too. However, just because I don’t understand how you can want to have sex only with men, yet not be interested in M/F love stories, doesn’t mean I think those people don’t get the Deal. I am quite, quite sure that they do.

I just happen to love the Deal in many of its forms. (I’m not much of a menage reader because I find those scenarios to often be too contrived and not very plausible.  Very few authors can write a menage love story and make me believe it. It’s a tough genre to do right IMO, which is why I rarely write it myself.) I know there are others like me who just want a good love story whether the main characters are M/M or F/F or M/F or even those menage equations I have trouble with.

The Deal for me is sealed with strong characters, a strong plot, good writing, and good editing.  Nothing kills the Deal for me more than bad writing and a weak, trite plot.  The Deal only works if I buy into it and believe it. Your job (and mine) as an author is to make the reader believe. At the end of the day, even if I’m tired of writing and reading gay romance for the moment, if the book is spectacularly well done (like anything by Josh Lanyon see above link) the writing will take me away and serve me the Deal on a silver platter and make me forget that I was getting tired of that genre for the moment.

So now that I’ve had a surfeit of Teh Gay for the moment, but still haven’t finished writing my gay romance for fall release, I find myself opening het romances on my Nook when I go to bed.  Oh, yeah. Tab A, Slot B…shivers of lust. And the Deal. I have to have the Deal. There is nothing like reading a book with a well-written Deal to make me want to write like the wind.

All you authors out there, you give me the Deal in spades and I will return the favor…in any flavor of genre you want. Just so long as Love Conquers All.

Question: Why are elephants grey and wrinkled?

Answer: Have you ever tried to iron an elephant?

Or the ever-popular:

Question: How do you eat an elephant?

Answer: One bite at a time!

That latter joke, however, has some serious implications for writers (or would-be writers), and I’d like to address it. It has to do with the logistics of writing novels. (Another old saw: When it comes to war, amateurs think about strategy; professionals think about logistics.)

So, you want to write a novel. But a novel is, as a rule, somewhere between 70,000 and 120,000 words. Anything much shorter or longer is going to be much more difficult to place. There are exceptions–online epublishers being one of them–but let’s take 90,000 words as the average for a novel. So you want to write a 90,000 word novel.

How will you ever find the time?

Assuming you haven’t bought into the myth that writing must be slow and painful to be of value*, it’s easier than you think. A manuscript page, double-spaced with one-inch borders, in a legible font (12 point Courier is my preference) will generally consist of 250-300 words. Let’s take 250 words as the average. If you can write–not type, but write–fairly quickly, you can probably produce 250 words in fifteen minutes. Maybe as much as an hour.

Let’s say it takes you fifteen minutes to write 250 words. If you devote fiteen minutes a day, every day, to writing, that’s 91,250 words in a year. That’s a novel for fifteen minutes work every day. Does that sound doable? (No, that number doesn’t include revisions**, but if you’re only spending 15 minutes per day on writing, I think you can find the time to revise as well.) If it takes you an hour to write 250 words, you’ll have to put more time in, but that’s still an entire novel in a year.

Let’s step it up, though. Say you can write 1,000 words in an hour (250 words every fifteen minutes), and you can afford an hour a day to write. One thousand words per day X 365 days in a year is 365,000 words. Or four 90,000 word novels. For an hour a day. Oh, pity the weary writer, who labors for sixty whole minutes a day. If you can spend two hours a day writing, well, that’s (2,000 words x 365 days = 730,000 words). If you can produce 3,000 words a day, you reach 1,095,000 words–enough for twelve 90,000 word novels. If, as John D. MacDonald is reputed to have said, you have to produce a million words of crap before you can write anything good…3,000 words a day for a year will clear all that crap out of your system in one year.

“But, Gail,” you say, “I can’t write every day! And I need a vacation after working a whole hour a day five days a week!”

Okay. Let’s run those numbers.

There are 52 weeks in a year. Take two weeks off for vacations. That leaves 50 weeks. A five-day work week means 250 working days. Let’s assume you’ll lose 50 days to holidays,  illnesses, family emergencies, and the unjustifiable desire to play hooky sometimes. That leaves 200 days a year.

200 days x 1,000 words = 200,000 words, or two 90,000 word novels a year (2.2 to be exact).

200 days x 3,000 words = 600,000 words, or between six and seven 90,000 word novels in a year.

And that’s assuming only 3,000 words per workday. If you’re producing 250 words an hour, that’s 12 hours of work. A long day’s work.

But. If you’re writing 1,000 words per hour, that’s three hours work. If you treat writing as your day job, work at it all day, and can produce any sort of word count, well…now do you see how Nora Roberts can produce so many novels every year?

I mention all this because when someone pointed this out to me, it really opened my eyes. I’d been writing for my own amusement for years, but had always been rather daunted by the idea of writing a novel. How could I ever produce a story 90,000 words long? It seemed impossible. Seeing these numbers in black and white convinced me I could do it. Over the last year or so, I’ve written–and published–seven stories of 7-10,000 words, and written (and am now circulating) two novels. I plan to write two more novels by December 31st of this year.

The numbers don’t lie. There are a thousand excuses would-be writers can use to justify not making the effort to achieve their dream of publication. But that you don’t have the time isn’t one of them. Not anymore. Now you know better.

You’re welcome.

*Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and Joyce Carol Oates would all beg to differ. Shakespeare and Dickens produced a great deal of great literature writing quickly, and Joyce Carol Oates has been known to write 9,000 words a day. That’s a 90,000 word novel in ten days!

**But don’t assume that major revisions are necessary. They may be, but plenty of successful writers do minimal revisions. The notion that a story can’t possibly be any good until you’ve sweated blood over it is a myth. It may be true for some writers, but don’t assume it’s the case.

This (cough) gentleman assumes, of course, that every vampire book is in the vein (heh, heh, pun intended) of Twilight.  Uh, no.

So we moved on (can we please move on, like to opposite sides of the room?)  Where was I?  Oh, yeah, so he then observes that for something like that I pretty much just type whatever I want, right?  I mean it’s not like it’s real or anything.   Uh, no.  That’s why they call it fiction.

So, he concludes, that must be pretty easy.

It’s moments like these for which the phrase, “if looks could kill” was invented.  (We writers know stuff like that.)

That’s right, I wanted to tell him.  The words just trip off my fingers onto the computer screen, fully formed and perfect in every way.  No research involved, no planning, no plotting, no character development.  And then no revising, no editing, no sending my darlings off to be rejected by vicious agents and editors!

No, you ass, it isn’t easy, I thought about saying, as I eyed his pristine white shirt and imagined what it would look like with my Cosmo all over it.  And, no, just because it’s vampires for grown-ups, the entire book is NOT just one big sex scene, like some sort of bad porn flick with cheesy music playing while the characters switch partners for the next round of body fluid swaps.

Some of the best writing I’ve ever read is in genre writing.  Some of the best writers I’ve ever read write fantasy and romance and science fiction.  And good sex scenes are damn difficult to write.  I’d like to see THAT guy try writing one.

Unfortunately, courtesy (not to him, but to our hostess) prevented me from telling him what a jerk he is.  So, I just smiled and moved on, dreaming of red, sticky stains all over his white shirt, and . . . you know, I just might have the character profile for the annoying-guy-who-dies-early-and-bloodily for my next book!

DBR

Have a Harem of Gorgeous Men

(This should be you)

This is absolutely the most important one. We all know that the only reason anyone buys romance is for the sex. In order to create the most believable, passionate and erotic chick porn out there, you need to do your research. Therefore, you need a harem.

Travel to Exotic Locations

(Here looks good)

Romance simply cannot flourish in a banal setting. The backdrop to your epic tale must be as intriguing and dazzling and jet-setting as your characters and their whirlwind love affair.

Have a Tragic Love Affair

(There cannot be happiness without sorrow)

You can’t know (and hence write about) the beauty and power of true love without having thought you were in love in the past only to either lose that love or realize it wasn’t love at all. This could be because you were blinded by lust and infatuation or maybe you picked the wrong man who wasn’t worthy of you or you might have even had a nice man that wasn’t very good in bed. Whatever the reason, a tragic – and preferably tormented – romantic past is a must.

Know How to Kick Some Ass

(He could TOTALLY teach me a thing or three)

It doesn’t matter if you are writing historical, paranormal, erotic or scifi, your hero needs to be a total ass-kicking stud even if he doesn’t actually kick any ass at all. Find yourself a weapons expert, a personal trainer and/or a hand-hand combat specialist and convince them to tell you all their secrets. And then add them to the harem.

And remember to always, always have fun!

Blog — Twitter — Facebook — Sculpting a Demon at Ellora’s Cave

Flowers?

Candy?

Candlelight?

A bubble bath?

Some would say all of the above while others would have their own ideas. In writing romance, there are many definitions that a writer must deal with. So – what is….romantic?

Often, the same scene can have a double meaning. For example….
The shrill buzz of the doorbell shattered the silence. Darla glanced at her watch as she sat her book down. Twenty after nine. Who could it be? She stood and walked to the front room. The low rumble of distant thunder echoed in the night air as she opened the door. Michael stood in the pale yellow porch light.
“I thought you were still stuck in Colorado.” Darla’s pulse raced as she tripped over the words. “They said all flights were still ground.”
He held out his hand, offering a rectangular box with a green silk bow decorating the top. “It’s your birthday. I couldn’t miss it. So I rented a car and drove. Here, your favorite chocolates.”
“Oh, Michael,” she stepped outside and into his embrace.
OR – same scene and props but totally different outcome -
The shrill buzz of the doorbell shattered the silence. Darla glanced at her watch as she sat her book down. Twenty after nine. Who could it be? She stood and walked to the front room. The low rumble of distant thunder echoed in the night air as she opened the door. Michael stood in the pale yellow porch light.
Darla’s heart skipped a beat, panic surging through her. “What are you doing here?”
He held out his hand, offering a rectangular box with a green silk bow decorating the top. “It’s your birthday. I couldn’t miss it. Here, your favorite chocolates.”
“No, Michael,” she stepped inside and tried to shut the door, but his fingers stopped it.
While these examples are very basic, they show how the same thing – a box of candy – can mean two entirely different things. One scary the other a sweet gesture.

As a romance writer, I realize it’s more than a simple prop that makes romance. It’s the characters, their relationship and the setting and I have to use all three if I’m going to create a romance that will pull the reader in. I’ve read great romantic scenes set in places I’d never have thought of as a romantic place yet through skilled writing they were.
So tell me, what are some of the more ‘off-beat’ romantic settings you’ve read? Glad you stopped by.

Why? Because some day you might be able to use them. Now bear with me, people. We’ve all written a sentence, a paragraph, a page, etc., and then decided it wasn’t what we really wanted to write. It didn’t work. So we hit delete and moved on. Right? Wrong. Make sure you keep a file for all those words. You never know when you might be able to use them.

I was talking to an author a few weeks back and she happily announced to me that she’d cleared her files of all those books she’d started where she’d only gotten down a chapter or a couple of hundred words on, and then abandoned. I almost cried.

I keep everything. And everything I keep also sits in my brain and as I’m writing, suddenly I’ll remember something I’d written somewhere else and filed away and pull it up. Voila. It fits beautifully with the new work when it hadn’t with the old work.

Not only that, but just because an idea for a story you had last month, last year, a decade ago didn’t work out then, doesn’t mean you can’t look at it now and find something of value there. I’ve got shorts, novellas, and books a plenty sitting in my files. A major stockpile. LOL

A stockpile that’s paying off it seems. I received an offer of contract on one from Ellora’s Cave. And I was very happy about that. It started out as a freebie read, but the characters wanted something bigger and they got it! Such a sweet little Valentine’s Day tale, so it won’t be available until 2011.

In the meantime, I’ve dusted off a couple of more in my files, tweaked and fiddled with them a bit and off they went. One of those books came about as a result of an exercise on the Avoid Writer’s Hell Workshop group. I asked writers to work up a five-hundred-word excerpt in which they described a character’s job without actually naming the job. The purpose was, of course, to make sure the writing was clear and concise. We had a lot of fun guessing. That five-hundred-word excerpt of mine turned into a fifty-thousand-word novel. But more about those lost books on a later blog and what happens to them. *wink*

So don’t throw away your words. Keep them safe. You never know what publisher might just think they’re worthy of publishing. And those little snippets you save always come in handy when you’re blocked!

I hope everyone is happily writing!