Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Sucktacular Synopsis Stigma

Most fiction writers will probably agree on one thing if nothing else: writing the synopsis sucks.

Period.

In fact, it's a current discussion in The Romance Room email list.

In that same vein, I found some helpful links on writing a synopsis (obviously this is more geared to fiction writing than non-fiction).

Feel free to post in the comments any tricks and tips you have for writing your fiction synopsis. Do you write the synopsis before or after? (I was surprised and a little disturbed to find some write it first... *LOL*) How do you condense a 75k or more word novel down to 2-5 double-spaced pages of text and have it make sense? What do you do? Let's have it, don't be stingy with the advice.

I personally have used the condense each chapter/section down to one sentence, see what you have, build it from there and smooth it out method. That works well for me.