Wednesday, January 19, 2011
yet another thrilling day
Mike (my agent) asked me for an urgent chapter-by-chapter summary of STARDOGS yesterday. As a typically dense, complex Dave Freer book (ie. yes, you may find it easy to read, but I estimate I cover the same material as my two frequent co-authors in 0.5 to 0.2 of the verbage. This is not really a good thing. It's just the way I write)the summary is a nightmare. And boring too ;-). The book isn't. This made as much sense as summarise the bible, chapter by chapter. I am fairly sure the editor in question will 1)not follow the summary 2)not buy the book, so that was a 4000 word (ie a short story) worth of wasted time. On the other hand, if they read the first chapter, and liked/hated it, the rest is there. I cannot see the point of this, but I've done it. Let no-one say I've not tried my best for New York (the inverse, however...). Anyway, it was a long day's work, and really off the direction I am trying to go with Dog and Dragon. So when I finished, I went to bed instead of posting about my thrilling day.
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Ah Dave, thank you for your reminders that writing is not always the fragrant bed of roses we would all like to imagine when we first say to ourselves 'I want to be a writer'.
ReplyDeleteI really do detest writing a synopsis, you have my every sympathy. :)
Down sizing the Bible:God loves you and he sent his Son to Save you by Faith in Him alone. No Works required.
ReplyDeleteBible Synopsis done.
Cheryl - synopses are part of the job. Bleah but part of it. This chapter-by-chapter is de-facto an outline - which a new author who has not written much and is trying to sell an unwritten book may need to show an editor, to provethe book has a coherent structure. It makes no sense for an author with many books behind them, or for a finished book.
ReplyDeleteQuilly: that's a synopsis and a fairly good one. Not a CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER one. To do that, go to Genesis Chapter 1... and start there. The end result won't be as clear as your example, and will in fact be useless - except as I explained above to Cheryl. And even as that it's not much good.
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