There and Back

Listening to: Dispatch, "Two Coins"

Oh. My. Gah--

Yes, that's right. I'm back. Again. I know I have these periods of disappearance, when life gets crazy or I get a bit burnt out on the blogging thing. And you know I do, too. So if you've been patient and awaited my glorious return, thank you. And if you appreciate the sarcasm in that last sentence, DOUBLE thank you.

I'm in a weird mood. Sorry.

Anyhow, my life has been weird and crazy and exhausting and weird and crazy all over again over the past few months. I have no particular news, except that I finished the massive revisions on Grim Light, and I'm getting ready to query. I'm making my usual query spreadsheet, and I somehow managed to write my short synopsis (one page, baby!) in one sitting. Without fiddling with either font of margins, too.

Who's a pro? I'm a pro, kids. Either that, or I've done this crap one too many times. Leaning toward option B.

Now I'm working on the longer synopsis. I think I'll do one page for every 10k words, which will come out to about seven pages. Does that sound right? Someone tell me if that sounds right.

And I think--I think--I've come up with a decent query letter. I'm going to tweak it a bit, and then I'll put it up here for ya'll to poke and prod at, if you wish. Or you can just bask in its glory. You know, whatever.

Maybe I'll do that for Teaser Tuesday, actually.

My problem with queries tends to be that I rewrite them a million times over the course of querying. Tia can attest to that, as she was instrumental in a long, long series of revisions last year. I'm hoping to avoid that this time. If it works, great. If it doesn't, then on to the next book. Whatever.

So I'll be ready to query in the next few weeks. Sooner, hopefully. And I've decided, as part of my new "if it works, great" attitude, that I'm just going to shoot them out ten at a time, every Sunday night. I'll have my querying order all worked out in advance, and I'll just move to the next 10 on the list every Sunday, regardless of responses (or lack thereof). I'm just going to do this and get it over with, because I'm freaking ready. It's been far too long since I started this novel, and I'm tired of it sitting around.

So that's what's going on with me, writing-wise. And you?

Off in my own world...

Listening to: Guster, "C'mon"

Sorry I've been off in la-la-land lately. I've been on a serious reading kick.

How serious? Well, I read Twilight this week.

Twice.

The first time, I was just plain hooked. Seriously, even if you don't read YA fiction, give it a try. It's a fascinating, wonderful book. The second time I read it...well, I was trying to figure out just how she did that. How on earth did she make the central relationship so darn compelling? I had to know.

Part of it is conflict, of course. The protagonist and her love interest are very much a supernatural Romeo and Juliet. Star-crossed, indeed.

Part of it is the characterization--Stephenie Meyer definitely has a gift for compelling characters. The protagonist (Bella) is a fascinating character, very intelligent, quick-witted, dry, and self-effacing.

The dialogue is great, too. Sparkling, witty, insightful.

To which I can only say...*sigh*. There are many books that I enjoy, quite a few I adore, but it takes something very compelling to ratchet my envy level up so high. For the first time in quite a while, I read a book and thought, with a great deal of vehemence, "Dammit! Why couldn't I have written that?"

But I didn't, and I've decided I can't let one writer's brilliance shatter my confidence...for very long.

In my own writing world, I'm in the dreaded synopsis territory. Every time I do this, it's like the very first time all over again. I go through sixteen different methods before I find that a muddled combination of all them works.

I use this method, combined with a bulleted list method. Basically, I try to boil the essence down to a single sentence, then a paragraph. Then, as I work on the one-page version, I find myself going into far too much detail and surpassing a single page, so I decide to break it all down into a bulleted list of important plot points to hit.

Once I've got my plot points mapped out, I go through and flesh them out with important details. Of course, this is the part that trips me up again, as I find myself trying to insert too many details. Next thing I know, I'm past one page again, so I have to review it all and ferret out those pesky, unnecessary details.

And so on, and so forth.

My main problem is that I don't know how long a synopsis should be. Most guidelines say, "However long the agent or editor says it should be." Well, it's rare to find that exact information on an agent's website or listing, so I'm left standing right where I was. I want a standard synopsis to send to agents that request it with the initial query, and I want something more should an agent want further detail.

So here's what I do.

I prepare two synopses. One is a single page, single-spaced (I've been told if it's one page, it can be single spaced. I've probably been misled). The other is three or more pages, double-spaced. I usually get self-indulgent and let it stretch to five pages. This way, I at least feel prepared, although just watch. I'm bound to stumble upon an agent that wants two to three pages.

Maybe I should make one that length, too.

This way lies madness.

Anyhow, that's how I do it. Anyone else have particular methods they use, or prepare synopses in different lengths than I described above? Am I way off base here? Talk to me!

Temptation

Almost done with the short synopsis. Well, almost done writing it. Then I have to actually pare it down to one page. Luckily, the first draft might not go longer than a page and a quarter.

But I ask you this: is it bad that I'm really, really tempted to sneak "Aliens arrive on the farm" into the middle of a paragraph? Because I really, really want to. If I were an agent (especially one who kept up with Miss Snark) I would enjoy finding that in a synopsis. It would give me a giggle.

Of course, the problem is that there are some writers out there who actually have aliens arriving on the farm out of the blue in Chapter 14. That's why we have synopses in the first place.

Stupid aliens.