Monday, May 4, 2009

Sausages, Sangria, and Synopses - Oh My!

Last week, I worked on my manuscript every single day (at least 6 hours every night). All I did was sleep, work, and write. OK ... I fibbed. I did stop to shower and eat things - even though I forgot to eat more often than not ... who knew editing was such a great way to lose weight? What's funny is that I put my manuscript on a diet, too.

I am pleased to announce that my 109,000 word manuscript is now 13,000 words lighter! *cake for everybody*

I celebrated Saturday with portuguese sausages and red wine sangria and then spent half of Sunday agonizing over my synopsis. I didn't save any sausages or sangria for you, but here ... if you ever find yourself in a synopsis pickle, I present to you, ladies and gents, my research:

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2009/02/art-of-synop.html


http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/2009/02/synopsis.html

http://querytracker.blogspot.com/2009/02/in-short-writing-novel-synopsis-that.html

3 comments:

Andrew Rosenberg said...

I don't think that sitting home and writing is really helping my weight...too many snacks around :(

I read something recently that said most agents skip over the synopsis and head straight to the partial so they can get a feel for the writing. I'm not putting much work into mine, but I'm trying to get my 150K ms cut down a bunch too.

Christine said...

lapetus999:

Fruit roll-ups are healthy snacks! Yogurt and Jello cups nom!

I think some agents like to read synopses to find out if the ending is cool or not. In high school, I used to read the first chapter, skip to the end to read the last couple pages, and then go back and read the rest of the book. I think knowing the ending helped get me excited about reading the book. As a writer, it's a neat way of seeing how an author gets to his/her conclusion. Looking forward to something is always nice!

Good luck with cutting! It took me about a month to really get into it, then after that, I cut 9,000 words in just a couple days. Before I knew it, my ms was 13,000 words lighter and I haven't even gone through every chapter yet!

Thanks for stopping by,

Christine

cindy said...

HURRAH for a lighter mss. =D congrats!! and it was so great to meet you. i'll be post fotos tomorrow! thank you for coming, christine!