Birth Of A Book, Part Seven—Revising and Reducing

By Antonio Litterio

Taking a break from your writing work lets you see it with new eyes when you pick it up again to add polish. It's like meeting an old friend—only better. If you think your manuscripts looks tired, overweight, is less fun or more shallow than you remember, you don't have to be polite. When it comes to your book, you're the boss. Rip into it. Make all those changes, and keep going until it's perfect.

Once you have the basic story, structure and characters, you can play about with your draft as much as you like. There's no limit to how much you can alter it, this side of a publishing contract. You'll find this stage is much easier than when you were winding yourself up, ready to write back in Birth Of A Book, Part One. The work of fleshing out the skeleton of your book is much more fun. First drafts are driven through solid rock. The really creative writing builds on that. Sculpt your words into something unique, then sand them down until they shine.

This is your Pygmalion moment. Take your time. Enjoy it, but don't make the mistake of adding layers of complexity to your work for the sake of it. If your story is strong and your characters engaging, you won't need it. Each scene should either give meaningful insight into one or more of your major characters, or move the action along.

When you're happy with your work, run a spellcheck for all those descriptive words ending in —ly, such as excitedly, grimly, perfectly and the like. Take out as many as you can, and let your decriptions do the talking.

The next step is to rework any phrases where you tell your reader what your characters are doing, rather than show them.  Describing your character as deciding, thinking, or feeling something, rather than letting your reader experience it through that character's eyes twitches a curtain between them and the story world you've created.

See http://bit.ly/1C0CxOU for more details!

The first draft of my work always has plenty of room for improvement by way of "show, don't tell".

Here are the opening lines of my current work in progress, which is the third book in my Princes of Kharova series for the Wild Rose Press:

They were driving through Kharova at its wild and rugged best, but Maia wasn’t in the mood to enjoy it. She stared out of the car window, seeing nothing. 

These are my last hours of freedom. I shouldn’t be cooped up in here. I should be diving off the top board of life. 

She pursed her lips. Okay, so maybe diving wasn't her style, but given the chance she might tuck-roll in off the side.

Extract From Heart Of A Hostage, Copyright 2015, Christina Hollis

And here's my latest, revised version—

A silent movie of Kharova at its wild and rugged best spooled past the car window. Maia's eyes were open, but only the cold glass against her cheek kept her awake.

These are my last hours of freedom. I shouldn’t be cooped up in here. I should be diving off the top board of life. 

She pursed her lips. Okay, so maybe diving wasn't her style, but given the chance she might tuck-roll in off the side.

Extract From Heart Of A Hostage, Copyright 2015, Christina Hollis

What do you think of my improvements to the original?

Write The Perfect Synopsis...

By Antonio Litterio

The perfect synopsis is a single page of description to tempt an editor to read the sample of work you've sent with it. Publishers are so busy, unless your synopsis grabs their attention straight away and won't let go, they won't bother looking any further. They don't have time. Your manuscript's file will be deleted without being opened if it was sent by email, or shredded if you sent a physical copy but didn't include return postage. To give yourself the best chance of getting readers to see Chapter One, read on to find out what to include in a perfect synopsis–and what to leave out.

Use a standard font, in a size that makes it easy to read. Times New Roman, 12-point is ideal. DON'T reduce the font size any more than that. If it's difficult to read, your editor won't bother. Include your email address and the word "SYNOPSIS" to the header or footer, so your work can be easily identified.

Single-spacing (rather than the double-spacing used for your manuscript) means even a complicated synopsis can be squeezed into a couple of pages. That's the absolute maximum these days. If a story can't be explained in under two sides of A4, you've got problems. There's no hope of your editor reading further, or looking at your full manuscript. Wikipedia has nailed the entire plot and character developments of J R R Tolkien's enormous Lord of The Rings saga in 1,600 words. On my WP package, that's two A4 pages plus a few lines. Chances are you'll be able to make the synopsis of your own work a lot shorter than that.

A synopsis must sell your work and your writing style. It has to encourage agents and publishers to pick up your complete manuscript and read it. That’s something they won’t bother to do unless you convince them–fast–it’s worth their while. 

In the first line of your synopsis, give your contact details, the word count, and a reminder of the genre or line you're aiming for. Full details of your intended market should have been included in your covering letter, but you still need to make sure the right person's reading your work.

Concentrate on selling your story, major characters and themes while giving a flavour of your writing skill. Take a lot of time and effort to distil your work down into its most interesting and vital points. Remember, great thinkers such as Blaise Pascal and George Bernard Shaw have all apologised for writing long letters by saying they "didn’t have time to write a short one". 

Write in the present tense. Outline the most important plot points in the order they happen, and why. Include details of your characters’ development as it happens through your book, and the reasons for their inner and external conflicts. A synopsis isn't the place for riddles, cliffhangers, or hooks. Your potential editor can't afford to wonder what happens next. They must know.

Study the cover text and reviews of recently-published books in your genre. When something entices you to read the rest of the book, that’s exactly the type of writing which will make anyone reading your synopsis hungry for more. Never copy anybody else's work, but follow their example to produce a tempting result.

Don’t bother including details that don’t influence the plot. You may have spent hours deciding whether to give your heroine blue eyes or brown, or whether your hero likes cats. That's vital background detail when you’re building your story world, but an editor doesn’t need to know any of it. If your heroine must wear contacts to disguise her appearance, or an allergy to fur makes your hero sneeze when he's trying to hide from the villain, that's fine. Otherwise, leave it all out. 

If you’re submitting by mail, make sure you send everything in one envelope: return postage, your synopsis, cv and covering letter as well as your manuscript. Make sure it’s all cross-referenced, and includes your contact details. Busy publishing house won’t have time to marry up items that get posted separately, but they’ll be grateful for clear labelling on anything that’s accidentally separated in-house.

With all the components of your perfect synopsis in place, tighten up your prose as much as possible. Then go through your manuscript and make sure all the promise and talent you've shown in your synopsis is reflected in your text. Once it's perfect, it'll be time to target your submission. But that's another story...

For more hints and tips on writing (and cooking, beekeeping, gardening and eating cake...) sign up for my newsletter by mailing me at christinahollis(at)hotmail.co.uk, replacing the (at) with @ and putting "newsletter" in the subject line. Subscribers get a free copy of my Tipsheet For The Career Writer.