A blog-reader has offered this synopsis of her book for us (you and me) to advise and comment on. Many of you will remember that I often have a "Synopsis Spotlight" - I'm still doing this every now and then. I can't use every one that is sent to me, for various reasons, but I try to include those that I think offer some useful teaching points. I do not include those that I think are so far from the mark that they'll attract lots of negative comments.
Showing posts with label synopsis spotlight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label synopsis spotlight. Show all posts
Thursday, 2 August 2012
Monday, 14 November 2011
Synopsis Spotlight - Kip Cusack and the Spy Formation League
I've chosen this synopsis by Louise Kelly because it nicely shows how you can (and should) convey the tone and voice of your story in your synopsis. Louise's worries whether, although the comic tone fits the novel, some vocab/phrasing doesn't match age range. Also, she introduces a new character right at end. Is this odd/wrong, she asks?
It's a novel for children of 9-11 (I'm guessing.)
Kip Cusack and the Spy Formation League: Synopsis
KIP CUSAK AND THE SPY FORMATION LEAGUE is the first adventure of 12-year-old KIP whose world flips upside down when he finds that his ‘Support For Learning’ sessions are in fact a cover for a spy training network – the Spy Formation League. Not content with making him grapple with his spelling, life now seems to expect him to grapple with villains too!
Kip arrives home one day to find the contents of his GRANDA TOM’s potting shed being hurled into the back lane, and Granda Tom, locked inside the garden, denying that the clearly audible thumps and threats are any cause for alarm. And, why should they be? After all, Kip’s mum, ROSA, makes sure their life in the dull seaside town of Brawhaven is as humdrum as possible. But what Granda Tom knows, and what Kip is about to find out, is that all this is about to change … completely.
When Kip meets IRWIN, his new SFL [explain] teacher, it’s clear she’s got more on her mind than trying to deal with dyslexia. She’s there, she claims, to mould the groupclass (Kip and his two SFL classmates GUTHRIE and JAMEEL) [we don't hear their names again, so no need to include them here] into a top spy ring - oh, and earn her own stripes as a Spy Master while she’s at it. At first, Kip is sure it’s all some elaborate joke but when eccentric Spy Master SARAH BELLA contacts the SFL with some astonishing news his feet don’t have time to touch the ground before he’s catapulted into the SFL’s latest case: the plot by world-dominating seed research company, SPORE, to control the earth’s food supplies. As Kip and his friends discover, SPORE will stop at nothing, even kidnapping top seed scientist,Taru.[I've put this here and deleted next para. Neater.]
Sarah-Bella reports her fears that the Super-Yield rice seeds, unleashed by (supposed) seed research company, SPORE, are linked to some reported episodes of brain-washing. Then, when Kip and his co-spies contact the Global Seedbank – home of the world’s seed reserves – to check out the Super-Yield strain, they find that the vital seeds have gone missing. And what’s worse so has Seedbank scientist TARU. It is clear that SPORE will stop at nothing to make sure they can keep control of their newly developed rice strain and the wealth, and power over the world’s food supplies, that it will bring them.
Kip’s first botched attempt to stalk the seed-pirates ends up with his incarceration in the Seedbanks [need apostrophe] freezers. But he has been practicing [UK spelling: practising] some of his spy skills – honest – and uses them to escape as well as to uncover the identity of one of SPORE’s top operatives, POULSON. What’s more, his adventure alerts Granda Tom to his grandson’s new identity – and prompts the revelation that he too was part of the SFL in his youth. With Granda Tom on board, the race to uncover the details of SPORE’s plans and rescue Taru careers onwards apace [don't like that phrase] but also brings new dangers.Sensing that the SFL are closing in, Poulson and top seed-pirate, PATTERSON, decide they need to take drastic action and it is not long before Kip finds himself kidnapped and on a boat to an island prison.
Overhearing plans that SPORE are on the verge of completing their stranglehold on the seed supplies, and that Taru is also hidden somewhere on the island, Kip tries to signal for help… but when none arrives Kip knows he has no choice but to take on Patterson and Poulsonon alone. Once again, however, he is overpowered and thrown to sea – with a lump of concrete tied to his leg for company – and left for drowned.
only seconds to spare, however, one of his SFL companions reaches him - it seems that he had got a signal through – and plucks him from a watery grave. Kip’s tale, and the information they decipher from a coded message that he’s also managed to capture, show that there is no time to lose. Not only are the only [clunky repetition of only]viable rice seeds about to be spirited away, but Taru will drown if they don’t get to him before the tide changes.
Kip, the SFL and Granda Tom speed back over to the island but there is one more shock in store. Not only are Patterson and Poulson intent on absconding with their haul [cliché and clunky!] but Patterson intends toremotely detonate a device which will blow-up the Seedbank and everybody in it as soon as they are in open sea with their cargo. [That whole sentence could be: their enemies plan to blow up the island and disappear with the seeds.]
Gone are any traces of Kip’s former insecurities and indecision [first we've heard of this!]andnow, in the face of such malice, he does not hesitate. Giving chase to Poulson and Patterson, he masterminds the cornering [clunky] of their escaping boat, dives across to them from his moving vessel, disables their engine and brings them to a halt. Then, with artful persuasion he extracts the over-ride code from Poulson and averts the detonation of the Seedbank.
[I have no idea what this next bit actually means!] If only escaping the wrath of his mum was that easy.
Maybe now Kip can begin to grasp just what it might feel like to have the quiet confidence of his eccentric dad FERGAL. And maybe his adventure has given him a taste of what his mum has been trying to protect him from all his life. And he thinks he might be ready to taste more.
OK, here's what I think.
Essentially, it's a great synopsis, Louise! Lively, fast-paced, age-appropriate and credible. I disagree that there's a problem with vocab not matching the age-range. OK, so I perhaps know which phrases you're thinking of but this is the synopsis and not the actual story and it's very marginal. However, your concern about the sudden appearance of a new character at the end is valid. It definnitely feels wrong, not least because I have absolutely no idea how he fits. So, essentially, you've messed up the ending of your synopsis.
One important point: you mention the scene with Granda Tom's potting shed as though it's important. Actually, we never discover the point of that, so I think you've put it in for all the wrong reasons: it sounds quirky, fun and scene-setting; but it's not ultimately important or interesting.
I've also cut out some unnecessary words and details and tried to tighten your prose. That does give you room to add back in some action phrases to spark it up again but do so in a snappier way than the bits I chopped out.
Any other comments, anyone? Essentially this is how a synopsis should be just before the final revisions of it before sending out. You could get this perfect in another fifteen minutes of polishing.
It's a novel for children of 9-11 (I'm guessing.)
Kip Cusack and the Spy Formation League: Synopsis
KIP CUSAK AND THE SPY FORMATION LEAGUE is the first adventure of 12-year-old KIP whose world flips upside down when he finds that his ‘Support For Learning’ sessions are in fact a cover for a spy training network – the Spy Formation League. Not content with making him grapple with his spelling, life now seems to expect him to grapple with villains too!
Kip arrives home one day to find the contents of his GRANDA TOM’s potting shed being hurled into the back lane, and Granda Tom
When Kip meets IRWIN, his new SFL [explain] teacher, it’s clear she’s got more on her mind than trying to deal with dyslexia. She’s there, she claims, to mould the group
Kip’s first botched attempt to stalk the seed-pirates ends up with his incarceration in the Seedbanks [need apostrophe] freezers. But he has been practicing [UK spelling: practising] some of his spy skills – honest – and uses them to escape as well as to uncover the identity of one of SPORE’s top operatives, POULSON. What’s more, his adventure alerts Granda Tom to his grandson’s new identity – and prompts the revelation that he too was part of the SFL in his youth. With Granda Tom on board, the race to uncover the details of SPORE’s plans and rescue Taru careers onwards apace [don't like that phrase] but also brings new dangers.
Overhearing plans that SPORE are on the verge of completing their stranglehold on the seed supplies, and that Taru is also hidden somewhere on the island, Kip tries to signal for help… but when none arrives Kip knows he has no choice but to take on Patterson and Poulson
Kip, the SFL and Granda Tom speed back over to the island but there is one more shock in store. Not only are Patterson and Poulson intent on absconding with their haul [cliché and clunky!] but Patterson intends to
Gone are any traces of Kip’s former insecurities and indecision [first we've heard of this!]and
[I have no idea what this next bit actually means!] If only escaping the wrath of his mum was that easy.
Maybe now Kip can begin to grasp just what it might feel like to have the quiet confidence of his eccentric dad FERGAL. And maybe his adventure has given him a taste of what his mum has been trying to protect him from all his life. And he thinks he might be ready to taste more.
OK, here's what I think.
Essentially, it's a great synopsis, Louise! Lively, fast-paced, age-appropriate and credible. I disagree that there's a problem with vocab not matching the age-range. OK, so I perhaps know which phrases you're thinking of but this is the synopsis and not the actual story and it's very marginal. However, your concern about the sudden appearance of a new character at the end is valid. It definnitely feels wrong, not least because I have absolutely no idea how he fits. So, essentially, you've messed up the ending of your synopsis.
One important point: you mention the scene with Granda Tom's potting shed as though it's important. Actually, we never discover the point of that, so I think you've put it in for all the wrong reasons: it sounds quirky, fun and scene-setting; but it's not ultimately important or interesting.
I've also cut out some unnecessary words and details and tried to tighten your prose. That does give you room to add back in some action phrases to spark it up again but do so in a snappier way than the bits I chopped out.
Any other comments, anyone? Essentially this is how a synopsis should be just before the final revisions of it before sending out. You could get this perfect in another fifteen minutes of polishing.
Friday, 4 November 2011
Synopsis Spotlight - Ghost in the Machine
Please help blog-reader Fiona Maddock with her synopsis problem.
I've added some notes as I go along. Bits crossed out indicate details that can disappear. Obviously, once those details are omitted you'll sometimes need to clarify things differently.
A few days later, Tess returns from a business trip to Paris, and her colleague and best friend Jools is really pissed off with her; she thinks Tess has gone mad. Tess is alarmed and confused.She goes to get her car but unknown to her, Pandora has already taken it.[be more general about that stuff - show what's happening without giving all examples.] She calls a taxi to take her home, and reports her car stolen. At home, life has changed. Tess finds a replica of herself in her hallway. Tess challenges the stranger but only gets crazy answers from her. The police arrive to investigate the complaint of the stolen car, but they see it in Tess’ driveway, where Pandora parked it, and they think Tess is psychotic. It doesn’t help that Pandora goes into static ‘default’ mode and makes Tess look like a fool.
My comments: this reads too much like an outline, listing all the things that happen - which is useful in lots of ways but not quite a synopsis. When you do this you lose the atmosphere of the novel. It tells me that yes, you've put the plot togther, but it doesn't feel elegant enough. It focuses too much on details rather than giving an overal sense of the story. By cutting out lots of details and telling it in a more story-telling way, you'd make it read better. So, what we're looking for is more style and motivation, more generality and less detail. More emotion, more motivation, more interaction between characters. I think you'll find my post of Monday helpful.
And, by the way, I wouldn't normally expect to enjoy a techno thriller (or however you'd describe this kind of sci-fi?) this is but I thought this sounded intriguing!
What does everyone else think?
Fiona says: "Please find attached my synopsis for my debut novel, Ghost In The Machine, 86,000 words. The genre is techno-thriller and it's for adults. I hope it appeals to men and women, but especially women, because I like reading stuff like this, so I've written my own, because girls like gadgets too.[NM intervenes: Fiona, you need to remove your double character spaces before each sentence. Regardless of personal preference, it's really important only to have one nowadays or you'll cock up all the eformatting.]
What's wrong with it? *Sigh* It doesn't seem to be interesting enough to elicit a full manuscript request. One problem could be that I haven't got the genre quite right. Another problem could be that the ending needs to be stronger, and if I used another 4,000 words to do that, I would have a novel at a nicely rounded length of 90,000.
I'd describe it as 'techno-thriller with romance'. The thing is, it's not 'blokey sci-fi' and it's not quite women's commercial fiction (or is it...?) I don't know. I'm having a horrible bout of critical crisis at the moment so I've stopped subbing until I feel better.
I've added some notes as I go along. Bits crossed out indicate details that can disappear. Obviously, once those details are omitted you'll sometimes need to clarify things differently.
Synopsis
The year is 2020. In a biomedical private clinic in the UK, divorcée Tess Brookes emerges as a nineteen-year-old babe, thanks to a bioengineering procedure called ‘Regeneration’. Her new life will tick all the boxes: exciting, glamorous and pimped by technology, gadgets, and apps. Tess is ecstatic over her fabulous looks and the promise of an A-lister lifestyle.
The cybernetics division of the Bio Multinational corporation, {omit comma] employs Lance Tully, brilliant robotics engineer, to build a new concept in humanoid robots for the Hungry Horse Burger Company. He pushes Artificial Intelligence (AI) to the limit but the company wants sentience, using Artificial Consciousness (AC), which is still theoretical. Pressured by the bean counters and marketing guys, Lance plunders the templates of Tess, the ‘regen’ client, to model the body and the pseudo-human ‘machine mind’ of the robot, Pandora.
Uber-cool Pandora is Lance’s masterpiece. Never mind that humans and robots are all mixed up, the company is delighted, and Lance is riding high. [add: until] Pandora makes friends with the backup prototype, Dilip, and is distressed when the company sends Dilip away, so she escapes from the lab to find him.
Rob Shaw, eCommerce lawyer, a client of Tess’ firm, is calling Tess on his Blackberry. It’s their first date but she’s stood him up. Tess had clean forgotten, but goes to meet him and asks him to help her unravel the mystery of her doppelganger. [All the following paragraphs are more outline than synopsis. See my post from yesterday.]
Shaw threatens the Chairman with a writ when he discovers Bio Multinational has stolen Tess’ brain patterns. The Chairman tricks Rob into a meeting and kidnaps him.
Tess and Rob have fallen in love, and she tries to rescue him. She finds him in the biomedical facility, but before they can escape, the staff catch them and lock her up too.
Lance must recover the robot or his career is finished. When he does, the company orders him to decommission her. Pandora overhears the command and she blacks out from panic. While the programming team tries to revive the robot, Lance receives an SOS text on his iPhone; it’s from Tess. Lance smuggles Pandora out of the lab, and they rescue Tess, but Rob is no longer there. Tess is forced to flee without him.
Lance needs Tess’ brain updates for Pandora, and he persuades Tess to shelter the robot, now in jeopardy if the company discovers her. In return, Lance pledges to help Tess find Rob. Tess doesn’t trust the robot but agrees to do it, and she and the robot discover they need to co-operate in order to survive. Lance fancies Tess and attempts to win her while Rob is out of the way. Then Tess discovers that Rob has provided the human template for Dilip. Lance has been holding out on her and Tess feels betrayed and is furious.
Unexpectedly, Rob turns up at his office unharmed. Tess is desperate to be reunited with him, but he has no memory whatsoever of her, and she is devastated.
Tess and Pandora conspire to trick Lance so the robot can steal a copy of Rob’s most recent brain template, which Tess hopes to use to restore Rob’s memory. Tess’ own trusted bioengineer, Fraser Healy, succeeds. Rob recognises her once more and the pair is reunited.
Epilogue
Lance programmes Pandora as his robot lover and she struggles to understand his human reactions with her hybrid mind. [Doesn't seem like a resolution.]
My comments: this reads too much like an outline, listing all the things that happen - which is useful in lots of ways but not quite a synopsis. When you do this you lose the atmosphere of the novel. It tells me that yes, you've put the plot togther, but it doesn't feel elegant enough. It focuses too much on details rather than giving an overal sense of the story. By cutting out lots of details and telling it in a more story-telling way, you'd make it read better. So, what we're looking for is more style and motivation, more generality and less detail. More emotion, more motivation, more interaction between characters. I think you'll find my post of Monday helpful.
And, by the way, I wouldn't normally expect to enjoy a techno thriller (or however you'd describe this kind of sci-fi?) this is but I thought this sounded intriguing!
What does everyone else think?
Thursday, 27 October 2011
Write a Synopsis - Expert, Snappy, Stressfree
Well, I have decided. Possibly. Yes, I am - almost - certain about the title for my forthcoming guide to synopsis-writing. But I could change my mind at any moment.
You may remember that I asked for your help, and help you did. Many of you. I said I'd give a free copy to the person whose suggestion I chose, but that became complicated because so many of you were so helpful and in the end what I chose was not exactly what anyone had suggested and yet it was informed by so many of you. So, in an All-Must-Win-Prizes sort of a way, I have decided that all must win a prize. So, ALL those who have already contributed to that discussion will win a free copy (pdf or Kindle version) as soon as it's ready, probably in the New Year when your resolutions are at their strongest.
My decision* is: Write a Synopsis - Expert, Snappy, Stressfree
* in the loosest sense of the word.
Or possibly: Write a Synopsis - Expert, Snappy and Stressfree
* in the loosest sense of the word.
Or possibly: Write a Synopsis - Expert, Snappy and Stressfree
Or even: Write a Synopsis - An Expert Makes it Snappy and Stressfree.
Oh feckity feckity feckity. (There goes my CRB clearance. I am now officially a danger to young people.)
Erghh. I may need to ask you to vote between those three...
I loved Jan's idea of Help! I Need a Synopsis! and the various permutations of Right and Write and Sensible Guide etc, to fit the concept of branding, but I don't then want to be tied to those words for future titles. I loved Mary's Make it Snappy and Jan's In a Nutshell, but in the end I needed to describe the book more concretely, for someone who has no idea what I do. I know the word "expert" is effective, and I did want to include "write a synopsis" or "write a great synopsis" somewhere. So, although it's not the cleverest or most original combination, I like all of my possible decisions well enough: the first part is crystal clear, appropriately, and the second part is functional. And the whole thing is suitably snappy and yet full.
So, thank you! And could these people please send me an email address? Also, when you email me, if it's not likely to be 100% obvious to me which of the personages you are, please say so in your email.
Rebecca Brown
Rebecca Brown
Elaine AM Smith
Carolb
Mary-Jane
E. A. Brass
Helen
Widdershins
Juliet Boyd
Later, I look forward to bringing you the cover, designed by Andrew Brown.
Meanwhile, I'm working my way through the synopses that some of you sent for free analysis on this blog and/or for use in the book as examples. I now have a substantial backlog so any you send from now on may not be seen before you are published!
Do please comment about my choices and say which of the slight variations you prefer. Or if you hate them all...
Finally, if you know of a well-followed blog for aspiring writers that might want to be part of an extensive blog tour, do please suggest below or contact Rebecca Brown - mail@rebeccaebrown.com* - who is my trusty publicist for this book! (Becky Hearne is still my lovely assistant but Becky now has a glorious proper job with Hachette as publicity officer, so I can't call on her so much, sadly.)
[Apologies - that email address was originally wrong. Now corrected.]
All publicity suggestions gratefully accepted. Meanwhile, I will be putting more synopses up here for your comment soon.
Do please comment about my choices and say which of the slight variations you prefer. Or if you hate them all...
Finally, if you know of a well-followed blog for aspiring writers that might want to be part of an extensive blog tour, do please suggest below or contact Rebecca Brown - mail@rebeccaebrown.com* - who is my trusty publicist for this book! (Becky Hearne is still my lovely assistant but Becky now has a glorious proper job with Hachette as publicity officer, so I can't call on her so much, sadly.)
[Apologies - that email address was originally wrong. Now corrected.]
All publicity suggestions gratefully accepted. Meanwhile, I will be putting more synopses up here for your comment soon.
Friday, 21 October 2011
Synopsis Spotlight - The Girl on Winter's Hill
Introducing the second brave synopsis-spotlight-provider, Margaret Kirk. If you don't know how these spotlights work, please read the previous one here, and the post here in which I introduced both the task and my forthcoming book on how to write a synopsis. Which is what all this is leading up to. (And, by the way, I have - I think - chosen my title for the book. To be revealed soon!)
In your comments, you aren't necessarily meant to be saying whether you like the sound of the book, but whether the synopsis does a good job of making it clear and coherent and whether it follows the general guidelines of synopsis-writing.
The Girl on Winter's Hill - by Margaret Morton Kirk
Everybody’s got a past. Just not one like Chrissie Fraser’s…
Chrissie can’t remember much about that summer afternoon in the hills above Rossan. She knows what started as a lazy day with her boyfriend Rob and his fledgling rock group, ended [clunky phrasing there, Margaret, and the comma is wrong] in a car crash which left her fighting for her life. She knows Rob, the driver, escaped unhurt, while her cousin died and her friend Liam was badly injured — Rob’s fault, according to the village rumour-mill. What she doesn’t know is why Rob disappeared, leaving her to face the aftermath alone. And scared. And pregnant. [Nice effect.]
Sixteen years later and six hundred miles away, Chrissie’s made a new life for herself and her daughter [add Eve]. But when her mother’s serious illness forces a return to Rossan, she discovers the past isn’t so easily buried [perhaps be more specific? This is slightly vague. Needs better link to the “not coming to terms bit” in next para. Also burying the past is a bit of a cliché?].
When Chrissie’s mother dies, fragile fifteen year-old Eve, bullied at school, begs her to let them stay in the village she’s fallen in love with. Realising she needs to come to terms with the events of sixteen years ago, [Better to hint earlier that she hasn’t come to terms with them, I think] Chrissie agrees. A tentative romance develops with Liam, and Chrissie hopes she’s finally laid the past to rest [Again, this is a somewhat vague phrase, not to mention being a cliché!]. She couldn’t be more wrong. [But]While she struggles with her re-emerging feelings [You are the mistress of the vague statement, tinged with cliché!] for Rob, newly returned to Rossan, an older, darker past is reaching out to her.[Ahem.]
Fascinated by the photograph of an unknown woman she finds amongst her mother’s things, Chrissie determines to discover her identity. But her search creates a rift with Liam, whose increasingly controlling behaviour masks a disturbing family secret. [You are actually about to say this anyway.] Unknown to Chrissie, Liam recognises the woman from the locket she’s wearing; she’s his great-grandfather Callum’s first wife, rumoured to have deserted him for her musician lover, leaving Callum vowing revenge. Only Liam knows she never left the village. [As an aside about the plot, I feel that this seems unlikely. How many of us know what our great-grandfather’s first wife looked like? I hope you make this credible in the actual book?]
On the day of the crash he’d stumbled on a woman’s skeletal remains hidden near his family’s farm, a locket round her neck and a knife between her ribs. Sickened [again, suspension of disbelief issue: would he really be that traumatised? This is some generations ago - I'd actually be somewhat fascinated, or at the most disturbed. Or is that just me?!] by the thought that Callum could have been the murderer, he’d panicked and covered all traces of his find. But after the crash, his traumatised mind [For this to feel believable, we need much earlier hints in the synopsis of Liam’s a) instability and b) involvement in the crash] had started to merge past and present. At the height of a devastating mental breakdown, Liam had believed he was Callum—when Chrissie returns to Rossan after sixteen years’ absence, she has no idea of the danger his reawakening delusions will pose. [I’m a bit confused as to when Liam’s delusion started – at the time of the crash or later? I could probably work it out but your synopsis needs to be clear on first reading.]
As Liam’s possessiveness worsens, Chrissie grows closer to Rob as he and Eve forge a strong bond. As the bells chime for a New Year, he asks her to give their relationship another chance, and Chrissie admits she’s never stopped loving him. [Too much detail – sometimes too much detail makes it *less* believable, not more.]
When Chrissie tells Liam she and Rob are back together, he becomes increasingly unstable. He blames Eve’s growing bond with Rob for Chrissie’s decision to end things with him. With ‘Callum’ more and more in control, he mounts a campaign of terror, staging a break-in at Chrissie’s house and terrorising her friends. In a final desperate act, he abducts Eve, hoping to rewrite history[Eh?]— with Eve out of the way, he believes Chrissie will realise she belongs with him. But Chrissie’s learned enough of what happened that day to work out where he’s taken Eve. Back where it all began, on the Winter’s Hill above Rossan, Chrissie and Rob confront Liam. As the police close in, Liam’s mind disintegrates and he undergoes a complete mental and physical collapse. Eve is found, suffering from hypothermia and badly traumatised, but alive.
As Eve recovers, Chrissie’s life is at a crossroads. [Make stronger – crisis, dilemma etc] She must decide whether to give her relationship with Rob another chance, or stay in Ceann Aird, the house she’s grown to love again. At first she tells Rob their lives are too different for things ever to work out between them. But with time comes a measure of healing for them all, and [cliché and feels far too vague] when Rob returns to Rossan in the spring, Chrissie’s ready to give him a different answer. [Need to find a way to make that ending feel stronger and more specific.]
______________
In my opinion this is a well written synopsis, which flows well and ticks most boxes Margaret said: “It's succinct, but at the moment that's pretty much all that's in its favour. Women's fiction, non-linear plot, interwoven time periods. Synopsis feels flat and one-dimensional, but I think the novel is a better and more sophisticated mystery than this makes it sound.” I disagree – I think it feels pretty rounded and multi-dimensional. I think it nicely weaves the strands and time-scales together in a way that gives me a good sense of the book. (Well, I assume so, as I haven’t read the book, but that’s the point, as the agent hasn’t either.) My only criticisms, as you’ll see from my comments within the synopsis, are as follows:
1. You have a strong tendency to use clichéd and rather “wet” (sorry!) phrases to explain a situation.
2. We need more hint of Liam’s problems earlier.
3. You’ve made a couple of aspects seems unbelievable – even if they are not so in the book itself. It’s a good example of how sometimes giving too much detail makes a synopsis seem less believable – counter-intuitive, I know, but the inevitable loss of context causes problems. The knack is to find the phrase that conveys authority, without detail.
Nice work, Margaret. What do you think of my suggestions? Anyone else got any comments?
Friday, 14 October 2011
Synopsis Spotlight - Glass Houses
As you know, I'm writing a book on synopsis-writing. Last week, I offered you the chance to have your synopsis put under the spotlight, with a view to a) blog-readers commenting construcively and b) possibly having your synopsis (and some comments) featured in the book as an exemplar.
The first brave writer under the spotlight is Jackie Buxton, with Glass Houses, which she says is general fiction for adult readers. (She also says it's likely to appeal to women over 30 - I suggested she doesn't specify the age, but I do agree that it's more likely to be read by women. Sorry to those who object to that...) Jackie says that her problem is in making it succinct. I actually think she has made it relatively succinct (except in some details) and, in some ways, too succinct! You’ll see my comments in italics and brackets. Where I’ve crossed things out, those crossings out create the need to express the sentence differently but I am merely trying to give a sense of what detail we don’t need.
Glass Houses (103,000 words) by Jackie Buxton
There’s an [fatal] accident on the M62 motorway. We see ETTA DUBCEK (35) sitting in the wreckage of the car in front of hers, holding the hand of a stranger who’s fighting for her life. [Add eg: and who caused the accident in a moment of carelessness.]
[Add: That stranger is] TORI WILLIAMS (50) is plunged into a coma after sending the text which allegedly causes the pile-up in which two adults and a baby die. With the support of DOUG, Tori’s affable husband of 23 years, and daughter, CARLY, her body twitches its way out of paralysis as she attempts to force words from her lips. [All we need to know is family supportive [eg] as she slowly [?] recovers.]
Etta finds it hard to shake off the experience [so, is this her guiding emotion? Doesn’t feel strong enough.] of being with Tori as they waited for the ambulance. With a fraction of a second’s hesitation, she, too, might have been a killer. Initially intending to visit Tori just once, she strikes up a friendship with her mother, RUBY, and becomes one of Tori’s few staunch defenders. ‘I didn’t sit with a murderer,’ she writes, ‘I sat with somebody who’d done something foolish.’ Etta’s friend, PEARL, challenges this sympathy for Tori but realises that there is more to it than Etta is willing to admit. [Need more about this - or maybe later.]
A horde of reporters greets Tori as she emerges from hospital with blatant disabilities and scars. The press is camped out on her doorstep. Her business, Party People, has folded. [She becomes a damaged recluse.]Nobody invites her to dinner and the furthest she strays from home is the café in Out Patients. When she is charged with the lesser offence of Driving Without Due Care and Attention, the family of the baby who died at the scene vow to sue.
[Cut following para to the bone.] But Tori is only fifty and is not prepared to live the rest of her life trapped in this way. [Does anything preciptate the change of heart?] She confronts journalists, becomes a regular on radio phone-ins – respected for her honesty. She takes a sandwich board to the high street and amasses signatures from those who have also made mistakes. The quiz show, ‘Tori’s Truth’, is launched to great acclaim and her presentation to sixth-formers on her, ‘Moment of Madness’ is an enormous success. She is even training as a Samaritan. But most of all, her positive attitude is catching. There’s a buzz around the country. Even the press are on board. [Delete some examples.]
Doug, however, cannot stand the attention. He fears for Tori once the media bubble has burst and has promised their daughter that he will keep the press away. In a final attempt to persuade her to reject this new lifestyle, he leaves her. Tori is devastated but cannot go back to her life pre-accident. [Just say that after months of arguing/***/ etc, their relationship collapses and he leaves. Give a sense of how long this takes.]
Etta and Tori eventually meet. Etta, too, has a story to tell. The pair bond, providing much needed emotional support for each other. [Add something more concrete.] Before a lunch date with Etta, Tori meets with her unpredictable step-father, GERALD. He is a serial womaniser, no longer married to her mother but still keen to be a part of the family. He blames Tori’s notoriety and new outspoken behaviour for the break-up of his latest relationship [this feels unlikely – find stronger motivation, or explain?] . Her disabilities force her to walk holding his arm. He is walking too fast. He pushes her in anger. She falls into the road and is hit by a car.
Paramedics are en-route. A switched-on passer-by calls Doug from Tori’s phone. Tori reflects. She’s re-built her reputation from the lowest of bases. Her contribution to society is so much greater than before the text message, her moment of madness, but she will always have blood on her hands.[Simply say, eg, “But Tori sees this as a way out – she has lost the will to live.”]
Doug is pacing down the road towards her. She does not want to live without him. Her heart is slowing. Her chin sinks to her chest. ‘When I wake...’ she thinks. It is for the reader to decide how they feel about her death. Now to Gerald. How will society react to his moment of madness? How will his life be affected? The transiency of our lives continues. [Too many unanswered questions, ones we don’t sufficiently care about because Gerald only just arrived.]
_________
This is an example of a synopsis that would raise concerns for the agent or publisher because the story feels somewhat thin for the 103k words. We’re left with some questions which the synopsis should answer. (They may be answered wonderfully in the book but there's a doubt in the synopsis.)
- Who the hell is Etta and what is her secret?
- Why should we care about Gerald? He’s a “serial womaniser” and appears only in order to kill the woman we’ve come to sympathise with. It doesn’t feel as though there’s enough about him before the climactic scene, and yet not enough after either.
- Who is the main character? We know why we should care about Tori but what about Etta? If she’s equally “main”, we need to know the part she plays; if she’s a secondary character, her role in relation to Tori seems so crucial that we should know her secret.
There is sometimes too much detail (“Doug is pacing down the road towards her”) and yet this is a 103k novel, so what major plot elements have been omitted? The knack is not in making a long or complex plot seem simple but in telling it succinctly, which are too different things. For example, “after several episodes in which x realises that y…” can cover fifty pages in half a sentence. The key is not in telling every episode but in making it clear that something has happened, something meaty and important.
Jackie, congratulations in getting this far. I would not have picked your synopsis if it was awful! There are some significant virtues: it reads quite elegantly and smoothly and is clearly expressed. I picked it because it had some examples of faults that could be identified and rectified. The main problem (I feel) is that it reads as being too thin. Assuming that you definitely have enough action and intrigue to fill 103k words, you need to give a sense of that.
Readers - your comments! Please bear in mind the genre. It's not a thriller so don't demand thriller content. Also, remember that we are judging the synopsis, not the book itself - though there may be aspects that cross-over.
Jackie, thank you! I'll let you know if I use it in the book and if you want to redraft your synopsis to show how you responded to our comments, that's great.
Monday, 10 October 2011
Your synopsis made short, sweet and stress-free
I am writing a book about how to write a great synopsis. I know this will make you fall at my feet in gratitude and that you are already almost literally drooling with anticipation. Possibly even literally, but I prefer not to think about that too closely. Calm yourselves and go and take a cold shower or something.
Because I know it will be hard for some of you to wait for a book of such enormous necessity, I have a plan. I will now have a series of Synopsis Spotlights on the blog, via which YOU will be able to pitch your synopsis to your fellow writers (and anyone else who reads this blog) and get their constructive criticism and help to improve it. In the past I have had Submission Spotlights, which have been hugely useful to those writers brave enough to expose their work to public viewing.
I've just remembered that I did also start to do this with synopses some time ago. Here was Dan Holloway's synopsis spotlight.
Here are all my posts giving advice on synopses. Please read at least some of them before posting your own. My forthcoming book has much more to say, much more succinctly.
OK, ready? Here's what to do:
Because I know it will be hard for some of you to wait for a book of such enormous necessity, I have a plan. I will now have a series of Synopsis Spotlights on the blog, via which YOU will be able to pitch your synopsis to your fellow writers (and anyone else who reads this blog) and get their constructive criticism and help to improve it. In the past I have had Submission Spotlights, which have been hugely useful to those writers brave enough to expose their work to public viewing.
I've just remembered that I did also start to do this with synopses some time ago. Here was Dan Holloway's synopsis spotlight.
Here are all my posts giving advice on synopses. Please read at least some of them before posting your own. My forthcoming book has much more to say, much more succinctly.
OK, ready? Here's what to do:
- Your synopsis should be no more than two sides of A4 ("normal" font and size etc, single-line-spaced).
- Send it as a Word (not pdf) attachment to writingtutor@hotmail.co.uk
- In the body of your email, tell me a) genre and age-range and b) something (just a short sentence) about any problems you are having with the synopsis - eg is this a non-linear novel? What do you think is wrong with it? What made it difficult?
Please read these important notes. They form Terms and Conditions and if you send me your synopsis you are agreeing to these conditions.
- I cannot guarantee to feature your synopsis on the blog. I will be looking for a range of different issues, and I may simply have too many to use, or yours may be too similar to another.
- If I do use it, I take no responsibility for any consequences. No one has ever been treated harshly in these spotlights and I would not use a piece which I thought might come in for highly negatively critical responses. I will remove any comments I consider unfair.
- If I feature your synopsis, I reserve the right to reproduce it (and possibly some comments) in the book I'm writing on synopses. I undertake to do this in a positive and respectful way and will give you the opportunity to read the relevant section in advance and to object to any comment that makes you feel uncomfortable. You will not be remunerated for the insertion - sorry! - but you will be thanked in the credits and will receive a free pdf of the book, with certain restrictions. Please do not send your synopsis in if you are not willing in principle for it to be featured in the book.
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
SYNOPSIS SPOTLIGHT - Dan Holloway
When blogging about synopses recently, I offered to post here for public comment any synopses you wanted help with. So, here is the first one. The brave writer is regular blog-reader, Dan Holloway.
I'm going to kick off by putting my own comments here first. Mainly because I'm colossally under pressure with deadlines at the moment so I may not manage to comment again in the next couple of days. (But I will be watching, so please play nicely!)
Now, I happen to know that Dan is ruthless with his own words in one sense: he thinks about them all and knows how they each work. He loves words and he loves playing with them. But, he is not ruthless enough about getting rid of them.
What I've done is put in bold the most important bits, the bits which contain the most relevant info. Clearly, there's then a huge amount of story that I have not bolded, which Dan would need to find a way to squash to its barest bones in order to make the beginning and the end hang together. Also, the other characters, as long as not minor, need a sentence each at the most.
As two examples of details that should not be here, see the para beginning: "When Tommy discovers him..." You don't need to say what sort of wine it was, or that Becky had reurned from three months in Eastern Europe, or the details of the content of the papers Charles left. If Dan goes through and removes everything of that sort of level, it would probably cut about 400 words, which would be a good and easy start.
I also have a radical suggestion. There is no reason why you could not offer two synopses - the properly pared down one of no more than two sides, and then the fuller one (though still, I suggest, pared down). It is highly likely that that agent or publisher would only read the shorter one, but at least the longer one is there if they happen to want further clarificiation. This IS a radical suggestion and I've never heard it before. I cannot see how it would damage someone's chances - you are not giving the agent more work or asking them to read something, merely providing it, should they want it. But it would be essential that the short synopsis is properly short.
Oh, and by the way, I think the story sounds great! It deserves a much neater synopsis.
Here is Dan's synopsis:
The search for an Oxford professor’s killer drives his former protégé back into the world that drove him to a breakdown 12 years earlier. The Company of Fellows takes place in contemporary Oxford, in the University and the affluent north of the city, at the end of September before the students return for the new academic year.
Tommy West, 35, atheist, turned his back on a brilliant academic career when he suffered a breakdown after finishing a doctorate in Theology twelve years ago. His health has forced him to lead a life that is comfortable and intellectually unchallenging. Now he lives in the sensual but impersonal world of luxury design, where a combination of taste and uncanny empathy has made him wealthy. Exquisite things shield him from the world outside and satisfy his need for instant pleasure. They are the sanctuary and the prison he has inhabited alone since college.
Emily Harris, 36, devout Christian, is a Detective Chief Inspector with Thames Valley CID, the job she wanted since she was a little girl. She has a happy but childless marriage to David, whom she met at church. Despite the terrible things she has seen at work and the bitter disappointments she has experienced at home, she has remained centred, and faithful, and good. David is the only man she has loved since Tommy left her eighteen years ago because she wouldn’t sleep with him. They haven’t seen each other since college.
Rosie Lu, 26, is Emily’s DS. She moved to England from Hong Kong as a teenager, on the eve of the handover to China in 1997. She is cultured and intelligent, a side of herself she is happy to hide behind lipstick, leather, and loud music; Rosie still lives the life of a Bohemian student in the rented flat that she shares with her pet chameleon, named Chris after Chris Patten, last governor of Hong Kong and Chancellor of Oxford University.
Charles Shaw, 53, is Professor of Ethics at Christ Church, wildly rich, and Tommy’s former supervisor. He has devoted his career to the study of pleasure, and devoted his life to its pursuit. He believes that the greatest pleasures are the ones for which we have to wait, like the pleasure of old wine. Haydn Shaw, 43, is his estranged wife. She married Charles at the very start of her academic career and is now a successful lecturer at the University, specialising in the Sociology of China. She has lived with Becky Shaw, her 18 year-old daughter, since the night Becky’s twin sister Carol was stillborn and Charles walked out on them.
Barnard Ellison and Hedley Sansom had been lecturers at Christ Church when the Shaws separated. Ellison remained there, with his wife Jane and their two children. He is now Professor of Old Testament History. Sansom, who moved abroad after his first wife Valerie committed suicide, returned with his second wife, Clarissa, to become College Dean.
When Professor Shaw’s lawyer dies on Tommy’s doorstep, leaving him only a box of research papers for an unpublished book, £98,000, and a plea from the Professor to find someone who is trying to kill him and to take care of his daughter, Tommy has to choose between his sensual cocoon and a return to the old life that drove him to the edge of insanity. What follows for Tommy, from the moment he makes the choice not to call the police, and goes to see the Professor only to find him dead, is a pursuit of the truth that becomes a desperate battle to fend off another breakdown. Tommy’s safe new world is blown further apart when he finally calls the police to report the lawyer’s death, and opens the door only to find himself staring at Emily.
Tommy’s journey takes place in an Oxford darkened by the shadows not of its crumbling spires, but of irrevocable choices, of the prices people have paid for pursuing their own happiness, and the prices they have paid for sacrificing it.
When Tommy discovers him, Charles is dead, in his own house, at a table laid with a banquet for one, accompanied by bottles of two of the world’s finest wines opened and empty, and a suicide note that says only There is nothing left to wait for. Emily breaks the news to Haydn and to Becky, who has just returned from 3 months in Eastern Europe. Haydn’s reaction to his note is that he must finally have enjoyed the pleasure he spent his life and career anticipating. Emily is unable to tell if her coldness is a result of hate, indifference or an incapacity for emotion. The papers Charles left Tommy contain wine catalogues and academic articles, going back to a piece on iconography by Bulgarian scholar Krista Markova from 1989.
Amongst them he discovers what appears to be a drawing of a miniature torture instrument. Becky begs Tommy to help her find Charles’ killer. She goes with him to the Professor’s house to collect a bequest of wines, but refuses to help him fetch them from the cellar. They are even finer and rarer than those from Charles’ last meal, one of them being the second finest vintage ever made of the Hungarian pudding wine, Tokaji Eszencia. This convinces Tommy that the hedonist Charles, who had yet to taste his finest wine, didn’t kill himself but was murdered.
At Charles’ memorial service Ellison’s eulogy reveals that Charles’ book was about the theology of parenthood. At the wake, Becky introduces Tommy to Dr Knightley, Haydn’s obstetrician. Knightley tells Tommy about Charles’ obsession with conducting thought experiments about maximizing the pleasure of experiences, such as a perfect seduction lasting almost twenty years. Becky explains that her twin, Carol, was stillborn, and that Knightley blames himself for the death. She also tells Tommy about threatening letters Charles had received before he died, taunting him with the biblical verse Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated, a reference to God’s choice to redeem one of Isaac’s twin sons, and to condemn the other.
Tommy meets the Sansoms over dinner with Haydn and Becky. He discovers that grief over her own childlessness, compounded by Charles’ neglect of his own children, drove Hedley’s first wife, Valerie, to suicide shortly after Becky and Carol were born. After that Hedley left Oxford for the continent.
When Emily attends Knightley’s suicide at the Women’s Health Centre, memories of her own visits make her question both her faith and her feelings for David, and as she battles with her repressed anger towards the man who cannot give her a child she struggles to figure out what place Tommy now has in her life, and what kind of father he would have been.
Hedley reveals to Tommy that the reason for Dr Knightley’s suicide wasn’t remorse that he had failed to save Carol. “[He] didn’t kill himself because he let her die. He killed himself because he let her live.” From this moment Tommy knows Charles’ papers, including the drawing of the torture instrument, relate not to a warped thought experiment, but to a real experiment. Alone and frightened of his thoughts, Tommy calls the few people he knows, but the only person he reaches is Rosie, whose number Emily had given him to stop him calling her at home. He goes round and they bond at once. Despite increasing worries that his returning illness is blurring his behaviour, when Tommy wakes up with her he knows it feels right.
Amongst Charles’ things Tommy discovers a recording of the professor’s voice describing the torture instrument’s use in a trepanning procedure. He finds himself plagued by flashbacks of a dead girl, who looks like Becky, staring at him with harrowed, pleading eyes, a needle hanging from her arm. Then Tommy finds a file computer that shows the instrument was part of a sick sexual experiment involving a baby. It is only his flashbacks that drive him on, desperate to protect Becky from a truth he knows is pulling his sanity apart. As strongly as Becky seems drawn to Tommy as a surrogate father, he is drawn by the urge to look after her.
Tommy follows Charles’ movements after the twins’ birth to Spain, from where he discovers that Ellison took Carol to use in the experiment. On his return he takes Rosie to a concert where he hears the song that plays in his flashbacks; he remembers that after his breakdown he had watched a prostitute, the image of Becky, die from an overdose. Terrified, he had left her in her squalid room. Now helping Becky find her father’s killer is his only way of achieving expiation. Seeing from the presence of workers’ vans that Charles’ house is already being refurbished, he returns to the basement. The decorator, one of the contractors Tommy regularly uses, tells him the work is being done at Hedley’s request, and shows him proof in the stripped layers of paint that Carol didn’t die as a baby, but that Charles had raised her there until just a few months ago, before raping and killing her for his own pleasure.
Tommy confronts the Sansoms. Hedley, convinced Charles kept Carol alive before murdering her, and wanting evidence to take to the police, believed Clarissa had killed him out of revenge because Hedley’s obsession with Charles’ guilt for Valerie’s death that meant he had never been a proper husband to her. Clarissa had believed Hedley to be guilty, exacting revenge for Valerie’s suicide.
Jane Ellison reveals that she has always known about her husband’s sexual thought experiments but as long as they remained in his mind said nothing to protect their children.
As he prepares dinner for Haydn and Becky at their house, Tommy finds proof that Haydn killed Charles. Before taking it to Emily, he confesses his investigation to Rosie; she forgives him; they celebrate by opening a bottle of the wine Charles left him, but it is not the wine it should be. Tommy realises Charles has switched it with the wine he drank the day he died – now he believes Charles killed himself after all and framed Haydn. He goes to let Becky know but she tells him that she is, in fact, Carol; Charles raised her in secret for 18 years, giving her the best of everything; he intended her to be with Tommy – she has killed Becky and come back from Eastern Europe to take her place. Charles has indeed framed Haydn.
For Tommy, the journey has been one of slow descent towards breakdown. It is lightened by his growing relationship with Rosie, by the possibility of a new friendship with Emily, and by the reawakening of his academic brain as he works through Charles’ papers. At the same time his decline feels inevitable, presided over by the haunting figure of Becky and hastened by the journey deeper into the sickening thought experiments of the Professors, until he finds himself faced with a choice from which he cannot hide: to condemn Haydn or to condemn Carol? But he finally escapes his descent towards madness when his rediscovered friendship with Emily gives him the strength to face the choice, and its consequences, without collapsing under their weight. Tommy chooses Haydn’s freedom over Carol’s.
Weeks later, over dinner with the convalescing Tommy, Haydn admits she has known from the moment “Becky” returned from Eastern Europe that she was really Carol. She had made the choice never to let on – after all, Carol was her daughter too. After Haydn leaves, Tommy receives a letter from Charles that explains everything.. Charles had set out an experiment to be the perfect parent. He paid Knightley to fake Carol’s death and raised her alone. He selected Tommy as her future partner for his taste and his bipolar tendency; caused his breakdown so he wouldn’t start another relationship but gave him the tools to get well; then killed his own twin, from whom he had been separated when they were adopted, intending the hunt for his killer to trigger Tommy’s recovery and introduce him to Becky. Everything – from Becky’s red hair to Charteris’ heart attack – was part of his plan.
Shortly before Carol was born, Charles fell in love, but kept his obligation to Carol, the 18 year delay only enhancing his ultimate pleasure. Now he has discharged his duty to Carol he can finally pursue his own happiness.
Tommy faces his final choice – does he go after Charles, meaning Carol finds out she wasn’t the most important thing in her father’s life after all? He burns the letter and calls Rosie. Charles, with nothing left to wait for, begins his life in Bulgaria with Krista Markova.
I'm going to kick off by putting my own comments here first. Mainly because I'm colossally under pressure with deadlines at the moment so I may not manage to comment again in the next couple of days. (But I will be watching, so please play nicely!)
So, my thoughts on Dan's synopsis
Rather obviously, it's longer than is recommended. Much longer... It's over 2,100 words long, if you want to know. So, it is a detailed outline, not a synopsis. It has the virtue of showing a potential agent or publisher that Dan can write and that he has really nailed the plot in fine detail. However, it is so much too long that the agent or publisher simply won't read it properly. This does not mean that it would necessarily be rejected on that basis, but it does mean that a grumpy agent or publisher's first thoughts would be a) this writer hasn't realised that synopses must be short - why has he not realised this? - and b) this looks like a writer who isn't ruthless enough with his own words.Now, I happen to know that Dan is ruthless with his own words in one sense: he thinks about them all and knows how they each work. He loves words and he loves playing with them. But, he is not ruthless enough about getting rid of them.
What I've done is put in bold the most important bits, the bits which contain the most relevant info. Clearly, there's then a huge amount of story that I have not bolded, which Dan would need to find a way to squash to its barest bones in order to make the beginning and the end hang together. Also, the other characters, as long as not minor, need a sentence each at the most.
As two examples of details that should not be here, see the para beginning: "When Tommy discovers him..." You don't need to say what sort of wine it was, or that Becky had reurned from three months in Eastern Europe, or the details of the content of the papers Charles left. If Dan goes through and removes everything of that sort of level, it would probably cut about 400 words, which would be a good and easy start.
I also have a radical suggestion. There is no reason why you could not offer two synopses - the properly pared down one of no more than two sides, and then the fuller one (though still, I suggest, pared down). It is highly likely that that agent or publisher would only read the shorter one, but at least the longer one is there if they happen to want further clarificiation. This IS a radical suggestion and I've never heard it before. I cannot see how it would damage someone's chances - you are not giving the agent more work or asking them to read something, merely providing it, should they want it. But it would be essential that the short synopsis is properly short.
Oh, and by the way, I think the story sounds great! It deserves a much neater synopsis.
Here is Dan's synopsis:
What would you give up to be happy? Your principles? Your sanity? Your children?
The Company of Fellows
Dan Holloway
Thriller: 97,000 words
The Company of Fellows
Dan Holloway
Thriller: 97,000 words
The search for an Oxford professor’s killer drives his former protégé back into the world that drove him to a breakdown 12 years earlier. The Company of Fellows takes place in contemporary Oxford, in the University and the affluent north of the city, at the end of September before the students return for the new academic year.
Tommy West, 35, atheist, turned his back on a brilliant academic career when he suffered a breakdown after finishing a doctorate in Theology twelve years ago. His health has forced him to lead a life that is comfortable and intellectually unchallenging. Now he lives in the sensual but impersonal world of luxury design, where a combination of taste and uncanny empathy has made him wealthy. Exquisite things shield him from the world outside and satisfy his need for instant pleasure. They are the sanctuary and the prison he has inhabited alone since college.
Emily Harris, 36, devout Christian, is a Detective Chief Inspector with Thames Valley CID, the job she wanted since she was a little girl. She has a happy but childless marriage to David, whom she met at church. Despite the terrible things she has seen at work and the bitter disappointments she has experienced at home, she has remained centred, and faithful, and good. David is the only man she has loved since Tommy left her eighteen years ago because she wouldn’t sleep with him. They haven’t seen each other since college.
Rosie Lu, 26, is Emily’s DS. She moved to England from Hong Kong as a teenager, on the eve of the handover to China in 1997. She is cultured and intelligent, a side of herself she is happy to hide behind lipstick, leather, and loud music; Rosie still lives the life of a Bohemian student in the rented flat that she shares with her pet chameleon, named Chris after Chris Patten, last governor of Hong Kong and Chancellor of Oxford University.
Charles Shaw, 53, is Professor of Ethics at Christ Church, wildly rich, and Tommy’s former supervisor. He has devoted his career to the study of pleasure, and devoted his life to its pursuit. He believes that the greatest pleasures are the ones for which we have to wait, like the pleasure of old wine. Haydn Shaw, 43, is his estranged wife. She married Charles at the very start of her academic career and is now a successful lecturer at the University, specialising in the Sociology of China. She has lived with Becky Shaw, her 18 year-old daughter, since the night Becky’s twin sister Carol was stillborn and Charles walked out on them.
Barnard Ellison and Hedley Sansom had been lecturers at Christ Church when the Shaws separated. Ellison remained there, with his wife Jane and their two children. He is now Professor of Old Testament History. Sansom, who moved abroad after his first wife Valerie committed suicide, returned with his second wife, Clarissa, to become College Dean.
When Professor Shaw’s lawyer dies on Tommy’s doorstep, leaving him only a box of research papers for an unpublished book, £98,000, and a plea from the Professor to find someone who is trying to kill him and to take care of his daughter, Tommy has to choose between his sensual cocoon and a return to the old life that drove him to the edge of insanity. What follows for Tommy, from the moment he makes the choice not to call the police, and goes to see the Professor only to find him dead, is a pursuit of the truth that becomes a desperate battle to fend off another breakdown. Tommy’s safe new world is blown further apart when he finally calls the police to report the lawyer’s death, and opens the door only to find himself staring at Emily.
Tommy’s journey takes place in an Oxford darkened by the shadows not of its crumbling spires, but of irrevocable choices, of the prices people have paid for pursuing their own happiness, and the prices they have paid for sacrificing it.
When Tommy discovers him, Charles is dead, in his own house, at a table laid with a banquet for one, accompanied by bottles of two of the world’s finest wines opened and empty, and a suicide note that says only There is nothing left to wait for. Emily breaks the news to Haydn and to Becky, who has just returned from 3 months in Eastern Europe. Haydn’s reaction to his note is that he must finally have enjoyed the pleasure he spent his life and career anticipating. Emily is unable to tell if her coldness is a result of hate, indifference or an incapacity for emotion. The papers Charles left Tommy contain wine catalogues and academic articles, going back to a piece on iconography by Bulgarian scholar Krista Markova from 1989.
Amongst them he discovers what appears to be a drawing of a miniature torture instrument. Becky begs Tommy to help her find Charles’ killer. She goes with him to the Professor’s house to collect a bequest of wines, but refuses to help him fetch them from the cellar. They are even finer and rarer than those from Charles’ last meal, one of them being the second finest vintage ever made of the Hungarian pudding wine, Tokaji Eszencia. This convinces Tommy that the hedonist Charles, who had yet to taste his finest wine, didn’t kill himself but was murdered.
At Charles’ memorial service Ellison’s eulogy reveals that Charles’ book was about the theology of parenthood. At the wake, Becky introduces Tommy to Dr Knightley, Haydn’s obstetrician. Knightley tells Tommy about Charles’ obsession with conducting thought experiments about maximizing the pleasure of experiences, such as a perfect seduction lasting almost twenty years. Becky explains that her twin, Carol, was stillborn, and that Knightley blames himself for the death. She also tells Tommy about threatening letters Charles had received before he died, taunting him with the biblical verse Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated, a reference to God’s choice to redeem one of Isaac’s twin sons, and to condemn the other.
Tommy meets the Sansoms over dinner with Haydn and Becky. He discovers that grief over her own childlessness, compounded by Charles’ neglect of his own children, drove Hedley’s first wife, Valerie, to suicide shortly after Becky and Carol were born. After that Hedley left Oxford for the continent.
When Emily attends Knightley’s suicide at the Women’s Health Centre, memories of her own visits make her question both her faith and her feelings for David, and as she battles with her repressed anger towards the man who cannot give her a child she struggles to figure out what place Tommy now has in her life, and what kind of father he would have been.
Hedley reveals to Tommy that the reason for Dr Knightley’s suicide wasn’t remorse that he had failed to save Carol. “[He] didn’t kill himself because he let her die. He killed himself because he let her live.” From this moment Tommy knows Charles’ papers, including the drawing of the torture instrument, relate not to a warped thought experiment, but to a real experiment. Alone and frightened of his thoughts, Tommy calls the few people he knows, but the only person he reaches is Rosie, whose number Emily had given him to stop him calling her at home. He goes round and they bond at once. Despite increasing worries that his returning illness is blurring his behaviour, when Tommy wakes up with her he knows it feels right.
Amongst Charles’ things Tommy discovers a recording of the professor’s voice describing the torture instrument’s use in a trepanning procedure. He finds himself plagued by flashbacks of a dead girl, who looks like Becky, staring at him with harrowed, pleading eyes, a needle hanging from her arm. Then Tommy finds a file computer that shows the instrument was part of a sick sexual experiment involving a baby. It is only his flashbacks that drive him on, desperate to protect Becky from a truth he knows is pulling his sanity apart. As strongly as Becky seems drawn to Tommy as a surrogate father, he is drawn by the urge to look after her.
Tommy follows Charles’ movements after the twins’ birth to Spain, from where he discovers that Ellison took Carol to use in the experiment. On his return he takes Rosie to a concert where he hears the song that plays in his flashbacks; he remembers that after his breakdown he had watched a prostitute, the image of Becky, die from an overdose. Terrified, he had left her in her squalid room. Now helping Becky find her father’s killer is his only way of achieving expiation. Seeing from the presence of workers’ vans that Charles’ house is already being refurbished, he returns to the basement. The decorator, one of the contractors Tommy regularly uses, tells him the work is being done at Hedley’s request, and shows him proof in the stripped layers of paint that Carol didn’t die as a baby, but that Charles had raised her there until just a few months ago, before raping and killing her for his own pleasure.
Tommy confronts the Sansoms. Hedley, convinced Charles kept Carol alive before murdering her, and wanting evidence to take to the police, believed Clarissa had killed him out of revenge because Hedley’s obsession with Charles’ guilt for Valerie’s death that meant he had never been a proper husband to her. Clarissa had believed Hedley to be guilty, exacting revenge for Valerie’s suicide.
Jane Ellison reveals that she has always known about her husband’s sexual thought experiments but as long as they remained in his mind said nothing to protect their children.
As he prepares dinner for Haydn and Becky at their house, Tommy finds proof that Haydn killed Charles. Before taking it to Emily, he confesses his investigation to Rosie; she forgives him; they celebrate by opening a bottle of the wine Charles left him, but it is not the wine it should be. Tommy realises Charles has switched it with the wine he drank the day he died – now he believes Charles killed himself after all and framed Haydn. He goes to let Becky know but she tells him that she is, in fact, Carol; Charles raised her in secret for 18 years, giving her the best of everything; he intended her to be with Tommy – she has killed Becky and come back from Eastern Europe to take her place. Charles has indeed framed Haydn.
For Tommy, the journey has been one of slow descent towards breakdown. It is lightened by his growing relationship with Rosie, by the possibility of a new friendship with Emily, and by the reawakening of his academic brain as he works through Charles’ papers. At the same time his decline feels inevitable, presided over by the haunting figure of Becky and hastened by the journey deeper into the sickening thought experiments of the Professors, until he finds himself faced with a choice from which he cannot hide: to condemn Haydn or to condemn Carol? But he finally escapes his descent towards madness when his rediscovered friendship with Emily gives him the strength to face the choice, and its consequences, without collapsing under their weight. Tommy chooses Haydn’s freedom over Carol’s.
Weeks later, over dinner with the convalescing Tommy, Haydn admits she has known from the moment “Becky” returned from Eastern Europe that she was really Carol. She had made the choice never to let on – after all, Carol was her daughter too. After Haydn leaves, Tommy receives a letter from Charles that explains everything.. Charles had set out an experiment to be the perfect parent. He paid Knightley to fake Carol’s death and raised her alone. He selected Tommy as her future partner for his taste and his bipolar tendency; caused his breakdown so he wouldn’t start another relationship but gave him the tools to get well; then killed his own twin, from whom he had been separated when they were adopted, intending the hunt for his killer to trigger Tommy’s recovery and introduce him to Becky. Everything – from Becky’s red hair to Charteris’ heart attack – was part of his plan.
Shortly before Carol was born, Charles fell in love, but kept his obligation to Carol, the 18 year delay only enhancing his ultimate pleasure. Now he has discharged his duty to Carol he can finally pursue his own happiness.
Tommy faces his final choice – does he go after Charles, meaning Carol finds out she wasn’t the most important thing in her father’s life after all? He burns the letter and calls Rosie. Charles, with nothing left to wait for, begins his life in Bulgaria with Krista Markova.
Thursday, 1 July 2010
THERE ARE NO RULES FOR WRITING - JUST RESULTS
You want to know how to write? Well, I cannot tell you. Yes, I have written more than half a million words on this blog; yes, I've had a large number of books published; and yes, I am writing a book called Write To be Published. And yes, aspiring writers ask me and other writers things such as, do you plan? Do you talk to your characters? Do you outline? Keep spreadsheets of characters? Know the end before you get there? Use Moleskine notebooks? Talk to yourself? Drink lots of coffee? And I have answers to these questions but the answers and the questions are entirely irrelevant to you.
Entirely
irrelevant
to
you
and
to
everyone
except
me.
This is because how a writer writes is entirely irrelevant to anyone but the writer. All that matters is the result: what you write, what the words sound like when you've written them, what readers think of them, whether they work.
The method, the route you take, matters zilchly. No one cares whether you plan or whether you fly by the seat of your pants. No one cares whether you interviewed your characters or spent the night dreaming of them. Well, OK, they might care, but only out of weird reader interest. If you are asking these questions in order to find out how to write yourself, you are barking up the wrong tree.
Please. Just write your book in whatever way works for you, even if that means hanging from a chandelier naked. It will be judged only on the result. Don't get hung up on method, or at least on other people's methods. You will find what works for you and that's all that matters.
Fair enough; sometimes another writer's method is worth trying, to see if it might work better for you than the one you use, and for that reason the questions are not entirely pointless. But only as long as you never get hung up on the answers, and never worry if you are doing it differently from others.
Just write, eh?
When you look gorgeous, I do not need to know how you got dressed.
Entirely
irrelevant
to
you
and
to
everyone
except
me.
This is because how a writer writes is entirely irrelevant to anyone but the writer. All that matters is the result: what you write, what the words sound like when you've written them, what readers think of them, whether they work.
The method, the route you take, matters zilchly. No one cares whether you plan or whether you fly by the seat of your pants. No one cares whether you interviewed your characters or spent the night dreaming of them. Well, OK, they might care, but only out of weird reader interest. If you are asking these questions in order to find out how to write yourself, you are barking up the wrong tree.
Please. Just write your book in whatever way works for you, even if that means hanging from a chandelier naked. It will be judged only on the result. Don't get hung up on method, or at least on other people's methods. You will find what works for you and that's all that matters.
Fair enough; sometimes another writer's method is worth trying, to see if it might work better for you than the one you use, and for that reason the questions are not entirely pointless. But only as long as you never get hung up on the answers, and never worry if you are doing it differently from others.
Just write, eh?
When you look gorgeous, I do not need to know how you got dressed.
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