Indigo, ND: abandoned baby boy SEAN is adopted by CLAIRE who has just given birth to SARA. All seems fine until baby Sean is diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. With his sister by his side he survives a childhood of medical drama. The course of treatment causes the once tiny baby [no need to tell us someone was tiny when he was a baby.] to grow into a sexy teenager, [The treatment caused him to be sexy?] but Sean’s freshman year of high School becomes a living nightmare. In addition to his disability, he must survive bullying and sexual assault.
Sophomore year Sean contracts pneumonia. He meets JEN, the ex-girlfriend of one of the bullies. It’s love at first sight. She stays by his side and later they start dating.
The couple takes [take] a road trip where [during which] they make love. Jen becomes pregnant. She is forced [by whom?] to move to Seattle to live with her grandma. Sean spirals out of control. Sara gets accepted to UCLA. Facing the prospect of losing his sister he [Sean] attempts suicide. As Sean [he] is loaded into an ambulance he meets JOHNNY, a young paramedic.
Sean slips into a coma, during which he meets a series of ghosts. He awakens to find that months have passed. He asks Sara for help [With what?] and they discover together that their birth certificates don’t match. An enraged Sara confronts her mother.
To regain her children’s love, Claire allows Sean to accompany Sara to California. Sara sneaks off to see Johnny [Sara knows Johnny?] and makes him promise to make it to California. [Why would he be willing to make that promise?] Upon arriving at UCLA, Sara forces Sean to get a job on campus. [She makes Johnny promise, she forces Sean to work at UCLA . . . How does she have such power over other people?] Sean suffers heatstroke, requiring hospitalization, the same day that Johnny reappears. Having held up his end of the deal, he insists they tell Sean about the Jen and the baby. After an emotional phone call, Jen is convinced to move to Los Angeles.
Reunited, the family looks to the future. [Which family? Sara, Sean and Claire? Sean, Jen and baby?] After a conversation with Jen about the possibility of Sean modeling, Johnny looks up an agency. Sean is immediately signed. Sean walks his first runway show in Death Valley and leaves feeling empowered. [Isn't Death Valley a desert?]
Sean and Jen plan to marry, but issues arise concerning Jen’s parents since she was estranged from them since leaving Indigo. With the help of her childhood pastor, Jen learns the truth [What truth?] and reunites with her father. Sean’s father presents him with his inheritance, [What father? His biological father? If it's his adoptive father, why wasn't he introduced along with Claire?] enough money for Sean, and his friends to live out their dreams. What are their dreams? All it takes for them to live out their dreams is a sudden windfall of cash? Sean and Jen spend their honeymoon under the stars.
Notes
What's with these ghosts? They're mentioned in one sentence. Do they want something? Do they speak?
This would work better if it felt like you were telling a story. Some parts need specific information to explain them (Ghosts). Some don't need to be here at all. (Pneumonia, heatstroke.) Not sure about the modeling. It seems to come from nowhere.
As with the shorter summary in the query, focus on the Mc, what he wants, how he plans to get it, what goes wrong.
4 comments:
Perhaps you were trying to keep within a brief page length, but I don't feel like I really got a sense of the book from this synopsis.
Are Sean's real parents in California, or is California just a great place to go to collage? Do the ghosts reveal that Sean is adopted, and is that why he went to California? Why does his being adopted matter? Is cystic fibrosis hereditary? Is that why Sean's girlfriend left? Is she afraid their child will also have cystic fibrosis and that she'll need her grandmother's support to raise it?
I am trying to make all the pieces of the story connect in my head, but I'm afraid in the synopsis those connections are missing, so all I can do is guess. I'm sorry to be so harsh. Most likely you know the story so well you didn't realize the connections weren't obvious. I hope I didn't discourage you. Telling an entire novel in one (or even a few) pages is not easy.
Is there a story here? It's more like a soap opera for young adults. It's episodic. A series of dramatic circumstances occurs to the main characters and their girlfriends/boyfriends. Particular tropes: Hidden adoption, someone falling into a coma, someone realizing his or her dream to become a model/movie star, and of course, attempted suicide.
Have you thought of pitching this as a show?
It appears to be way too much for one book. It might be a YA or New Adult series of relatively short books if you want to keep it going longer. Kindle Unlimited does this type of thing. That way people aren't paying too much for relatively short books with cliffhanger endings.
I was really struggling with the 400 word limit. my original is closer to 800 words.
So certain things were left on the cutting room floor.
-the character of Jen's father and the fact that he was the reason she had to leave the state for her own safety. (Her mother wanted to terminate and was willing to do so against Jen's will.)
-While Sean is in a coma Sara starts a relationship with Johnny.
-Sean want to follow Sara to California, because he believes her to be his only friend. And wants to stay with her even though he would not be going to school with her.
-The ghosts are dead relatives of Sean's, including his biological mother who committed suicide, and his grandmother who cut him from her corpse. They ask him to "Seek the truth." And that is why he "asks Sara for help" in stealing their birth certificates (since that's as logical of an idea as any.)
He was given human growth hormones which caused him to become sexier then he would have been biologically. I will definitely scrap that for a different word.
And i agree not mentioning his adopted father in the beginning would make the ending make more sense.
And I will find a way to convey why the modeling was important (summery- Sean is in CA, he has his girl back but he's a little depressed about the fact he is not going to school, not working- so he has no future and no way of supporting his family. Jen takes a bunch of photos of him and post them to her Instagram and the response is more then either of them expected....)
St0n3h3ng3 - my original word count for was 200k, so this is part 1 of 2, but i can see cutting it in to smaller pieces.
And finally
[She makes Johnny promise, she forces Sean to work at UCLA . . . How does she have such power over other people?]
I giggled at this line. Sara is a seriously manipulative individual, the kind of person who will hit someone in the crotch one moment and give a pouty face the next.
I didn't think an updated post could somehow be worse than the previous one, but there you go: It happened.
This needs to flow better. Evil Editor is right in that there is too many unexplained things. "More killer, less filler" as the saying goes.
Also:
[The New Age treatment for deep depression: reading about people who've got it worse than you.]
YASSSSSSSS Slay, Evil Editor. I'm so sick of able-bodied folks using disabled folks for their "feel good" stories.
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