Synopsis 40

Guess the Plot

Thoughts of Forever

1. A philosopher has a revolutionary idea to stop aging: To think is to be, so all he needs are Thoughts of Forever. Now if he can just escape the evil government agents and reach Tahiti with his hot blond assistant, he'll have it made!

2. Deep in the wilds of ... some western state or other that recently legalized the recreational use of marijuana, a dude meditates on stuff that totally weirds out a dude’s brains. Like ... how high is up? Or ... when’s the end of forever? ... Or ...

3. Seventeen-year-old Kyle has never considered suicide--until he meets Cory. Together they discuss the idea that death is like entering an eternal dream. They make a suicide pact but Kyle goes through with it and Cory doesn't. It was all a trick by Cory who turns out to be Kyle's evil imaginary friend.

4. Twelve-year-old Jenny's classmates call her "Forever" because once she starts talking, she goes on and on forever. At the suggestion of her favorite teacher, she tries expressing herself through writing instead. But when Jenny loses her backpack at the mall, a desperate literary agent happens upon her diary. Soon the chatty seventh-grader finds herself the bestselling author of a memoir filled with the . . . Thoughts of Forever.

5. Johnny Dupa experiments with old adages. He's already stapled a piece of jelly toast to the back of a cat, and tossed them both in the air. Now Johnny's contemplating eternity. If an hour with his girlfriend seems like a moment, and a moment with his hand on a lit kitchen burner seems like forever--what if he does both at the same time? Hilarity ensues.

6. The wait at the Emergency Room. The span of time it takes water to boil. The excruciating delay between sugar plum dreaming and waking Christmas morning. All of these exceed the length of her last marriage, but Kim K. Is determined to be a bride again. This time, on network TV with her new reality show: Thoughts of Forever.


Original Version

SYNOPSES: [Synopsis]

Kyle is a junior in high school with a wonderful girlfriend, a pesky yet loveable little sister, and parents that care deeply about their children. On his seventeenth birthday, [A quick scan down the page reveals that there's no paragraphing. This leads me to fear that the book has no paragraphing. This leads me to scrap this and move on to something that does have paragraphing. Wait, am I seriously that petty?] Kyle goes out to dinner with his family. After being seated, his little sister, Kim, asks to go to the restroom by herself, rather than being escorted by a parent. After some teasing about being so worried, their Kim’s mother Cherri reluctantly agrees to let her go. While searching for the bathroom Kim is kidnapped, and a witness immediately calls the authorities. It is while the police are questioning the woman who reported the crime that a gunshot is heard outside, and the family loses their beloved Kim. [The family vow never to patronize this restaurant again.] [Unless it's to order takeout, because hey, the ribs are to die for.] After the funeral a few days later, Kyle notices tension rising between his parents, causing him to shut down emotionally. This creates a barrier between him and his girlfriend, Elle, which she cannot break through. Cherri and her husband, Evan, continue to fight at home, and issues over responsibility of Kim’s death [Is it Cherri's fault for relenting and letting Kim go to bathroom alone? Or Evan's fault for mocking Cherri's caution until she finally gave in? Normally I'd blame Evan, but Cherri spells her name with an "i."] [Then again, Evan married a woman who spells Cherri with an "i."] and emotional vacancy drive the wedge further and further between the two. Kyle’s frustration mounts, and it is evident to everybody in his social circle. Elle is deeply affected by his sudden lack of affection and perpetual coldness, and she ends things with him. It is only shortly after this that Cherri and her husband, Evan, decide to split for the time being. In a fit of tears, Kyle hops in his car and carelessly weaves through the streets until he reaches Kim’s grave, where he goes to calm down and experience some solace with thoughts of his sister who loved him so dearly. Here Kyle meets a fellow teenager, Cory, who talks with Kyle briefly, and provides some comfort. After parting here, Kyle returns home and gets his first full night’s sleep since before all of the tragedy. Evan soon comes back to visit with Kyle and see how he is holding up, only to be shut out by his son. Kyle walks outside to clear his head where he meets Cory again, and they talk. They quickly become best friends, and Cory acts as a confidante as well as an advice giver. With Cory’s help, Kyle gets the nerve to talk to Elle again, only to be rejected. Kyle’s parents approach him with talks of a finalized divorce days later, and he again walks outside in hopes of finding Cory, who always seems to be around outside when Kyle needs it. This time Cory has a dark look in his eye, one caused by a harrowing pain that Kyle felt he could understand. Together they discuss life, and how much better everything is when they’re asleep. They fall in love with the prospect of dreams, of an escape from their realities. After a few talks of their affinity with dreams, Cory asks Kyle how often he contemplates suicide, to which Kyle reports never. Yet the idea does not put Kyle off, instead he envisions it as entering an eternal dream. Together they make a pact, and hang themselves in Kyle’s room. After not hearing from their son in over 24 hours, Evan and Cherri barge into his room only to see their son hanging in the center of the room, eyes fixated on the empty noose in front of him.


Notes

Hard to buy a guy leaving a restaurant with a hostage, and when the cops show up, presumably a few minutes later, the guy is still right outside with his hostage. And then he decides to fire a gun just in case the cops are too stupid to look around outside. Maybe he was raping Kim but you didn't include that because it would make the book seem like a downer?

Most people who read books as their escape from reality don't want to read about a family that goes through the violent death of one child, a divorce, and the suicide of their other child.

Paragraphing would make this 100% better, but it would still need a lot of work. Unfortunately, while I would prefer that it be a lot shorter, (I'd get rid of Elle for starters) there's no telling how long a synopsis should be. It should be however long the editor wants it to be. My advice is to peddle your book to someone who doesn't want a synopsis.

The lengthy section between the kidnapping and the suicide talk has a listy quality. As if you could just stick "And then" in front of every sentence. Better to choose the most important events and elaborate on them in layers than to list as many events as possible.

If Kyle somehow felt responsible for Kim's (mostly accidental) death, there'd a more interesting family dynamic. Feeling like he's to blame, and/or like his parents feel he's to blame, leading to suicide. The only connection between Kim's death and Kyle's is that Cory might not have entered the scene without Kim's death. You've made Kyle's suicide sound more like an experiment to find out if death leads to eternal dreaming than a reaction to what's happened to his family.

Who was doing the teasing? I assume the father, as he and Cherri argued about responsibility. Was Kyle joining in?

Synopsis 24

Ryan is a young boy, unhappy with his small-town life. He is, however, given the opportunity to see the world when a soldier rides into town and recruits him. Ryan demonstrates exceptional skill with the sword, and is made the squire to the most skilled knight in the realm, Armand. Unfortunately for Ryan, Armand doesn't want a squire, and resents that his superiors are forcing such a burden upon him. This resentment creates an escalating conflict between the two, which is reflected in the backdrop of war between the Kingdom and its rival, the kingdom of Triol. [The most skilled knight in the realm is seriously involved in an escalating conflict with a young boy? Over what, his bedtime?] [And you compare this escalating conflict to an actual war?] [One kingdom is called Triol and the other kingdom is called . . . the Kingdom?]
[According to Wikipedia, the typical duties of a squire included the following, which leads me to believe having a squire was not a burden, but a necessity:

• Carrying the knight's armor, shield, and sword,
• Holding any prisoners the knight takes,
• Picking locks on fair maidens' chastity belts,
  
• Rescuing the knight should the knight be taken prisoner,
• Polishing the knight's lance . . . frequently,
  
• Ensuring an honorable burial of the knight in the event of his death,
• Replacing the knight's sword if it was broken or dropped,
• Oiling the knight's knees and elbows after rainstorms,
  
• Replacing the knight's horse should the horse be injured or killed,
• Acting as the knight's human shield while facing a fire-breathing dragon,
  
• Dressing the knight in his armour,
• Reaching under the knight's armour to scratch his itches,
  
• Carrying the knight's flag,
• Arranging the knight's Round Table poker games,
  
• Removing the knight's codpiece to allow urination without rust.]

Renek is a man who wakes in a monastery after having survived a great disease. [You seldom see "great" being used to describe a disease.

Knight 1: I just got over a great case of leprosy.
Knight 2: Big deal. I'm recovering from some fantastic scurvy.
Knight 3: That's nothing. I survived a sensational case of Black Death.]

He has the trappings of a soldier--an ancient sword and some serviceable, if simple, armor--and decides to travel to the war's front to seek his forgotten past. Like Ryan, Renek demonstrates finesse with the sword. Initially, upon meeting Renek, the commander distrusts him; however, Renek is too valuable an asset to the army, and so the commander allows him to participate.

Both Renek's and Ryan's units are told to search for the legendary Swords of the Ascendancy, swords made by gods. [You know how much the army values you when the big battle's approaching and they send you on a mission to find a legendary item. Sort of like when I was in the army and we were supposed to take an enemy camp, but before we made our final charge my sergeant took me aside and said, "Much as we'd like you fighting beside us, we need you to go search for the hammer of Thor."] Their similar stories intertwine as they track down the weapons' resting place. As they each separately enter the mountain where the swords hopefully lie, it becomes clear that they are doing so at different times; the mountain is the same, but Ryan enters a living mountain, [also known as a volcano,] with strange creatures guarding the swordchamber, [When you're looking for a sword and all you know is it's inside a mountain, it's always convenient to discover the mountain has a swordchamber.] whereas Renek enters a dead mountain, with dessicated bones instead of living beings.

Ryan finds one weapon where there should be two; Renek finds a broken chamber empty of swords. However, Renek does realize that the ancient sword that he has carried all along is one of the weapons that he sought. [Sort of like when you're searching for your glasses and you discover that you're wearing them.] [Which would be worse: spending weeks searching for a sword only to find it's in a room guarded by strange creatures, or spending weeks searching for a sword only to find it's hanging off your belt?] Both Ryan and Renek leave the mountain having discovered one of the weapons, and both return to the front of their war with the Triols.

At the front, Ryan's wielding of the sword shows great power--too much power for him to control. He struggles, but fails to contain the sword's power; it's release destroys most of both of the armies. [When you realize that your god-made sword is destroying your own army, you might consider trading it in for a non-turbo model.]

Renek, however, has no problems controlling his sword; it seems to have little power beyond what his arm can lend it. He struggles through superior strategy, but more limited resources, and the battle comes to a bitter ending, with only a few dozen soldiers left on each side. During the last few pages of the book, Renek's memory returns when he recognizes one of his boyhood friends. He realizes that he is, in fact, Ryan--somehow he has been given another chance to do things right. [But has failed, as both armies were wiped out again.] He stands up, renewed, determined to make the most of that chance.


Notes

Is Renek's sword the same one Ryan found at an earlier time? If so, how come it's no longer uncontrollable?

Renek realizes he's been given a chance to do things right, but what things? The army was wiped out the first time, and it's been wiped out the second time. What went wrong that's left to do right?

Apparently Renek's been given another chance through magic or time travel? How do we know he didn't just have amnesia?

As this synopsis is plot-only (no title, no genre), maybe you should stay with the plot consistently and not step out to make comments like "During the last few pages of the book," and " it becomes clear [to the reader] that . . . "

Synopsis 23

Synopsis: Child of the Dark Court

Elora has spent the past decade of her life planning to overthrow the High Faerie Courts. She has gathered together the embittered servants of the Dark Court. [Where has she gathered them?] She’s even come up with a plan to bind her mother, the Dark Queen. But in order to put her plan into action, she needs the help of her mother’s loathed enemy, the Queen of the Bright Court.

The Bright Queen agrees to help Elora, on one condition: Elora must travel to the human world and gain the trust of a human. [The queen of one of the Faerie courts agrees to help Elora overthrow the Faerie courts? Elora, who's the daughter of her most loathed enemy? That's like Osama bin Laden's daughter asking President Obama for help in overthrowing the US government, and Obama says, "Okay, on one condition. Go to China and gain the trust of one person." Why would the Bright Queen agree to this? What does the Bright Queen care if Elora gains the trust of a human?] Elora is terrified; above all else, the Dark Faeries fear and despise humanity. But she cannot refuse the Bright Queen’s request if she hopes to lead her people to freedom. [She's the queen's daughter. Who are her people? The kitchen staff?] She agrees to go.

The first human Elora meets is seventeen-year-old Daren, a boy who has been suffering from problems of his own. Partially responsible for his younger brother’s death, he has spent the last three years living in the carriage house above his parents’ garage, to distance himself from his deteriorating family. When Elora hints that she has left her own family behind, he senses a kindred spirit, and feels compelled to take her in.

Elora agrees to Daren’s offer, for a time. She only needs to stay long enough to gain his trust. She even enrolls in his high school in an attempt to appear normal. And while she expects to hate every minute of the school day, she actually finds herself empathizing with humanity. Her feelings for Daren intensify every day. She begins to consider [In other words, she considers.] telling him who she really is. And when she befriends Kylie and Kevin, president and vice-president of the school’s gay/straight alliance, she discovers that the social inequality of high school closely resembles the social inequality in the Dark Court.

Soon she and Daren are gathering up the school’s outcasts, [Gathering people is her specialty.] reminding them of their collective power, and urging them to take control of the school. Her efforts come to fruition on prom night, when she leads a high school revolution against the students who tried to ban same-sex couples from the dance.

Suddenly the school’s carefully structured hierarchy is turned on its head. Kylie dances on stage with the prom queen. Elora reveals her true identity to Daren. [When you reveal to a friend that you aren't human, there's absolutely no chance you'll be believed. Try it sometime.] And strange creatures have infiltrated the dance, with incandescent skin and glaring red eyes. [Infiltrating requires a degree of stealth. It's almost impossible to infiltrate anything except a Halloween party when you have incandescent skin and glaring red eyes.]

Elora realizes she has been found. The Dark Lady’s courtiers have tracked her down, and within no time they capture Kylie and Kevin. Using the humans as bait, they lead Elora and Daren to a secret chamber hidden in the Dark Court. [Why didn't they just capture Elora?] Once there, the faeries battle, and Elora nearly loses her life. But just when she is about to fail, the humans spring into action, distracting her enemies long enough for her to escape [to Elora's cave].

Elora and the humans flee the Dark courtiers, only to find themselves wounded and alone in the Faerie wilderness. Book One ends with a servant of the Dark Court coming to their aid, leading them through a tunnel to safety, all the while proclaiming that the princess has returned and the revolution can begin.


Notes

Is this the same world of Faerie whose courts are usually known as Seelie and Unseelie rather than Bright and Dark?

I think the opening paragraphs need a brief description of the social inequality in Faerie; otherwise we don't know if overthrowing the Faerie courts is a good thing or a bad thing. There's always gonna be social inequality; what is it those on the bottom are enduring?

Has Elora gained Daren's trust by the end of the book? When he let her move in with him, I figured he trusted her. Now that she's dragged him into some other-worldly conflict and put him in peril, he may be rethinking the issue.

Synopsis 22

"A man takes care of his family, Michael Callistus, if he doesn't he isn't any kind of a man at all." [Change the second comma to a semicolon or a period.]

All his life Michael had that mantra drummed into him by his stern aunt Magdalene, and he has done his best to live up to that [it], looking after his sickly sister Miranda until he can see her married to a fine gentleman who will treat her as she deserves. Michael knows that he isn't the best guardian for Miranda, he's known ever since he failed to save her twin brother Felix from monsters six years ago, but he is all she has. [Change those commas to dashes.] She is also all that keeps him living, as when she leaves him he plans to kill himself and end the burdens that life has placed upon his shoulders.

When Miranda is kidnapped by agents of the fanatical sorcerer Quirian, Michael learns that Miranda's illness was in fact the result of an ancient magical bloodline, which Quirian plans to unlock to achieve his goal of destroying the tottering Empire of All Pelarius- killing Miranda in the process. [He seems to know an awful lot about Quirian's scheme.] [Also, I'd be interested in knowing what names you rejected before settling on Empire of All Pelarius.] Michael doesn't much care about the Empire, but he does care about his family and sets off to save Miranda no matter what. [If the Empire is already tottering, I'm thinking a surprise attack will finish it off, without this bloodline-unlocking mumbo jumbo, which I predict won't work anyway.]

Michael is joined by Jacob, the bastard of the Imperial court looking for someone to care about him, [People would be more likely to care about him if you didn't always refer to him as Jacob the bastard.] by the patrician soldier Gideon, and by Michael’s childhood friend Amy. He also receives advice from the immortal mystic Silwa, who is coordinating the resistance to Quirian from the heart of his own dungeon, befriending the captive Miranda in the process.

With these companions to aid and support him, Michael begins to understand the true meaning of family and sees that his life could have value for others beside his little sister. In the midst of searching for a weapon to use against Quirian Michael and the others are confronted by their enemy himself, [First get your weapons, then seek out your enemy.--Sun Tzu] and standing at his right hand is Michael’s lost brother Felix. Felix berates Michael, accusing him of abandoning his little brother and his familial duties. Michael is unable to deny the charge, because he half believes it himself. [He does manage to half deny the charge.]

With Jacob wounded, [When did this happen?] and Michael reduced to an emotional wreck, Quirian leaves the destruction of the little group in the hands of a sadistic pyromancer and his hunters. [Big mistake. From the list of things I'd do if I were an Evil Overlord:

101. I will not order my trusted lieutenant to kill the infant who is destined to overthrow me -- I'll do it myself.]

Despite a valiant effort Gideon and Amy are defeated, and though Jacob unleashes hitherto unsuspected magical abilities he too is unable to prevail. It falls to Michael to defend his family when they need him most. Victorious but heavily injured, Michael [He never even found a weapon.] is falling into unconscious [unconsciousness] when he sees a mysterious woman coming towards him… [It's Wonder Woman.]

The story concludes in the second volume: Empire of Duty [No, putting Wonder Woman at the beginning of the sequel doesn't make it any less a Deus ex Machina.]


Notes

What's the title of this volume?

A lot of background, but not much action.

If I believe he could have saved me from monsters, when I encounter my brother years later I'll find a stronger accusation than You abandoned your familial duties.

It wraps up too fast. Nothing happens for a long time, then suddenly the main confrontation already happened. Jacob was wounded and Michael emerged victorious and we missed it.

Synopsis 21

In the year 2012, Satan rose from Hell to install his infernal kingdom on Earth, but mankind thwarted him with the help of Heaven't most powerful forces. Jesus Christ's second coming revealed the truth of Christianity, and a thousand years later there is no other religion on Earth. [Jesus is the Grover Cleveland of religious figures--he gets a second term years after his first term ended.] The world’s united government operates by means of two power-sharing entities: the Church, who rule the economy, [They volunteered.] and the Sword of God, the Earth’s holy army. [What does Earth's holy army do, now that there aren't any non-Christians to kill?]

In 2993, Earth is challenged by a hostile alien race called Perfirians. The Sword responds violently despite the Church's protestations. The resulting war sets the Church and the Sword irreperably at odds, and the Sword's conscription initiative causes a firestorm of discord between war supporters and peace advocates worldwide. [If the world has one united government and one religion, how big an army do they need? Aren't all wars caused by differences between governments and religions?]

Seraph begins by following a few conscription letters to their young addressees. Matthias, a poor boy in the slums of Lesser New York, vows to personally end the war so he can return to his ailing mother. Kenneth enlists to escape a criminal trial after killing a man in self-defense. [If anyone who is about to go on trial can get out of it by joining the holy army, the holy army must be full of serial killers and other sinners.] [Is killing in self-defense a crime in the future?] The scrappy urchin Sic [Anagram: Sin Church.] embraces the opportunity to flee poverty and boredom, and the once-celebrated pianist Kate reluctantly accepts her best career option in a world increasingly disenchanted with the arts. [Historically, Christianity has inspired great music and art almost as much as it's inspired war, murder and injustice, so I find it hard to believe the arts are out now that Christianity has no competition. Didn't Jesus, during his second term in office, say anything along the lines of, "Lay down your weapons and learn to play the organ."?] Clement, a brilliant scientist and Kate's fiancé, wants a first-hand look at the Perfirians, and Genny, a statuesque and haughty blueblood, foresees a glorious future in the military.

After their training, these six youths proceed to the space station Seraph and into frothing conflict, where they are joined by Tib, an enigmatic outsider with something to prove. Months of side-by-side danger and excitement draw Sic and Matthias closer together. [What is this frothing conflict? Battling the Perfirians? Their war ships haven't defeated our measly space station after months? Klingons they ain't.] Clement, far removed from the action on a Sword research station, [You said all six were on the Seraph station.] fears for Kate's life. He consequently makes feverish progress on a weapon powerful enough to conclude the war before it claims her. [Did Jesus sign off on the policy of making more powerful weapons? Why didn't he ordain that all disputes be settled with rock, paper, scissors? I guess he could have said, in 2012, keep that weapon research going, you're gonna need some big guns when the Perfirians show up in a thousand years.]

The seven soldiers meet the evil Perfirian generals, among them Diomedes, who seizes a Sword ship in an attempt to infiltrate Earth's atmosphere. [Infiltrate the atmosphere? If you're saying he needs a Sword ship so Earth will think he's one of them when he lands, I find it hard to believe that you can seize a ship without anyone on Earth knowing it. Even our primitive communications are good enough to prevent that deception.] Kenneth is captured in the ensuing battle. After neutralizing Diomedes on Earth, Tib is absorbed into the Sword’s excavation of a sacred relic, headed by Genny. There he learns that the Pope has organized his supporters into a rabid militia. [Is the Pope on the Sword side or the pacifist side?] It’s only a matter of time before the Church and the Sword descend into all-out war, but Genny obliviously digs on. [What should she be doing?] A supernatural force compels her to the prize buried beneath the site. [It's the ring of power.] [Too much going on in that paragraph. Change it to a paragraph about what Genny's doing, and mention no one else.]

Sic is killed rescuing Kenneth, and it takes the shock of her death for the devastated Matthias to realize how much he loved her. While undercover, Tib sees the Church supporters' mobilization firsthand, but his desperate calls to Genny go unanswered. He returns to the dig to find everything destroyed...and a terrifying demon flying off into the distance. Thinking Genny dead, he pursues the creature, which leads him across North America to the Gates of Hell. [California.]

In her tireless search for peace, Kate discovers a conspiracy: the Sword is actively perpetuating the war in order to preserve its livelihood [Did we learn nothing from Halliburton?] and curtail the Church's power. Kenneth is ordered to silence her, but he cannot countenance the heinous act, so he performs a mock assassination and sends her safely to Earth. Kate then meets up with Tib, and the two soldiers battle the demon to prevent the Gates' reopening. In vanquishing him, they learn the Perfirians' true purpose: infiltrate Hell to establish an unholy trinity with Satan, their god. With Earth on the brink of civil war, Kate and Tib must persuade the Pope that peace is not an option. [This is going on too long. It feels like a list of things that happen, with little focus on the thread that ties everything together. Maybe we need to know earlier what the enemy wants.] [The only thing shorter than an editor's attention span is an agent's, so cut, cut, cut.]

Unbeknownst to Tib, Genny returns to Seraph with a shard of the demon corrupting her soul. Clement has at last perfected a weapon capable of neutralizing the Perfirian fleet, but the demon (using Genny's body) attempts to murder him in order to subvert its activation. Clement destroys the demon, killing Genny in the process. With her dying breath, Genny thanks Clement for freeing her. Clement [, using the transporter,] then sends the vengeful Matthias into the Perfirian mothership bearing the weapon, and Matthias sacrifices himself to cripple the enemy. Sic is the last thing he sees before he dies. [Why didn't he transport out at the last second?] [Lemme guess . . . He tried, but the transporter malfunctioned again.]

With their generals killed and their mothership captured, the beleaguered alien army retreats. Kenneth and Clement cooperate to bring down the Sword's corrupt higher-ups. Kenneth then recovers Tib and leads a contingent to pursue the fleeing enemy, while Clement joins Kate on Earth in the arduous task of reuniting the human race. [This time they decide to try it with zero religions.] Seraph's epilogue summarizes their success, and the novel ends with their long-awaited wedding.


Notes

You'd think once there was concrete proof that heaven exists, sinning would be almost nonexistent, except for adultery. Yet Kenneth has to kill someone who's trying to murder him? How stupid do you have to be to attempt murder when you know there's a heaven?

On the other hand, since there are people who think the Holocaust never happened after only sixty years, how is it that everyone believes the second coming happened after a thousand years? I guarantee there'd be second coming deniers within a century.

If the militant Sword goes to war against the pacifist Church, isn't the war over in about ten minutes?

What did Jesus do after vanquishing Satan's demons? You'd think he would have stuck around a while and straightened people out. With the crime and weapons manufacture and slums and civil war, Earth doesn't seem any better. Guess we'll have to wait for the second coming of Buddha.

How do the aliens plan to infiltrate hell? Can you go there when you're alive now?

Synopsis 20

Abriel Jones thinks she may have found something exciting about her life in a mysterious man who visits to lull her to sleep. [You know your life is dull when the only exciting part of it puts you to sleep.] But when he leaves, she fears her life has relapsed to the way it had been. [Isn't she asleep when he leaves?] On her seventeenth birthday, she receives more than she bargained for when she sends her boyfriend flying across the room. [What did she bargain for?] If she had known what she did, Drei—her former mystery visitor—wouldn’t have needed to save her from a run-in with two drunks. [I'm lost, and I think it's because you didn't give me a map. What does "If she had known what she did" mean? If she had known she threw her boyfriend across the room? How could she not know that? Did she do it while sleeping? I can guess that what you're trying to say is that if she had known last week that she was Wonder Woman, she would have beaten those drunks who were bothering her to a pulp. In which case the drunks have nothing whatsoever to do with your main plot.]

Once she’s recovered from her traumatic birthday, she meets Drei for a midnight coffee. [I assume from her age that she lives with her parents. Does she tell them she's going out for a midnight coffee with a guy who's been coming into her bedroom to lull her to sleep?] Drei explains that she’s an air elemental—a person who can manipulate the air. Though it wasn’t what she wanted, [You mean it wasn't what she wanted for her birthday? It's not necessary to tell us that her birthday wish wasn't the ability to manipulate the air.] it’s not long before she’s grown used to having this new power and freely experiments to entertain herself. [For instance, she manipulates air into her lungs through the power of inhalation, then manipulates it out through exhalation.] [I, too, entertain myself this way--in fact, I do it every chance I get.]

Drei scolds her when he finds out, explaining the threat from the government: bounty hunters. People hired specifically to track elementals and turn them into labs for experimentation. [Wouldn't a person who can turn an elemental into a lab be considered an elemental elemental?] [Shouldn't Drei have explained the threat from the government when he told her she was an elemental?] She doesn’t believe him until a bounty hunter shows up at her school, posing as a college scout. [How does she know he's a bounty hunter, and not a college scout?] In an attempt to avoid a repeat encounter, [What encounter does she want to avoid repeating?] Abriel works to forget anything changed her on her birthday. Then she loses control of her powers at school. [We want to know what happens, specifically, when she loses control of her powers.] Abriel no longer feels safe in her life, so she takes Drei up on his previous offer of protection. [You forgot to tell us about his offer.]

She didn’t think protection would equate to a rundown camp and babysitting younger earth and water elementals. [They spend their time playing earth water air, which is like rock paper scissors except players constantly argue over what beats what:

Air elemental: Air beats water.
Water elemental: Bulls#@t! (Conjures tidal wave)
Air elemental: Oh yeah? (Creates tornado)
Earth elemental: Knock it off or I'll bury the both of youse under lava.
Water elemental: You and what army of elementals?]

Even if she comes to fancy the idea of being looked up to and finally leading a less shallow life, she can’t help feeling isolated from everyone.

Until Nick appears, that is. He shouldn’t be there—he’s not an elemental and little is known about him. But there’s something about him that makes Abriel feel less lonely. [Is it located between his belly button and his knees?] It isn’t long before she convinces Drei to let Nick stay, and not much longer before he winds his way into her heart.

After a fight, Abriel decides it’s time to tell Nick the truth about her being an elemental—something Drei’s insisted she keep secret. Her revelation is soiled when they begin arguing and Nick lets slip he’s a bounty hunter. [It's soiled?] Hurt and upset, Abriel does what she knows she has to: tell Drei. [Why isn't Nick turning her into a lab?]

She doesn’t need Drei to tell her Nick—and consequently, she—has endangered everyone. But after a near-death experience, saying goodbye to Nick, and moving to a new campground, it seems everything has worked out. [Why isn't Nick turning her into a lab?] But there’s one thing more Abriel wants to do before her nineteenth birthday, even if she has no idea how it’ll work out. Having put it off for nearly two years, she’s going to tell Drei how she really feels about him. [Which is?]


Notes

I want to know exactly what an air elemental can do. Can she create a vacuum around a bounty hunter so he can't breathe? Can she play a mean trombone?

How old is Drei?

If revealing she's an elemental has endangered everyone, why doesn't anything bad happen to anyone? If a bounty hunter makes it into a camp for elementals, you'd expect him to either be killed or to leave with an elemental.

The powers of an elemental don't seem that great if a bounty hunter can capture one.

Why wasn't Abriel an elemental before her 17th birthday? The other elementals are younger than 17.

There are too many unclear phrases and too many extraneous details. The plot is this:

1. Abriel turns 17 and suddenly becomes an air elemental.
2. She's unable to control her power so she leaves her home and family and school to move into Drei's camp for elementals.
3. Bounty hunter Nick shows up, endangering everyone.

Everything in the synopsis should relate directly to those items. Expand #1 by telling us what an air elemental can do and why Abriel has become one. Expand #2 by telling us what happened at school when Abriel lost control and what Drei offers to do for her. #3 Explain the danger and why Nick does nothing. Better yet, show the danger by having Nick do something. Can't he at least snatch one elemental and then come back for more? A bounty hunter hits the elemental mother lode and just fades out?

Synopsis 19

Morally Ambiguous

[I changed a few words/lines to red to indicate I'd get rid of them.]


When Nodammo Ebonlocke’s afternoon tea is spoiled by a hero with a very big sword arriving in the Generic Little Village, she reacts as any morally ambiguous sorceress would. [She invites him to play sword in the stone.] With a little help from her employees, she manages to bury the hero’s [sword in her garden.] remains in the vegetable garden where he can finally do something useful with his life by helping the vegetables grow bigger. [A joke is seldom improved by explaining it. Also, if you're going to leave out the part where she zaps the hero, start the next sentence: Then, with a little help from her employees, she buries . . . The "Then" lets us know her reaction already happened; otherwise we think her reaction is burying the remains.]

The problem doesn’t stop there, though. Infuriated by their constant loss of heroes to Nodammo, the Company, a mysterious megacorporation that’s mushroomed overnight in Fantasyland, dispatches an army of heroes led by Miss Annoyed, a junior executive in the Company, to dispose of Nodammo and her employees. Nodammo and her employees [Maybe we should leave Nodammo's employees out of the query.] summon up a tea elemental, buying them time to escape from the heroes. After some deliberation as to what to do, Nodammo decides to seek consul [counsel] from her mother, who advises her that running is ultimately futile, and that standing her ground and fighting the Company offers her the best chances of prolonged survival. [Not to quibble, but if her sorcery isn't strong enough to defeat an army of heroes, running would not be futile, as she could use magic to run to the other side of the world, where they wouldn't follow. And if her sorcery is strong enough to defeat the heroes, why did she run in the first place? Why can't she do to Miss Annoyed and friends what she did to so many other heroes?]

Meanwhile, Brommus, a wise old mentor on the Company’s payroll, loses his job to the fact that Nodammo’s been killing off his protégés. After leaving Literacity and wandering for a while with no goal in mind, Brommus receives a prophetic dream from his own chain-smoking wise old mentor, and is advised to hire himself out as a handyman to the very nursing home where Nodammo’s mother is living in. There he finds happiness in repairing carnivorous fountains and other odd jobs--until Nodammo arrives, the army of heroes on her tail.

In the ensuing confusion, Nodammo meets Brommus and learns of his previous career choice. [Wise old mentor was a career choice?] Realising the value of a disgruntled ex-employee of the Company to her cause, she offers to hire Brommus. While he is initially reluctant, Brommus eventually agrees as Nodammo’s cause is the best chance he has of undoing the damage he’s done over the years. That being done, Brommus suggests that they head to the kingdom of Gru’bar’atr, where he gains them an audience with the current king by virtue of being the king’s wise old mentor during the latter’s days as a hero. [It sounds like everyone's got a wise old mentor, in which case there may not be enough wise old mentors to go around, and some people will have to settle for wise young mentors or imbecilic old mentors. Feel free to use a variation of that idea in your book with the standard acknowledgment.]

Nodammo and Brommus soon learn that the kingdom is in dire straits, due to the fact that having a crown-shaped birthmark, a large sword and good intentions is hardly a qualifier for good statesmanship, especially when he [Who?] is under pressure by the Company to turn his kingdom into a cliché. Together, they help rebuild the kingdom by convincing ministers and nobles to return to their posts, fixing the king’s well-intentioned financial disasters and restoring the people’s confidence in their ruler. [Why did they want an audience with the king? Seems like they're helping the king but the king does nothing for them.]

However, Nodammo’s activities have long since come to the Company’s attention, and Miss Annoyed is dispatched once more by the Company’s CEO to assess the situation. Here the Company’s true intentions are revealed to the reader; that they are people from Earth who have crossed over into Fantasyland and are creating artificial stories for the sole purpose of extracting narrative powers such as deus ex machina, million-to-one chances, happily ever afters and the likes for resale on Earth for obscene amounts of money. [Are these true intentions revealed only to the reader, or also to a character? If the latter, that's what belongs in the synopsis.]

Miss Annoyed quickly determines that Nodammo is a threat. While her boss agrees with her assessment, he instructs her to construct an appropriate climax for the narrative structure she’s observed so far with the caveat that she throw the fight, so that the story can be milked for all it’s worth. The idea troubles Miss Annoyed but her objections are ignored, and she secretly plans to eliminate Nodammo for the sake of the Company’s stability.

It doesn’t take long for another army of heroes to be amassed, this time directed at the kingdom. Realising the first signs of the threat, the king asks that Nodammo convince the ex-commander of the kingdom’s armies to help organise the defences. When Nodammo arrives at the cottage she’s been directed to, she discovers to her surprise that the commander doesn’t live alone; the ex-king, the current king’s uncle, is in hiding there too. After listening to the ex-king’s side of the story of how he became and evil usurper, Nodammo ropes them into helping save the kingdom. Through a combination of their own grit and ingenuity, internal sabotage from Miss Annoyed’s boss, who’s realised what she’s doing, and the power of the narrative secretly aiding them, Nodammo’s side manages to defeat the army of heroes. [Once the truth about the Company was revealed, I lost interest in the plot up to then. Just call me Mr. Annoyed.] [By which I mean, it hasn't been made clear what the danger is to anyone, and now that the truth is revealed, it doesn't have much to do with any of the characters. Was the Company causing the kingdom to fall apart?]

Brommus expresses concern that they won too easily, but Nodammo tells him to be content with his victories, even as unknown to them, Company agents pore over the battlefield harvesting huge amounts of narrative power. The story ends with the kingdom reverting to its former and rightful name of Fairbanks and the instatement of the ex-king as his nephew’s [wise old mentor,] head advisor, with the invitation to Nodammo and her employees to stay in the kingdom as long as they wish.


Notes

The idea that the villains are in Fantasyland to steal narrative powers seems kind of gimmicky in a novel, especially if it's not revealed reasonably early. Maybe it just needs to be more clear what the company does. They create a story with a Deus ex Machina or a happily ever after in Fantasyland, then extract that narrative power from the story, bring it to Earth, and sell it to someone who is willing to pay for it, and then that person lives happily ever after or is miraculously saved from disaster? Is that it?

If so, what are the narrative powers the army is gathering after they lose the war? Seems like that was an unhappy ending with no Deus ex Machina to save the heroes, so who's gonna wanna buy those powers?


It doesn't seem that what the Company is doing hurts anyone in Fantasyland. Why does Nodammo kill the heroes? Who are the good guys, who are the bad guys, and what's at stake for everyone? The Company must be stopped from creating and selling literary tropes because . . . ? I think we need to know early on what the Company is doing and how this is affecting Fantasyland adversely. Otherwise it feels like the book veers off into craziness long after we've settled in with it.

Synopsis 18

Trial By Fire, Volume One of the Everstar Saga


Alexander, who goes by Alex to most people, [That's not important enough for the synopsis. Just call him one or the other.] is a teenage halfling gifted with the ability to manipulate fire, living in the city of Mora at the story's outset. [Those last four words are wasted.] In this context, "halfling" means someone who has parents of two different races. [That sentence isn't needed; the next sentence makes it clear what the word means.] In Alex's case, his father is human while his mother is of the Kenlor, magical woodland tribespeople considered savages by the humans (a la the European viewpoint of the Native Americans). [Also the European viewpoint of current Americans.] Alex's status as a halfling incites persecution from his fellow townspeople, who see him as a disgrace to the town and a possible threat, as halflings are stereotyped as having uncontrollable powers as a result of their parentage. However, Alex is indifferent to their animosity and is even proud of his heritage(s). This pride causes tension with his cousin, Karen, who is also a halfling but hides it to avoid persecution. [This is all set-up. Focus on what happens.] Eventually, their bickering lands them in a situation where they and their family are pursued by a corrupt officer of the Royal Guard who hopes to destroy them. Their flight from the law leads them to seek shelter on a mysterious island with a peacekeeping fraternity called the Knights Telessar. [A peacekeeping organization should be headquartered somewhere violence is likely to break out, not on Fantasy Island.] While staying with them at their training Academy, Alex learns more about his heritage(s) as his parents, in concert with the Knights, prepare him to assume his rightful place not only as a part of Kenlor society, but as a king. [His father is human and his mother is described as "of the Kenlor, magical woodland tribespeople considered savages by the humans." No mention of either parent being royalty, so why is Alex's rightful place king? If humans think Kenlor are savages, why would humans or Kenlor want Alex as their king?] However, he is not without opposition. In his journey toward power and self-realization, Alex must confront not only prejudice and persecution, but betrayal, romantic tension and rivalry, friends ranging from outright crazy to downright buffoonish, the machinations of a corrupt politician, kidnapping, and torture. [You finally get to the stuff we want details about, and you just list it.] Through it all, he learns to think strategically, relate to others, and to use power not out of anger or revenge, but out of a responsibility to protect and defend those placed under his protection.


Notes

Drop the last two sentences, which are just lists, divide the rest into three paragraphs, and you'll have a synopsis just brief enough to go in your one-page query letter (though one with too much set-up and not enough plot).

However, what you were trying for is the kind of synopsis that might be requested along with your manuscript. It should be longer than this (how much longer depends on what the recipient wants), paragraphed, and more detailed, especially in plot. It should tell us the main character's story.

"Kenlor" sounds like a coating for frying pans.

Synopsis 17

Title:
Son of a Legend: The Sablestone, Volume Zero of the Everstar Saga [To be followed by the prequel, Volume Negative One: Son of a Bitch.]

Conleth is a gruff, roguish man who is universally known as The Son of Aerthir Everstar, a great hero of the bygone age. [I tend to think of the "bygone age" as when Beowulf was written, not one generation ago.] Conleth dislikes being known only as the son of his father [Is this guy based on Evil Junior?] and embarks on many "heroic" ventures in order to make a name for himself. With time, these ventures degrade into no more than mercenary work and tyrant-heckling. [Tyrants strike me as the type who don't take heckling well. That plus their access to torture squads may explain why I got zero hits when I Googled "tyrant heckling".] [By tomorrow I should be getting one hit.] Throughout it all, he is accompanied by Imbria, his childhood best friend. The story opens with the two of them completing a mission to dissuade a despotic lord from encroaching on the lands of other nobles. [The poor have Robin Hood fighting for them; the rich have Conleth the Gruff.] Afterward, they flee the country as outlaws and go to Anassia, where they will be safe.

Anassia’s King Zorren then summons them to a banquet in honor of Conleth and his father. At the banquet, Conleth nearly gets into a brawl with a noble named Lord Adarik, disturbing the banquet. [We're halfway into paragraph 2 and our main character finally does something: disturbs some diners. Have you considered writing a book about Aerthir Everstar?] Zorren punishes them by [It takes a lot of gall to punish someone for almost getting into a brawl at a banquet you were staging to honor him.] sending them on a perilous quest to find a beneficent talisman called the Sablestone. Conleth and Imbria find themselves at odds with Adarik, who constantly makes a fool of himself. In the city of Pali, the halfway mark of their journey, Conleth is reunited with his fiancée, Queen Shonda. This causes tension with Imbria, who feels that Conleth mistrusted her by not telling her of the engagement and abandons him. [Imbria's a woman? What else haven't you told us? Is Adarik a chimpanzee?] [Actually, I recommend making Adarik a chimpanzee.]

When Conleth arrives at the mountain pass leading to the stone’s location, Conleth is attacked by two demons. [You got something against pronouns?] After holding his own for a while, he is mysteriously helped by none other than Imbria, who [conveniently] never really left. Once they reach the stone’s resting place, [Resting place usually means grave or cemetery.] all is revealed. Conleth and Imbria were deceived. Adarik is actually a clever sorcerer in Zorren’s service and the Sablestone is in reality a giant dragon egg which he intends to use in a war against Shonda’s empire. [What's he gonna do, egg her castle?] Conleth, Imbria, and some ragtag tribesmen are then engaged in battle against Adarik, his apprentice, Joannavitch [(AKA Janet Evanovitch)], and Zorren's army. They are assisted at the last moment by Queen Shonda, who [conveniently] suspected such treachery. After defeating Adarik [and an entire army], Conleth and the group marches [march] back to Anassia and ousts [oust] King Zorren. [They just march in and oust a king? Oh, right, they've already destroyed the king's army.] As the story ends, Conleth, finally at peace with his father’s legacy, marries Shonda. [No, no, he has to marry Imbria. Trust me.] Just before settling down, he, with help from Imbria, [a mysterious stranger named] Tafar, Shonda, and a mysterious stranger named Gabriel, organize a fraternity called the Knights Telessar to carry on the legacy of Aerthir Everstar.


Notes

It's a little strange to have mysterious strangers show up on the last page. It's like you're watching The Wizard of Oz and at the end the exposed fraud wizard has just given the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion their diploma, testimonial and medal, and Dorothy asks for a ride home and the Wizard says, "I'll get to you in a minute, but first I'd like to present Claude the Mannequin with this inscribed pair of tweezers," and you're thinking, Who?

Synopses tend to be boring, but this feels too much like a list of stuff that happens. It would be more interesting if it felt like a story.

For some reason I find the name Conleth annoying. Possibly because it sounds like a normal name being spoken by someone with two speech impediments. I challenge the minions to come up with better names for all of your characters.

Synopsis 16

This synopsis goes with the Face-Lift that appeared July 3. If you haven't read that yet, and you like to play Guess the Plot, scroll down now, as you are about to encounter spoilers.





Hang The Thief - Synopsis
Genre: Fantasy
Author: _______________

A misguided and outcast scholar unwittingly is used by a demon to open gates that bring great evil into the world. The deities as a result awaken and give their faithful the power to save lives. [How long have the deities been asleep? It would be annoying to discover that the reason your prayers have gone unanswered is because the gods have been hibernating for three millennia.] Monsters enter through the gates and natural disasters also occur which kill hundreds. The gates also allow magic to enter the world which gives mankind the power to cause great good and great evil, including the ability to create and use the undead. [Is that an example of great good or great evil? Because if I could use the undead to read slush, that would be good.]

On the day the gates open, Ehlana is seventeen years and adrift in her world without hope or purpose in life and she joins a thieves’ guild for the easy money. Six years later, Ehlana sees two people enter the sewers. [Are you just hitting the highlights of the book?

Scene 1. Chaos reigns as monsters are released into the world.
Scene 2. Six years later two people enter the sewers . . .

Are the monsters still around? What's been happening for six years? Not specific events if there aren't any important ones, but what's the world like? Are people and monsters coexisting? Are monsters killing people right and left?] She is spurred to action when she discovers that one of them is a notorious assassin. She follows the assassin into the sewer and learns that an evil cult is worshipping there. She takes this information to the watch and a high priestess. [Hi, I'm with the local thieves' guild, and I'd like to report a worshiping violation.] With their help she infiltrates the cult, learns of their plot to kill a court official and helps the watch seize the coven. Not all of the cult members are arrested and her life is now in danger. [If the authorities needed someone to go undercover, why would they choose Ehlana? Why not one of their own or at least someone who's never been a member of a criminal organization? And why does Ehlana care if some court official gets killed?]

Ehlana leaves the city for her protection and goes to the Bashkir region where she becomes the clans’ bard and learns their ancient language and that of the gypsies. Three years later [The book keeps starting over. Is there a connection that holds all the parts together besides the fact that Ehlana is in all of them?] the world stands on the brink of war partially due to the catastrophes caused by the gates. Ehlana has dreams and is advised to go to a temple to discover their meaning. She and her guide are joined by a barbarian priestess who believes Ehlana is a child in prophesy. [She's at least 26 years old by now.]

Ehlana learns through visions that the gates need to be closed [It's been over nine years since the gates were opened, bringing death and destruction and monsters upon the land, and no one has thought of closing them yet?] and in order to find out how they must go to the Anaran Academy and Library. There Ehlana using her abilities to read ancient texts and decipher riddles hidden in songs, learns how to close the gates. Although she hates magic and those that use it, she is not convinced they should be closed, because the gods’ gifts would cease as well. [Gates open = Monsters + natural disaters + evil magic (includes undead) + good magic. It's three to one.] She chooses to forsake her destiny but changes her mind when an undead army annihilates the Bashkir region. [Okay, okay, I'll close the lousy gates. Jeez, you'd think nine years of monsters and zombies was the apocalypse or something.]

Ehlana along with friends travel to place the gates were opened and she performs the ritual necessary to close the gates but is killed by the demon’s death knight before she succeeds. The gates are only partially closed. [That's it? The end? She's killed? After failing? That's like Gollum grabbing the ring from Frodo and shoving him into the fires of Mount Doom. Like Westley, Inigo and Fezzik getting killed and Buttercup marrying Humperdinck. Like Babe losing the sheep herding contest and Farmer Hogget selling him to Oscar Meyer.]


Notes

The opening of the gates begins the chaos. The closing of the gates will end the chaos. In between, we want to know about the chaos. Closing the gates doesn't seem so important if all you tell us about the nine years they've been open is that Ehlora spent six years as a bard and then helped prevent one guy from being assassinated. And someone almost went to war with someone. Is the zombie attack on Bashkir the only thing that's happened that's bad enough to spur Ehlana to action? Is studying in the library the only thing Ehlora does to try saving the world?

I see it as a problem that your main character accomplishes absolutely nothing. She has to succeed. If she fails, you may as well scrap this book and write one about the character who comes along later and gets the gates closed. That's the character we want to read about, not the one who accomplishes nothing.

What do the monsters look like? The Incredible Hulk? Dinosaurs? Calling them monsters makes it sound like a kids book. What are they?

Synopsis 15

STOP! If you haven't yet read the query for Redemption, it's just below this synopsis. If you read the synopsis first, or even just a few words of it, you won't be able to play "Guess the Plot."

On the other hand, you'll get it right for a change.









SYNOPSIS [for Redemption]





Ian Templeton, psychologist and profiler, is on the track of a killer with a conscience. People who walked away from abuse charges are dying in horrible “accidents”: trapped in a flood, falling onto sharp railings. [When someone gets trapped in a flood, it's seldom suspected that a serial killer is behind it. I'd stick with the homicidal dishwasher for my example.] First Ian needs to convince his colleague, Detective Inspector Alex Willard, that there IS a case and not just a series of coincidences. Even when she is willing to go along with him, they have to work outside the official rules [You need a more . . . official-sounding . . . term than "official rules." Something like "department protocol." It's not a softball game.] to find their evidence. Just one problem: they can’t find any.

Ian struggles to understand this killer, so different from the ones he usually works with. The killer tells us stories giving us the insight into their mind and motivations that Ian is slowly uncovering. [Terrible sentence.] Some of the stories are eerily similar to the ones Ian painfully trades with convicted killers for the leads which help him find the buried bones of their earlier victims. The personal cost of these conversations is worth it: they bring closure to families, and, more importantly to Ian, a deeper understanding of what drives these warped minds. [I don't think you even need this paragraph. The next one follows the first one more logically, and I'm not clear on what you mean by the killer telling us stories. Are we in the killer's POV?]

With no forensic proof of a murderer Alex and Ian develop a plan to bring the killer into the open. A newspaper report on new evidence in one of the abuse cases frightens the killer: they killed too quickly; they might not have done the right thing. [That last clause is vague. Do you mean: Maybe the killer's victim wasn't an abuser.?] Then Ian’s conference speech on his belief that serial killers can be redeemed finalises the killer’s fixation on Ian as the one person who can truly understand them. The press attack Ian: “Police Profiler says ‘serial killers should be saved’!”—and Alex’s Chief throws him off the team. [Hmm, maybe it is a softball game.]

Ian discovers that the killer has not one, but two patterns: the deaths that are the “day job” of doing the right thing and another, more sinister, pattern of killing during sex for personal fulfilment. [sp.] Literally. Alex calls in a favour with another police division and bingo – they get [five in a row, including the free space.] a call-in on a sexual killing that just might give them a lead on their murderer. Alex’s team unofficially work on the scene while Ian sets up a face to face meeting with the killer at a black tie event. What he doesn’t realise is the killer wants this confrontation even more than he does. This killer knows they are losing control again, and has Ian in their sights as the source of their redemption. [These plural pronouns are confusing. It makes it sound like the cops are losing control. If the killer has been telling us stories, shouldn't we know it's a she by now?]

Then the team finally get some evidence: the DNA at the sexual killing shows a link to a convicted serial killer: Morten. But he is already in jail, and the DNA belongs to a female. Alex discovers Morten has a niece – whose parents both died in “accidents” when she was young. Alex’s breath catches when she recognises her photo: it’s the woman Ian has just left with. [Just left where with? I thought Ian and Alex were in two different places. Did they leave the black tie event together? Ian was supposed to be meeting the killer at the black tie event, so doesn't he know he's with the killer?] She races to find him before he becomes the killer’s next victim.

And Ian and the killer are starting to make love. [Ian knows the killer kills during sex, yet he hops into the sack with her right after meeting her? Does he know he's with the killer? If not, He goes to a black tie event to meet with the killer, and walks out to go have sex with a stranger even though his meeting with the killer hasn't happened yet? As that makes no sense, there's some confusion about the time line.]

Synopsis 14

Spats, Traps, and Possum Fur Hats

This is a character based story set in Southland New Zealand. It has five main characters, one of whom is central to the tone, structure and feel of the story. There are four plots that gradually weave together.

Roxy Anderson is fifteen, lives in a remote area. After returning from a trip to the North Island, where she stays at a Navajo community [I'm sure there must be a good reason for using Navajos in New Zealand even though NZ has its own indigenous tribal people, but if you don't describe them as a community of Navajos descended from WWII windtalkers, or a community of Navajos whose descendants fled the reservation to start a new life, people are going to think, Huh?] and undergoes a Kinaalda ceremony (a Navajo coming of age ceremony for girls), she abandons school lessons and starts working with her father, who is a possum hunter. She begins working in the possum shed, [A lot of teenagers hate school, but I know none who wouldn't prefer it to working in a possum shed.] and influenced by the Kinaalda ceremony starts exhibiting signs of uneasiness and confusion in regards to issues impacting her friends and the earth. [In the space it takes to say "in regards to issues impacting her friends and the earth" you could instead give an example or two of these issues.]

Her Grandfather is put into a nursing home when he starts wandering. She seems focused, but is consumed by the need to help him. Trying to avoid this she becomes obsessed with Kinaalda obligations, and shoulders a huge sense of responsibility in regards to helping her friends and the earth. But she has to help her Grandfather. She breaks him out of the nursing home, takes him into the forest and kills him. [Remind me never to seek this kid's help. On anything.] He asked her to do this when she was ten. At the time she couldn’t imagine the possibility and agreed to do it.

In another part of Southland there is a farmer, whose wife is now in a wheel chair with a mysterious illness that no one can diagnose. Jenny Cory travels to Australia to see a specialist. Coming home she meets an older man at the airport, who hypnotizes her and makes her believe he can heal her. [Hello, ma'am. Would you like to see my pocket watch? Look how shiny it is, and how it swings back and forth.] Douglas Hunter is delusional, practices magic arts, and plans to kill Clarke Cory with witchcraft, marry Jenny and get the farm. [Did he make this plan after they met in the airport?] Having control over Jenny Cory, he then hypnotizes Clarke Cory, [Hello, sir. Would you like to see my pocket watch? Look how shiny it is, and how it swings back and forth.] kills the sheep dogs and casts a death spell. But the spell doesn’t take, [Gee, it worked fine on the sheep dogs.] and the hypnosis breaks when Clarke gets hypothermia. Clarke Cory puts the clues together and when Mr Hunter brings Jenny for her regular visits he pretends to be hypnotized so he can scrutinize Douglas Hunter and revenge the death of his dogs. [If you choose the right details, any novel can be made to sound wacko, so don't take it the wrong way when I suggest you leave the Navajos and the evil hypnotist out of the query.]

In the next province we have a preacher whose marriage is deeply unsatisfying, and who is tormented by lust for a new member of the congregation. Alan Pope believes divorce is forbidden by God, and interprets the bible to sanction his taking a second wife. Conceited, he thinks the only thing stopping him from doing this is a lack of money.

Back in Invercargill we have Lester Barth, a physically enfeebled character with gambling debts, who is desperately lonely. He is lured into racketeering by an acquaintance. The acquaintance knows Roxy’s uncle, who is a dope grower. He and Lester deliver an anonymous note threatening to frame Johno Anderson if he doesn’t leave a large amount of cannabis in a certain place, at a certain time. [Is Johno the uncle? Why do they have to frame him if he's a dope grower? Can't they just tell the authorities where his marijuana patch is?]

Having established these stories and characters, a number of events occur that draw the stories together for a climax at Clarke Cory’s farm.

After burying her Grandfather, Roxy breaks into the town library to sleep and plan her next move. [There's no better place to plan your next move than a library.]

Alan Pope storms out on his wife and hitchhikes down to Southland, night falls and he can’t get a ride so goes into a farmstead; it happens to be the Cory farm. The next morning he meets Douglas Hunter, who claims to have so much money he makes seventeen million dollars an hour in interest alone. [Let's see, that works out to about 150 trillion dollars a year in interest, so his actual holdings would be . . . everything.]

Alan Pope returns to the farm on Friday 13th with a meat cleaver, and when Douglas Hunter and Jenny Cory come to the farm he takes the woman hostage and demands five million from Mr Hunter. [Five million? From a guy who makes seventeen million an hour? This preacher's got no imagination.] With Clarke Cory tied up and Jenny in her wheelchair, Douglas Hunter leaves the farm, but has no money [It's always the multi-quadrillionaires who walk around with nothing in their wallets and mooch off thier friends.] so goes to the only person he can think of who will help him, his pot dealer, Roxy’s uncle. [If anyone's got more money than the multi-quadrillionaire, it's the local drug dealer.]

Friday the 13th is also the drop off day for the marijuana. Johno and Roxy’s dad Dylan are prepared and waiting at the house. Thinking they’ll be back from the Cory farm in time to fool the would-be-racketeers, they agree to help Mr Hunter. [I'm lost.]

Night falls and Roxy is busy making arrangements to fly back to the Navajo community, but she can’t book a ticket without a guardian or someone over the age of eighteen present. She races round to Uncle Johno’s to ask for help, but sensing her father is in danger and finding a map on the table that Douglas Hunter drew for the brothers, then races out to the Cory farm. At the Cory farm we have Clarke Cory, Jenny Cory, Alan Pope, Douglas Hunter, Roxy and Dylan and Johno Anderson. [When Roxy walks in everyone yells, "Surprise!"]

The novel closes with an epilogue. Lester Barth goes to pick up the marijuana, but it’s not there. Returning to his house he finds his accomplice asleep on the couch. He takes a seat and watches the midnight news. There’s been a murder at a farm in Southland, another man died at the scene, and various people have been taken to Invercargill Hospital to be treated for shock and detained for questioning. He recognizes one of the people to be Johno Anderson, the dope grower they threatened to frame, and is suddenly inspired to act alone. [Lemme get this straight. All of the stories converge on this one farm, and as soon as everyone gets there the novel ends except that we find out in an epilogue that all hell broke loose? We don't even get to witness Armageddon?]


Notes

The query (Face-Lift 610) had too little information. The synopsis has too much. Can you choose two characters who have a connection and focus on them?

Think of the TV show Lost. It begins with all these people crash-landing on an island. We see them interact, we flash back to their earlier lives, we see that some of them had minor connections with others, though they didn't know it. Your book ends when they crash-land. Maybe your epilogue should be your prologue. We see the results, then we see how it came about. That's a tried and true formula, but you'll still have to show us what happens at the house.

Synopsis 13

Frederica and the Heir to the Underworld (Goes with the query in Face-Lift 510)

FREDERICA (Freddy) is having a crappy week: a hot guy on a horse nearly runs her over, her dad’s lying to her, and the Wild Hunt, otherworldly cutthroats who hunt human game, have invaded her neighborhood. [Actually, once otherworldly cutthroats who hunt human game invade your neighborhood, other stuff isn't worth complaining about.]

The hot guy, POLYDEGMON (Deg), isn’t so bad. He asks Freddy out, but her dad, COLIN, walks in on them mid-make out session, [This sounds like it happens right after Deg asks her out, rather than after their date. Something like He takes her dancing, but her dad later walks in . . . would make it clear.] beats the snot out of Deg, and tells Freddy to stay away from the guy. Colin knows Deg’s no-good, but he won’t tell Freddy what’s so bad about her date. Sick of being left out of the loop, Freddy follows Deg to get answers.

Freddy finds Deg, [Finding someone isn't so hard when you're already following him: There he is! Up ahead!] but the Wild Hunt captures them. Colin comes to rescue Freddy, but then she must save him from becoming hell hound chow. Freddy trades her life to save Deg and Colin. The Hunt’s Leader, CERNUNNOS, agrees to let them go. Freddy, he carries back to his home-world. [I took "trades her life" to mean she dies. Turns out she's just going on a tour.]

Cernunnos’ Hunt and the Olympian gods are near war. Cernunnos hopes to make peace by marrying Freddy to an Olympian. When Freddy asks why her, Cernunnos reveals he is her real father. [Is her mother her real mother? If so, how did her mother happen to give birth to the child of the leader of a gang of human-hunting cutthroats?] Come dinnertime, Freddy reunites with Deg- and meets his father: Hades, Lord of the Underworld. Instead of Deg, Cernunnos betroths her to Deg’s brother. Cernunnos threatens to hurt Freddy’s parents if she does anything to screw up her marriage. [In-laws. At least mine waited till after the wedding to threaten my parents.] Later, Cernunnos’ wife, MACHA, insulted by her husband’s bastard, attempts to strangle Freddy. The Wild Hunt fights her off, but, for her own safety, Freddy is sent to Hades’ Underworld at once. [You know things are bad when that's the safest place they can find for you.]

Deg offers to take Freddy home. Remembering Cernunnos’ threats, Freddy refuses. She attempts to make the best of her new life in the Land of the Dead. Unfortunately, her fiancé, after a failed attempt to seduce Freddy, tries to rape her. ["Unfortunately" doesn't seem like a strong enough word.

Woman: Someone tried to rape me.

Cop: Well gee, that's unfortunate.]

Freddy fights him off, and Deg arrives in time to stop her from killing her fiancé. [She has the power to kill the son of Hades? She's a teenage girl.] Deg convinces Freddy to leave the Underworld.

At Freddy’s home, they discover Macha kidnapped Colin. Freddy runs to rescue her dad, and deg reluctantly follows. They infiltrate Cernunnos’ camp and rescue Colin. Macha catches them, but one of Cernunnos’ people kills her. [If you're one of Cerunnos's people, and you kill his wife, how much longer will you be one of Cerunnos's people?

Cerunnos's man: Hmm, my brutal leader's wife, Macha, just caught someone infiltrating our camp. How should I handle this? I know, I'll kill Macha.]

Cernunnos reveals he meant to protect Freddy from Macha’s assassination attempts through the marriage. He leaves Freddy with Colin, but promises if Freddy ever needs help, he will come.

After the dust settles, Deg and Freddy talk and decide to give their relationship a go.


Notes

This isn't doing the job. The first two paragraphs have some life, but after that it's mostly just a confusing list of things that happen. It reads like the notes you wrote to yourself before you started writing the novel. Connect some ideas with cause and effect, reasons, transitions. Inject some life. You're telling a story (in summary form), not outlining it.

You might want to mention that Cernunnos is a god. Calling him an otherworldly cutthroat doesn't necessarily make it clear he's powerful enough to capture the son of Hades, who I assume has powers of his own.

We need to know the power rankings. Cernunnos is able to capture Deg, Colin is able to beat the snot out of Deg and Freddy is able to fight off Deg's brother. One gets the impression the sons of Hades are 98-pound weaklings.

As the daughter of a god, does Freddy have powers? If so, has she ever noticed them?

Synopsis 12

STOP!!!: This synopsis goes with the Fate's Guardian query posted just below it. If you haven't yet read the query and you like to play Guess the Plot, STOP NOW, without even glancing downward. The first word of this synopsis gives away the GTP, so scroll down and read the query first, then come back for the synopsis.






Synopsis- FATE'S GUARDIAN


Gil Jacobs is only seven years old when he witnesses a double-homicide. A man murders his wife and daughter, and Gil watches through the window as his best friend Julie Flaherty dies. It is an event that will haunt him for the rest of his life. Literally.

The ghost of a Troubadour, whose life ended in the thirteenth century after a love affair went terribly awry, senses the impending deaths and enters the Flaherty's house. He captures and devours the soul of Julie's mother. As the Troubadour struggles with Julie's soul, Gil's presence at the window distracts him, enabling Julie to escape.

The Troubadour [This capitalizing of "troubadour" makes it sound like his name, like he's a supervillain known as The Troubadour.] [I suppose most of the good supervillain names are already taken, but if The Troubadour is the best he can come up with, he might want to hire a PR firm.] [At least you had the good sense not to mention in the query that the villain is a troubadour. Couldn't you make him the ghost of the Black Knight?] attacks Gil, but fails. Something odd happens to the Troubadour when he is near Gil – memories of his long forgotten life begin to surface. [Memories of reciting lyric poems in the villages of France.] The Troubadour suspects that Gil played a role in his death and develops an intense hatred for Gil, vowing to take his soul. [I was going to question developing an intense hatred so quickly, but then I realized I develop intense hatreds for other drivers whenever I'm in my car.]

Julie Flaherty is frightened and alone. Trapped as a ghost, she clings to the one positive memory of her short life – Gil. She watches the Troubadour's failed attack on Gil. She can see that the Troubadour is too weak to win, [He's been devouring souls since the thirteenth century, and he's too weak to defeat a seven-year-old kid?] but she watches in fear as the Troubadour preys on other souls, growing stronger with each one he consumes.

The Troubadour attacks Gil repeatedly. During one attack, he catches a glimpse of Gil's fate. The Troubadour [Does this guy at least have a name? Anything's better than constantly calling him The Troubadour.] realizes that he cannot end Gil's life, but knowing the time and place of Gil's death, he hope he can extend it. If he succeeds, Gil's soul will be thrown into an imbalance that will weaken it, leaving him defenseless. [Nothing's more humiliating than being defeated in battle by a poet.]

Julie knows that there is only one way she can protect Gil. Using herself as bait, she lures the Troubadour far away, to other prey. [Other prey that The Troubadour can defeat? He's more powerful than anyone except a seven-year-old kid?] She provides a temporary reprieve, and Gil grows to adulthood and starts a family. But living happily ever after was never part of Gil's fate, for he is going to die in a car crash at the tender age of thirty-three. [That's quite a reprieve. She distracted the Troubadour for twenty-six years?] Unless, of course, the Troubadour can prevent the crash.

The Troubadour returns on the day of Gil's destined death, trying desperately to upset the sequence of events that leads to the crash. Julie follows and, in the moments before the crash, she sacrifices herself to the Troubadour, providing the distraction necessary to facilitate Gil's fatal end.


Notes

Amazingly, the word "Troubadour" appears fourteen times in the synopsis, and not once in the query.

It's hard to get serious about a bad guy who goes by The Troubadour. Which explains why none of the X-Men is known as The Troubadour.

The Troubadour devours souls to become stronger, so why is he so weak? Apparently reincarnated kids are at the top of the food chain and ghosts in the middle and souls at the bottom? When you're a soul you probably think God has your back. Yet ghosts can just devour you?

If your goal is to devour the souls of those who just died, shouldn't you be hanging out in war zones or hospitals instead of in the suburbs, hoping some guy will crack and kill his wife and daughter?

As with the query, maybe all the questions are answered in the book, but if you can't explain everything in the synopsis, focus on what you can explain and what doesn't cry out for an explanation.