Cheryl Cowtan on Writing

The Synopsis Often publishers and agents ask for a synopsis of your novel manuscript. The synopsis functions to provide the barebones information about your plot, character and the stakes of your story. It is usually no longer than one page, which is what makes writing it difficult. The synopsis includes what happens, so it's like a mini-arc of your story. We start here, this happens, we go here and then that happens and we end up there. The SynopSnip Creating a SynopSnip is much more fun, more visually stimulating and is for a different audience--the reader. Consider the SynopSnip to be a very succinct snapshop of your synopsis. It is also in a format that makes it easy to distribute on social media, such as Facebook, Twitter etc. Take a look at the one below to see what I mean. The Example: The Fergus She Novel: The Fergus She Characters: Rachel (protagonist) Scarlet (antagonist) Grafen (antagonist) Angus (love interest) Plot: Rachel is the victim of an ancien...

The format for the #pitchmadness pitch included starting with a 35 word logline. Trying to summarize my 90,000 high fantasy, novel manuscript into a two-page synopsis was challenging enough, but 35 words? I was a little unsure if I could do it well. According to tweets posted by the slush readers, the logline also had to fulfill the following: Make grammatical sense Make sense in terms of the plot Have the same tone as the manuscript Sound intriguing enough to encourage the reader to continue So I started. And then I revisited it over a few days. And then I put in the final logline revisions right before submission. And ended up submitting this: Laywren’s destiny is to make war and fill the goddess’ Hall with souls. But when betrayers block the return of those souls, Laywren becomes an instrument of extinction, and children become the most precious quest. The next step in submission was to pitch the first 250 words of the manuscript. Lucky for me, my manuscrip...