Writing a Synopsis

This morning the Lord gave me the ideas I needed for the synopsis for my novel, Desert Dreamer. I had already written a synopsis for it earlier, when I was using it for Harlequin's American Romance Editor Pitch Challenge. The earlier synopsis was all right, but Margaret Daley, who was kind enough to read it for me, didn't think the "black moment" was black enough. She also thought it depended too much on a third party (the Hero's daughter), rather than the actions and emotions of the Hero and Heroine. She was right!

So, I started over from the beginning. Margaret has an excellent article on synopis writing on her website.

This time, instead of bringing in too many references to peripheral characters, I concentrated on the Heroine and the Hero (in that order), their hopes and dreams, and the conflicts that arise from their differing goals.

Conflict is the meat of any novel. Without it, you just have a "feel good" essay, not a story. The conflict in my story came about because the Hero and Heroine want different things.

I haven't sent my synopsis off to my critique partner yet, but I look forward to hearing her opinion of this one compared to the previous one.