cj Sez: Check it out . . .Lee Lofland’s Graveyard Shift has posted a news item:
“BREAKING NEWS!!
Zombie Invasion
Earn FREE Registration to Writers' Police Academy”
Earn FREE Registration to Writers' Police Academy”
Yes, use your
imaginations to write a KILLER story about the photograph opposite, using
exactly 200
words
and you could win a
FREE registration to the 2017 Writers’ Police Academy, along with the Golden
Donut Award!
Superstar author Tami Hoag is our contest judge!
Hurry, the contest
deadline is July 1st.
The Golden Donut
contest is open to everyone of all genres, and you do not have to be
Click the link below
to enter and for contest details and submission requirements!
Click here >
>> 2016 Golden
Donut Short Story Contest
***
One thing writers hate doing but most certainly will have to
do at some time is the Dreaded Synopsis. An agent may request it in the
submission materials, or an editor might want it, and publishers who accept
submissions without an agent will also request it.
In other words, writers have to squeeze the heart and soul
of their 300- or 400-page literary masterpiece into about 500 words. Self-published
or traditionally published, you will need that one- or two-page synopsis before
you’re published, and you’ll certainly need it afterwards. With exception of
the tell-all ending (necessary in a synopsis), it feeds into many marketing
blurbs.
I’ve spent hours and hours running down a few of Google’s rabbit
holes searching out hints and clues and studying methods on how to accomplish
the task. Then this wonderful site dropped into my inbox when I was recently recruited
to critique an aspiring writer’s work. One of the requirements for the thirty-page submission was to include a synopsis, and the project coordinator
forwarded a url to help. The post is from 2012 but was new to me. If you've read it before, maybe this is the time for a fresh look. There are
eleven “fill-in-the-blanks” steps to ease you on down the road—each step is
followed by relevant examples, using a familiar movie—and then there’s a final
example of how it would look, all put together.
1. Opening
image
2. Protagonist
Intro
3. Inciting
incident
4. Plot
point 1
5. Conflicts
& character encounters
6. Midpoint
7. Winning
seems imminent, but…
8. Black
moment
9. Climax
10. Resolution
11. Final
image
Putting
It All Together
I highly recommend a visit to this site if you’re in need of
some help on creating the synopsis for your latest work. I have it bookmarked,
because I KNOW I will be using it in the future.
What about you? How do you write a synopsis? Was this method helpful?
Okay, you-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do
the same.
cj
PS: The ‘toons are from Facebook.
cjpetterson@gmail.com
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