Expansion

How does one expand a synopsis without it sounding like a laundry list of events? Hmmm?

That is today's main problem. Yesterday, I worked on doing a Blow-by-blow synopsis. Chapter by chapter until my eyes began to bleed and I set it aside. Tearing my hair out, almost literally, I set the damn thing aside and told myself my one-pager was going to have to be good enough. If they want 3 pages, I'll just double-space it and be done with it. What a weight off my back that was.

Last night I wrote a most excellent cover letter--using elements from former query letters and putting a new spin to make it directed toward publication rather than representation. I'm pretty proud of it. Using the publisher's guidelines, I zipped through the particulars - genre, subgenre, word count, etc. - then I added a nice paragraph on my qualifications for writing this particular novel (Caldera, or NOD, is the one book so far where I can actually say I'm qualified to talk about some of the subject matter) and a lovely paragraph on where my book would fit on the shelves. Gotta love the fact that Follett, Crichton and Clancy have all written books where the environmentalists are the bad guys. (Well, in Follett's case, it's more hippies than enviros, but close enough to mention.) This is one of those cases where it's good to be slightly similar, so you can say "My book should be shelved here."

Anyway, I have the letter, and I was going to print all the pertinent stuff out to send this morning, but I woke with renewed vigor for writing the blow-by-blow. I didn't settle for 'good enough' when I wrote the book, and I'll be damned if I'm going to settle now. So there. =op

So, today will be spent slogging through writing a blow-by-blow without making it sound like a litany. Which means I probably won't be able to send my packet out tomorrow, because after I write this sucker, I'm going to need someone to look at it again before I send it out. Ugh.

Onward!