Conference Prep, Editing, and One Sheets

Anyone prepping for conference?

Appointments with editors and agents are great opportunities to let your stories shine. One thing that calms my nerves in those appointments, is having top notch materials to share. An eye-catching one sheet and a stellar synopsis are the best ways to give "audition" to your story! Sometimes though, it can be overwhelming to gather everything you need, as well as getting yourself ready for conference in general.

 I want to suggest to you conference goers: Outsource! We would love to help you with your needs for conference season this year. Fellow AlleyCat Laurie Tomlinson and I have been to multiple conferences, and love helping with authors get ready for a stellar experience. Check out our services in the ads below.

What conference are you planning on going to this year?

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The Blurb

You've come to that point.

You've written your book, and now you need a catchy blurb to reel people in.

And that's exactly the purpose of the blurb. To catch an agent... or editor... and eventually, most importantly, a reader's eye.

There is a GOB of information out there about writing the blurb. Some say only one sentence. Some limit it to a certain number of words or characters. Some say it can be a whole paragraph. Some say not to include a question, others not so much. Some say to use names... others say to leave names for the book.

Oye. Can get SUPER confusing.

I've read all of those same sets of advice. I've struggled myself with writing the "perfect" blurb. And in the end, I took all into consideration and decided that I need to keep the MOST important key in mind:

THE BLURB MUST HOOK!

Just like a first chapter... your blurb must hook the reader, leave them wanting to know more. It must create a question, and not just any question. But an INTRIGUING one.

That said, intriguing is in the eye of the beholder. What intrigues ME might not intrigue YOU, and visa versa.

Our family has Netflix at our house, and I've always gotten a kick out of reading the little blurbs for the movies. Some of them are right on, but occasionally I'll find an yawn-inducing one that reminds me of the super importance of quality blurbs.

Thought it'd be fun to post some examples... as well as my commentary on what makes them good or, well, not so good.

*NOTE* 

I have no watched all of these movies. Some of them are rated R or are NOT movies I'd recommend. I'm judging the quality of the blurb only, not the movie itself. 

 

13 going on 30

When a geeky teen's birthday party goes awry and she makes a wish that she could be 30, she wakes up to discover she's flash-forwarded 17 years.

Krista's Thoughts: I actually really like this one. Highlights a fun, intriguing twist that you can tell would be full of funny twists and turns.

The Switch

Still single and worried about her biological clock, Kassie decides to pursue motherhood with the help of an anonymous sperm donor.

Krista's Thoughts: Okay, I know the whole "sperm donor" thing is controversial, so apologize for the subject matter. But honestly, I'm not loving this blurb, and I thought this was a good example. So she gets a sperm donor. Not my preferred way, but "normal" these days. Doesn't highlight any conflict and no real twisting plot that would hook anyone. Without knowing anything else about the movie, I'd assume it was a not-in-my-taste documentary (or non-fiction book) and move on

Maid in Manhattan

Sparks fly when a chambermaid and a rising politician literally collide at a posh New York City hotel. The only problem? He assumes she's a guest.

Krista's Thoughts: First, loved this movie. Second, not too bad of a blurb! Ends with the plot hook, which is what the one before was missing. Just the first sentence described the movie... but the rest is what made the blurb a good one! (and note... It's 3 sentences. Totally broke a rule, but worked!)

The River Why

Gus Orviston, a discontented city-dweller, moves to the wilderness to devote his time to fly-fishing and to pull a prize rainbow trout from the river.

Krista's Thoughts: *stretches* *yawns* Oh, sorry, I think I just fell asleep while reading that blurb...

Anger Management

After a gentle businessman is forced to get anger management counseling, his therapist moves in -- but turns out to have anger issues of his own. 

Krista's Thoughts: Never watched the movie... but another thumbs up on the blurb. An anger counselor who has his own anger issues? And why in the world is his therapist moving in anyway? I'm curious...

North and South

When her father moves his family to an industrial mill town, the parson's daughter, Margaret Hale, struggles to adapt to her harsh new surroundings.

Krista's Thoughts: Eh. Okay, so she struggles. A little bit of conflict anyway. And the "harsh" surroundings hints to something. But... okay, honestly, I couldn't make it through watching the whole movie without falling asleep. So maybe the blurb is as good as it could get? I dunno. Don't know how it ended! And don't really care to... *confession over*

IQ

When Albert Einstein's cerebral niece piques the interest of an auto mechanic, Einstein devises a plan to bring the two divergent minds together.

Krista's Thoughts: Brilliant! Just plain brilliant!

A Royal Affair

In 18th-century Denmark, the unstable King Christian VII neglects his young queen, Mathilde, who falls in love with his German physician, Struensee, an intellectual whose advocation of reform transforms the country but brings about his own downfall.

Krista's Thoughts: Oh. My. Honestly? I've read this blurb about 4 or 5 times and I still have no clue at all what it is talking about. Blurbs should not be confusing. I don't even know how to critique this blurb because I have no clue what it is saying.

Elizabethtown

Fired from his job as a shoe designer, Drew tries to kill himself. But he gets a new lease on life when he returns to his hometown for a funeral.

Krista's Thoughts: I almost didn't use this one. But... there is this fabulous twist in this blurb that makes it actually decent. Okay, so he tried to kill himself... but finds new LIFE at a FUNERAL. Really??? It wasn't my favorite favorite movie, but I was intrigued enough to watch!


America's Sweethearts

In this slick satire, a separated, bickering movie-star couple make nice for the cameras during a press junket promoting their final film together.

Krista's Thoughts: Disappointing blurb!!!!!! I've watched the movie, and while this is true... there is much more to the movie than this, parts that actually might, say, HOOK a reader/watcher. This just sounds annoying. If you want to watching bickering... come and get some popcorn and pull up a chair in my living room. My kids provide plenty of it!

Moral of the Blurb:

Don't bore your reader.
Don't confuse your reader.
Don't worry TOO much about all the blurb rules. (But still worry a little...)
JUST HOOK YOUR READER!!!

So... what are YOUR thoughts on some of the blurbs above? Any you disagree with my thoughts? (feel free... as I said, this is TOTALLY subjective!)

Do you have an fabulous example of a really GOOD blurb or a really HORRIBLE one you want to share?

*************************************************

Krista is a follower of Jesus, a wife, a mother, and author of Sandwich, With a Side of Romance. She blogs about finding JOY in the journey of LIFE at http://www.kristaphillips.com. She is represented by the fab agent, Rachelle Gardner.

How to Be an Organized Writer

Any of you who know me, or have visited my personal blog, know that I like to be organized. I like lists and a space for everything and having a direction. But when it comes to writing...there are times when I'm all over the place.

The more stories I write, the more I realize that I need a clear direction from the moment I start my story. I'm not talking about plotting, just being organized with each story from start to finish.

What are some ways I do this?


Folders

The moment I start writing or plotting a new story, I open a new folder in Microsoft Word with the title of this story.

What goes in this folder?

Photo by bigmick

* The actual document of the story
* Notes or plotted chapters (you could also add any research you've done or pictures of your hero or heroine)
* My Excel word count sheet (this is where I set a word count goal for each day and how many weeks it will take me to reach my goal for the story)
* Further down the road, I will also put my synopsis, proposal, or queries in here

Notebooks

Because I like to take notes on my story before I start typing, as well as when I'm away from the computer, I use a notebook. Every time I start a new story, I get a new notebook (or use a leftover one that's empty of all old pages) and keep this with me. Whenever I have ideas or notes or questions, I put them all in this notebook so I never lose any bit of information I've written outside of my computer.

A Pertinent Facts List

This is a big one for me. There are so many times I start writing a story and add in information I can't remember later. For example, I will say my heroine's eyes are green, and then later on forget I put that and change her eyes to blue. It also wastes time because I end up having to go back and try to find old information.

What else goes on this list?

* Any dates or character ages that will be important later in the story
* Character description
* Main character and secondary character names (first, last, nicknames, whatever)
* A timeline of sorts (there are times I forget which day of the week it is, or want to give my reader a sense of time - month, year, whatever - so I try to write down how much time has passed in each chapter or what day of the week it is)

My writing habits change during each story I write. Sometimes I plot more, sometimes I plot less, but the above categories are a must to keep me organized and productive.

What do you do to keep organized while writing?

Writing A Synopsis

If there's one thing authors hate writing, it's synopses. What is it about these things that is so difficult?

Just before the ACFW conference, my agent encouraged me to develop my book into a series concept, which is an idea I was (and am) very excited about. Problem? I haven't written the other two books. Sure, I had some ideas floating around in my head that I was excited about, but ideas and outlines are two very different things.


So I started researching online for synopsis tips and tricks. And I kept coming across these things: 1) The synopsis is dreaded.  2) All writers hate synopses. 3) Your synopsis will probably be awful writing. Just expect it.

Uh, anyone else not okay with that idea? Let's just throw in the towel before we even give it a try, shall we?

You wouldn't think it would be that hard. I mean, it's only a couple pages. I can see all sorts of areas for improvement in other authors' synopses, so I should also be able to see the same weaknesses in my own, right? Wrong.

In the past few months, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that synopses really are challenging. But they don't have to be dreaded. See, the thing about synopses that's so cool is that they offer you something very powerful, and that is a big picture approach for your book before you even write it. If you can write a well-organized, thoughtful synopsis of your story, writing your book is going to be that much easier because you'll be able to stay focused.

Today I'm compiling the information I've learned through the process of writing, rewriting, rewriting, and rewriting my synopses again. (By the way, a major shout out to Angie, who read every version of my synopsis and never threatened to ban me from her inbox, but instead offered helpful suggestions each time around!) I hope you find this to be a helpful resource for you as you work on your own synopses, and I hope it helps take a little bit of the terror out of the processes. I've adapted many of these concepts from Cami Tang's synopsis worksheet, from MBT resources, and just from my own general reactions of disgust when I realized something was really, really not working for my plot.

• The Plot Level

• External goal. Your protagonist's external goal needs to be very clear, very early on. Preferably even the first paragraph. Editors like to see that this girl knows where she's going and what she wants. This is so important because it helps pave the way for the obstacles she is going to encounter along the way.
• The inciting incident. Usually this is going to come in you first or second paragraph. What incident throws your protagonist into the story? Loss of her job? A sudden move across the country? A scratch-off lotto win? The realization she's a princess? (Sorry, couldn't resist. Who doesn't love Princess Mia?)
• Obstacles. Include two or three external obstacles that keep your heroine from reaching her goal. These need to be believable, legitimate, and clear. "She ran out of Godiva truffles and missed an important meeting because she had to go to the grocery store for more" is probably not a very good obstacle, although we can all sympathize.
• Black Moment. How does it all come crashing down? This could be one of your obstacles.
• Resolution. Be sure you show us how the plot threads connect to bring us to the ending.

• Emotional Level

• Dark moment. What moment from your character's past is holding them back? This moment should shape some kind of fear or apprehension that fights against (or perhaps further compels) their push toward their external plot goal.
• Desire. Your character needs an emotional desire that will give her motivation to climb her way past the obstacles you put in her way. In a romance, your character likely is going to desire love, yet hold herself back from a relationship with the hero because ________. This reason will relate to the dark moment, so that the desire and the resistance create a push/pull effect that draws in your reader. Also, you can relate your character's emotional desire to their desire to accomplish an external goal, thus tying together the plot and emotional threads.
• Black moment. In the same way that the black moment causes the external goal to fall apart, the black moment should also (seem to) confirm your heroine's greatest fear, thus positioning her to find the strength to conquer that fear and attain the goal (or not, but at least find closure in the process).
• Resolution. The emotional level must be resolved. Even if you don't allow the character to reach their external goal, unless you're writing literary fiction, your character should attain her emotional goal. Otherwise, readers are going to be very mad.

• Spiritual Level

• Lie. Your character needs to believe a lie throughout the book, not only about herself (i.e. she's safer not risking her heart in a relationship), but also about her faith/God. The emotional level and spiritual level can relate to each other, but they both must be clear. If you're going to sell to a CBA publisher, they are going to want to see some sort of faith journey depicted in the book. And really, isn't that why we as CBA writers have chosen to write for CBA? We should take advantage of this privilege and include the spiritual arc in our characters' journeys.
• Obstacles. Just like the plot obstacles should show setbacks and growth within the character's emotional arc, these obstacles should impact her spiritual arc as well. You want to confirm her worst fear, then force her to face it and help her get beyond it. You can utilize your external goal and obstacles to really play around with the emotional and spiritual stakes and journey. If you get stuck, think about your own life. You might think you would never face ___________, but what if you could find love, youth, or a free trip to Hawaii on the other side of that obstacle? Brainstorm some motivations that would be strong enough (on the plot level) to force your characters out of their comfort zones. 
• Healing. This is where the bring-you-to-tears moment comes in if you play your cards right. After your character goes through those obstacles--and once again, they need to be challenging, difficult obstacles--we will respect her for her strength, dignity, and courage for how she faced these challenges head on (even if not perfectly) on her quest toward her external goal. Throughout this process, God is working on her heart more and more, until finally she finds a breakthrough. The light through the clouds. Spiritual epiphany. It's really important that you include this moment of hope and spiritual healing in your synopsis so that whoever is reading your synopsis is clear about the spiritual takeaway readers will get from your story.

A few notes...

You'll want to include these elements for each of your primary characters. So if it's a romance, we'll need to see a basic plot, emotional, and spiritual arc for your hero as well as your heroine, although you'll probably want to spend more time with the heroine.

Remember to include your voice in your synopsis. You may want to write a draft where you just focus on getting all the elements in, then revise it with your own dazzle. But however you go about it, make sure the writing really shines, because this is the first taste an editor or agent has of your writing style. If you can hook them with your voice in the synopsis, then you've really accomplished something.

Try, as best you can, to play these elements off each other, so that your main characters' lies, for instance, cause problems with each other. In my most recent book, my heroine is afraid of abandonment, and my hero is afraid of being a failure/letting down the woman he loves. I'll leave you to guess what he does, and how that affects her. Try to find a way that the characters' black moments play into each other, and your story will be stronger from that irony.

Have fun! Yes, I know what you're thinking. No way is that going to happen. But all too often, we listen to all the negative buzz about synopses... they're dreaded, they're hard, and they are going to be awful. Don't adopt that defeatist perspective. Sure, brainstorming can be frustrating, but it's so rewarding to have a big picture version of your story before you've even started writing it.

Take these sections a little at a time. This is advice I am giving you from experience. It is all too easy to take on too much at once, but you'll end up frustrated. Let the ideas come to you naturally. Go to a coffee shop and eavesdrop. Imagine possibilities. Talk to your characters out loud. Pray about your characters' struggles and stories. Seek the help of those with fresh perspectives, like critique partners, mentors, and friends. When you open your mind to creative possibilities, you'll find that the ideas flow much more easily.

Have you ever written a synopsis? What did you learn through the process? What do you think is the hardest thing about writing synopses?

Synopsis, I Fear Thee NOT!

The dreaded synopsis. If you've written one, you know the difficulty of trying to condense a 100,000 word story down to one page. If you haven't, you have probably heard the moans and groans of those writing them. Well, I am here to share how I've overcome the fear.


I took an online synopsis writing class given by Camy Tang. You can check out the classes she offers by clicking on the link.


Camy's class was the most challenging and the most useful thing I have ever done to further my writing ability. During that class, I learned more about character and spiritual arcs than I have reading all my writing books combined! Seriously. Camy has an amazing ability to see the big picture of your story and draw it out of you for YOU to see. 

Here's how it works: Camy puts up a lesson through a Yahoo Group created for the class. Then she posts a lesson and gives us homework. We do the homework and post it to the Group. Camy looks it all over and comments,and makes suggestions for making your work stronger. 

What I loved about the class is the way Camy encourages you while challenging you at the same time. She has a great way of giving you examples of what she is looking for, without telling you outright what to write. I had many "aha" moments and even found a plot hole I didn't know I had. It's amazing how she helps you look at your story from a bird's eye view, and see the big picture.

Another great thing that the class did for me was to help define the main obstacles to my heroine's goal and pinpoint the black moment. And as she teaches, she helps you to eliminate unnecessary words, giving you a tight synopsis -- full of action, and story, character, and spiritual arcs. 


I learned how to write a synopsis of a completed novel. Annnd, this class taught me HOW to pre-plot a book!!!! That is HUGE! The pre-plotting will help build a solid foundation for each future story...without plot holes. 

This class is an incredible resourse for writers. Seriously, check out Camy Tang and see what she has to offer. She won't let you down! 

What other classes have you taken that gave you an "aha" moment? Or if you haven't taken a class, what lesson from what book did you learn from?

CELEBRATING OUR 300 FOLLOWERS!!!

Today is the second day of our TWO WEEK CELEBRATION of our 300th follower! 

I'm giving away a copy of Age Before Beauty by Virginia Smith

Please leave your spam-free email address in the comment section for a chance to win.

Winner will be announced in the weekend edition!