Submitting a novel with a frame

Hi everyone,

I don't tend to write a lot on AW, but I do visit regularly, but I've finally thought of a question to ask: What does one do about a frame when writing a synopsis or submitting a query with first few pages?

There's a lot to be said (for and against) about having a prologue, and I believe it's been mentioned that when submitting a novel with one you don't usually give it as one of the first three chapters, or at least not the first five or ten pages. (Please correct me if I'm wrong on that thought!) But what do you do when the novel has a frame?

I'm getting ready to submit mine, and I've been wondering what best to do. The first chapter is part of the frame (I suppose I could call it a prologue, but it fits in structurally as part of a frame, and the middle and last chapters aren't really a--what? interlogue? intermezzo? entr'acte?--and epilogue), and, as such, has a very different style and tone to the rest of the book. Is it best to submit the first five pages of Chapter One, even though it is the frame, and hope they do their job in hooking the reader enough to request at least the first three chapters? Or do I skip to what's really the second chapter but the first of the main narration, and submit that?

And what about writing a synopsis? Do I include the frame, or leave it out, or mention it separately?

I haven't seen much discussion on AW about framing devices, at least not with respect to submissions, and I'd appreciate any advice anyone has to offer.

Victoria

Well, I might be using the term wrong. What I mean is something very like in The Princess Bride. I, too, was long loath to read the book because I love the movie, but it's wonderful. Slightly different, but wonderful. You have to remember that William Golding wrote both the book and the screenplay, and was involved in casting the characters, and that he did a good job of both. Incidentally, I think his narrative voice--the frame, in fact--in the book is one of the most convincing I have ever read. Seriously. I believe that the 'I' of that book is Golding himself. I don't care that in real life he didn't have a son, nor that Florin doesn't really exist, nor any of the other things that are obviously fiction. I still believe him. It's worth reading the book simply for that sense of perfect verisimilitude (a word, an idea, I love).

Basically, with a frame, the main story is surrounded by a second one--as in The Princess Bride, the main story of Wesley and Buttercup is surrounded, or framed, by the story of the boy and his grandfather. In the book, we have the whole back story of the author as well, interspersed with the Wesley-Buttercup story. You could have the main story of Wesley and Buttercup without the boy and his grandfather, but it makes it much more interesting, particularly in the book. At least I think so!

I think it's one of those things that were more popular in the eighteenth century, along with fake editors who found the book in an attic, etc., like Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, or, I think, Hawthorne's A Scarlet Letter. Frankenstein uses several layers of frames. It's the sort of thing English professors like to comment on.

A frame in a book, in my opinion, should have the same effect as a frame around a picture. It sets it off and makes it more interesting and effective. In a book, it may also provide a different perspective (whether of character or time), or provide protection for the author in the case of risky content, or . . . well, just be fun. In that sense, it belongs in the same class as prologues/epilogues and so forth. A book with both a prologue and an epilogue has a kind of frame, regardless of what it's called, especially if the added material is from the same perspective, different from the rest of the book, in both cases.

I'm not saying mine achieves all of this, but that's the basic idea. But I still don't know quite what to do with a synopsis.

Victoria