A place to tell us what you're writing, or to practice your synopsizing for your profile or for 30 Covers, 30 Days entries.
Synopsize Me, Baby (NaNo 2015)
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Ooh fun. I missed this place. I'm going to be saying that for like a week, get over it.
I'm going to be writing a science fiction piece. I didn't realize it was going to involve aliens until all I could think of was aliens as I was plotting. It's really coming together now.
It is about the aftermath of a war that took place on our planet against an alien species. Now the rest of that alien species is suspecting that something is up and are planning an attack on Earth, while we silly humans are sitting by thinking we can take them on. Hubris I tell you.
I'm going to be writing a science fiction piece. I didn't realize it was going to involve aliens until all I could think of was aliens as I was plotting. It's really coming together now.
It is about the aftermath of a war that took place on our planet against an alien species. Now the rest of that alien species is suspecting that something is up and are planning an attack on Earth, while we silly humans are sitting by thinking we can take them on. Hubris I tell you.
Here's mine. It's near future science fiction, set around 2050. The title is still a working one - though I like it. 
It's probably not a serious enough title for the story, but it does encapsulate it nicely in my mind.
Schrödinger's Corpsicle
Talk about a cold case.
Ambitious lawyer Philip Draken is eager to make his name with a high profile case and this might just be it. He's hired by the son of a man in cryonic stasis to fight a bid by the frozen man's wife...widow...whatever...to have him removed from stasis. But cryostasis is a one way ticket as the technology for safe revival doesn't exist yet. Being taken from stasis means certain death. Some people argue that the frozen are dead already, mere corpsicles whose preservation steals resources from the living and Philip discovers there are well financed pressure groups ranged against him and his client.
As he refines his arguments for the case Philip seeks the advice of a philosophy professor Rishi Rangarajan, a man who quickly becomes a friend, and Philip starts to hope for perhaps something more. But the case suddenly becomes more personal, when Philip's chronically ill father announces his plan to go into cryostatis. Philip is forced to confront his own feelings about whether the frozen are alive or dead. The court case is no longer a game to be won. It's a fight to set a legal precedent to protect his own father.
It's probably not a serious enough title for the story, but it does encapsulate it nicely in my mind.Schrödinger's Corpsicle
Talk about a cold case.
Ambitious lawyer Philip Draken is eager to make his name with a high profile case and this might just be it. He's hired by the son of a man in cryonic stasis to fight a bid by the frozen man's wife...widow...whatever...to have him removed from stasis. But cryostasis is a one way ticket as the technology for safe revival doesn't exist yet. Being taken from stasis means certain death. Some people argue that the frozen are dead already, mere corpsicles whose preservation steals resources from the living and Philip discovers there are well financed pressure groups ranged against him and his client.
As he refines his arguments for the case Philip seeks the advice of a philosophy professor Rishi Rangarajan, a man who quickly becomes a friend, and Philip starts to hope for perhaps something more. But the case suddenly becomes more personal, when Philip's chronically ill father announces his plan to go into cryostatis. Philip is forced to confront his own feelings about whether the frozen are alive or dead. The court case is no longer a game to be won. It's a fight to set a legal precedent to protect his own father.
You totally missed the opportunity to call this thread "Synopsize, Mothaf**ker"
So here's my project:
Animals
So here's my project:
Animals
When a teenage student discovers he releases a powerful pheromone that allows him to control an unwilling army of bullies, he leads a campaign to clean up the school one bully at a time. His only friend, a geeky gamer girl, tries to keep him tethered, but his righteous crusade soon turns sour. Now, not even the teachers are safe. Blind to the consequences of his actions, the new king of the school sets his sights on a bigger prize. He's going to run this town.
So no names are used as they haven't been finalised yet but this just about sums it up. It's a working title which reflects it's predecessor more than the current version, but I won't be changing it unless I have to.
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A duty driven teenager must stop her secret boyfriend from destroying the world.
Which is what I've got so far. Every time I try to add in setting and plot detail, I get so bogged down in deciding what's actually essential to have for proper context and what I think is essential but really isn't. *sigh*
Here's mine. It reads like one giant cliche but that's what NaNo is for, right?
Alex Kinsley's world falls apart when her five year old son Ben disappears in broad daylight from an empty park. No witnesses come forward, no ransom demands are received; the river turns up no bodies, and the bloodhounds won't track. When the official search for Ben wanes, she throws herself into her own desperate attempt to find him, losing her job and alienating herself from friends and family in the process.
Ben's disappearance isn't an isolated event; people vanish all the time, often without a trace and almost never with a positive outcome. As Alex hunts, she realizes that she's been through this before, and that last time she was the one taken. Worse things than memories come back as she digs into the reality behind what she was taught to accept. The twisted realm of hungry, blind horrors that lies just beyond the edge of perception opens to her, and she opens a door into the real world for it.
Alex has already used up her happy ending, and saving Ben might mean letting him go.
Alex Kinsley's world falls apart when her five year old son Ben disappears in broad daylight from an empty park. No witnesses come forward, no ransom demands are received; the river turns up no bodies, and the bloodhounds won't track. When the official search for Ben wanes, she throws herself into her own desperate attempt to find him, losing her job and alienating herself from friends and family in the process.
Ben's disappearance isn't an isolated event; people vanish all the time, often without a trace and almost never with a positive outcome. As Alex hunts, she realizes that she's been through this before, and that last time she was the one taken. Worse things than memories come back as she digs into the reality behind what she was taught to accept. The twisted realm of hungry, blind horrors that lies just beyond the edge of perception opens to her, and she opens a door into the real world for it.
Alex has already used up her happy ending, and saving Ben might mean letting him go.
I ended up making mine like a query, focusing on mostly the MC, but I had a hard time deciding between that and one that references each of the major characters, because the group is what I find most fun about mine. I may have a different synopsis before the end
Wow, you guys. I can't wait to read more. Here's my synopsis -- it's a little long, I realize, and a bit rambly, but it's a starting point.
Most people in Fairview don't pay any attention to Christo's, the diner just off the town square that never seems to be open. Early every morning, the parking lot fills partway up with an assortment of enormous sedans whose owners -- senior citizens with plenty of time on their hands -- congregate for toast, omelettes and complaints, solving the world's problems as they drip jelly down their shirt fronts. One of those problems is a proposed casino that the crew is uniformly opposed to, and they take to the phones to vehemently protest the project. They prevail, and then begin looking for other problems to solve. A few days after photos of a troublesome city alderman surface showing him in a compromising position with attractive young tourists, his body is discovered in a stand of dune grass at the beach. The city's residents assume he'd gone for a swim after his nightly stop at Mac's Pub, but reporter Gretel Anderson doesn't buy it. As she investigates the late alderman's life and death, discovering examples of bad behavior the general public knew nothing about, she stumbles onto the kindly old breakfast crew at Christo's. They welcome her into their midst, sharing their colorful stories and misdirecting her at every turn. Her investigation gets sidelined again and again as more mysterious mayhem befalls the otherwise quiet town. The closer she gets to making the connection between the crew at Christo's and the string of strange accidents, the more dangerous she is to the crew. When Gretel becomes another problem for them to solve, she's looking the wrong way.
Most people in Fairview don't pay any attention to Christo's, the diner just off the town square that never seems to be open. Early every morning, the parking lot fills partway up with an assortment of enormous sedans whose owners -- senior citizens with plenty of time on their hands -- congregate for toast, omelettes and complaints, solving the world's problems as they drip jelly down their shirt fronts. One of those problems is a proposed casino that the crew is uniformly opposed to, and they take to the phones to vehemently protest the project. They prevail, and then begin looking for other problems to solve. A few days after photos of a troublesome city alderman surface showing him in a compromising position with attractive young tourists, his body is discovered in a stand of dune grass at the beach. The city's residents assume he'd gone for a swim after his nightly stop at Mac's Pub, but reporter Gretel Anderson doesn't buy it. As she investigates the late alderman's life and death, discovering examples of bad behavior the general public knew nothing about, she stumbles onto the kindly old breakfast crew at Christo's. They welcome her into their midst, sharing their colorful stories and misdirecting her at every turn. Her investigation gets sidelined again and again as more mysterious mayhem befalls the otherwise quiet town. The closer she gets to making the connection between the crew at Christo's and the string of strange accidents, the more dangerous she is to the crew. When Gretel becomes another problem for them to solve, she's looking the wrong way.
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I did a query, as well, with a tag line:
Todd's a placeholder at the moment. I want to finish this project for future submission, and his name's one of the first things to go.
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I'll throw mine into the mix. This sounds a little cheesy, but I'm trying to get a feel for the kind of blurbs you read on the book jacket / back cover. I'll withhold my cover, since it's just a stock photo with text I made in 30 seconds to use as a placeholder.
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I think I (finally!) got one. Stilted and unpolished as it may be.
Two thousand years ago, the stars fell from the heavens. Magic and terrifying, otherworldly beings known as Starless fell with them. One thousand years ago, a savior locked the Starless away. Magic survived, heavily regulated under the watchful eye of the savior’s holy order.
Seventeen-year-old initiate Raine shouldn’t exist. The child of an Order sentinel and a magic wielding magus, she is living evidence of at least half a dozen taboos broken. To clear her name, Raine trains to becoming the sentinel her mother should have been. She must be above reproach in her dedication to the Order. But Raine has a secret that could ruin everything; she loves a magus.
Seventeen-year-old magus Ferran isn’t as content to wear the stain of another’s sin. Angry and rebellious, he’s given no choice but to exist under the Order’s thumb. The only thing that gives Ferran comfort in an unjust world is Raine. If only she could be his sentinel, it might make a lifetime of oppression worthwhile.
It is not meant to be. When Raine is bound to another, Ferran sets out to finish what his grandfather started - unseal the Starless and liberate the magus from Order control. Determined to end his foolish quest, Raine seeks the aid of Order leaders. But the Order, an organization losing relevancy in a rapidly modernizing world, has other ideas. They would let the world fall back into chaos to reassert their power.
Can Raine dodge the corrupt machinations of the Order, shield the innocent from the reemerging Starless, and reach Ferran before he’s irrevocably damaged the world?
Though, looking at it now, I still may have been a bit longwinded. Distilling down a big secondary world fantasy is hard.
Two thousand years ago, the stars fell from the heavens. Magic and terrifying, otherworldly beings known as Starless fell with them. One thousand years ago, a savior locked the Starless away. Magic survived, heavily regulated under the watchful eye of the savior’s holy order.
Seventeen-year-old initiate Raine shouldn’t exist. The child of an Order sentinel and a magic wielding magus, she is living evidence of at least half a dozen taboos broken. To clear her name, Raine trains to becoming the sentinel her mother should have been. She must be above reproach in her dedication to the Order. But Raine has a secret that could ruin everything; she loves a magus.
Seventeen-year-old magus Ferran isn’t as content to wear the stain of another’s sin. Angry and rebellious, he’s given no choice but to exist under the Order’s thumb. The only thing that gives Ferran comfort in an unjust world is Raine. If only she could be his sentinel, it might make a lifetime of oppression worthwhile.
It is not meant to be. When Raine is bound to another, Ferran sets out to finish what his grandfather started - unseal the Starless and liberate the magus from Order control. Determined to end his foolish quest, Raine seeks the aid of Order leaders. But the Order, an organization losing relevancy in a rapidly modernizing world, has other ideas. They would let the world fall back into chaos to reassert their power.
Can Raine dodge the corrupt machinations of the Order, shield the innocent from the reemerging Starless, and reach Ferran before he’s irrevocably damaged the world?
Though, looking at it now, I still may have been a bit longwinded. Distilling down a big secondary world fantasy is hard.
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Trying to write my first novel for NaNoWriMo, let me know how it sounds! (Any crit is appreciated!)
Jason is not sure what happened before he woke up in an elaborate dreamworld with no memory of his past and is brought back to the real world by a ragtag group of resistance fighters desperately trying to save the world from lapsing into a virtual reality. Before long, he is swept along in a losing battle that blurs the line between reality and fantasy as he desperately tries to piece together the ominous clues of his past. As he delves deeper into the events leading up to his his amnesia, he is confronted by a series of unsettling discoveries that make him question who - or what he is.
Jason is not sure what happened before he woke up in an elaborate dreamworld with no memory of his past and is brought back to the real world by a ragtag group of resistance fighters desperately trying to save the world from lapsing into a virtual reality. Before long, he is swept along in a losing battle that blurs the line between reality and fantasy as he desperately tries to piece together the ominous clues of his past. As he delves deeper into the events leading up to his his amnesia, he is confronted by a series of unsettling discoveries that make him question who - or what he is.
Mine is query like, and kind of terrible but I figure I'll work on it in December after Nano is done. Sigh.
Subject 368489’s life isn’t normal. For the past five years she’s been stuck in a lab, being tortured in the pursuit of science by an organization calling itself HOME. She can’t remember her own name, let alone anything that happened before she came to the facility and oh yeah she’s apparently an alien (the wings were a tip off).
She has all but given up any hope of escape when the terrorist group SPARTA, raid the base. In the chaos she escapes, flying towards the nearest city and freedom.
It's not long until she realizes HOME wants a lot more than a few subjects to experiment on. Her own troubles might be the tip of a large genocidal iceberg and her experiences could very well hold the key to saving the universe.
But only if she can remember.
Subject 368489’s life isn’t normal. For the past five years she’s been stuck in a lab, being tortured in the pursuit of science by an organization calling itself HOME. She can’t remember her own name, let alone anything that happened before she came to the facility and oh yeah she’s apparently an alien (the wings were a tip off).
She has all but given up any hope of escape when the terrorist group SPARTA, raid the base. In the chaos she escapes, flying towards the nearest city and freedom.
It's not long until she realizes HOME wants a lot more than a few subjects to experiment on. Her own troubles might be the tip of a large genocidal iceberg and her experiences could very well hold the key to saving the universe.
But only if she can remember.
Let's go ahead and post synopsis-things for all three ideas wrestling for headspace this November...
CASINO OF THE GODS:
THE GOD GENE:
THIS IS NOT A CHOSEN ONE STORY:
CASINO OF THE GODS:
THE GOD GENE:
THIS IS NOT A CHOSEN ONE STORY:
This can change, as I don't ever plan or plot. But here's an idea I have, based on my barefoot walk of the Camino de Santiago in May 2014.
THE WALK - A Young Adult Novel
Sometimes juvenile delinquents get second chances. Sometimes those second chances seem a bit more difficult than actually doing the time for the crime. Six teenagers are given the option of walking the Camino de Santiago or facing the full extent of the court system for the crimes they've committed. Take a journey across Spain with these modern-day Breakfast Clubbers as they explore something different than the inner-city from which they've come. Under a bright and unforgiving Spanish sky, with nothing but footsteps in front of them and behind them, there is time to ponder shaky pasts and possible better futures. The Camino is not just a spiritual journey...it can also be an awakening to change and possibility.
THE WALK - A Young Adult Novel
Sometimes juvenile delinquents get second chances. Sometimes those second chances seem a bit more difficult than actually doing the time for the crime. Six teenagers are given the option of walking the Camino de Santiago or facing the full extent of the court system for the crimes they've committed. Take a journey across Spain with these modern-day Breakfast Clubbers as they explore something different than the inner-city from which they've come. Under a bright and unforgiving Spanish sky, with nothing but footsteps in front of them and behind them, there is time to ponder shaky pasts and possible better futures. The Camino is not just a spiritual journey...it can also be an awakening to change and possibility.
Mark Moore
Banned
Since last year's Nano novel ended up being something that's unpublishable, I decided this year's attempt will be the continuation of a novel that I'm already writing, "Our Lady of the Sea and the Moon". I'm aiming for 100,000 words, and I already have 25,352 words written. Assuming I write 50,000 words this month, I'll end November much closer to completion.
I'd already outlined the novel by chapter, but I have to revise it after I complete every chapter, due to some things that I thought was worth devoting a chapter to ending up requiring much less space. I'd just started chapter 17 (of a planned 78 chapters) before deciding to do Nano.
I don't have a catchy synopsis, but the basic plot is these two teen girls, newly graduated from high school, are brought together when one moves to the other's location. The girls come from different backgrounds. One's upper-middle-class; the other's working-class. One's from an affluent community. The other's from the ghetto. What they have in common is a love of fantasy and - perhaps unknown to them except subconsciously - a spiritual emptiness. As the girls grow closer together and fall in love, they explore Wicca, which seems to be exactly what their souls need. However, as their journey along the path - guided by a local metaphysical bookstore owner - continues, the Goddess seems to appear in their dreams. Is She real? What does She want? And will Our Heroes find what they've been seeking, or will they end up disappointed - or worse?
I'd already outlined the novel by chapter, but I have to revise it after I complete every chapter, due to some things that I thought was worth devoting a chapter to ending up requiring much less space. I'd just started chapter 17 (of a planned 78 chapters) before deciding to do Nano.
I don't have a catchy synopsis, but the basic plot is these two teen girls, newly graduated from high school, are brought together when one moves to the other's location. The girls come from different backgrounds. One's upper-middle-class; the other's working-class. One's from an affluent community. The other's from the ghetto. What they have in common is a love of fantasy and - perhaps unknown to them except subconsciously - a spiritual emptiness. As the girls grow closer together and fall in love, they explore Wicca, which seems to be exactly what their souls need. However, as their journey along the path - guided by a local metaphysical bookstore owner - continues, the Goddess seems to appear in their dreams. Is She real? What does She want? And will Our Heroes find what they've been seeking, or will they end up disappointed - or worse?
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