How to Write a Synopsis

Step 0: Make coffee.

Step 1: Figure out what the heck actually happens in the story you haven’t written yet, even though you’re the type of writer who figures out the plot as you write.

ààAfter Step 1 is unsuccessful, find something else useful to do, like clean your room or the kitchen. Sit down to rest, feeling that at least you accomplished something.

ààààThen, it’s Monday and time to go back to work. Work hard all week, then try again with Step 1 the next Saturday—after taking Friday night off to watch Netflix, of course.

Step 1, Take 2: Start writing. When everything sounds cheesy and wrong, send it as an e-mail attachment to your friends, who later confirm that there are numerous problems with the plausibility of the story, just not the same problems you saw.

ààAdd coffee. Start over.

ààààWhen the result is terrible, print it out, because hitting the delete button on a computer just doesn’t provide that satisfying paper-crunching sensation, and you are, after all, a traditionalist.  Crumpling wads of paper also reminds you of movie montages in which five minutes of failing and then trying again leads to ultimate success, which is reassuring.

Step 1A: Make cookies. Eat them.

Step 1B: Make a project playlist. Get lost on iTunes...

           

ààAccidental online shopping detour.

Step 1, Take 3: Start writing again. Fight urge to go all Office Space on work laptop.

           

ààBaby name website detour. This is okay. You are searching for a new

character name. This counts as work.

ààààAdd coffee. Are there any cookies in the house?

Step 1, Take 4: Write another draft. This one’s got to be it. You can feel it.

            ààWrite blog post instead.

Step 1, Take 5: Write another draft. This has to end sometime. Might as well be today.

Send out as an email attachment. There will be more revisions, but for now, you are allowed to watch Netflix without feeling like a failure.

(ààMake more cookies.)

I’ll Buy That

I remember the time I was sitting on my back porch, thinking about Mark, the cute boy in my geometry class, and a time portal opened up—right beside my dad’s garden shed. A handsome boy (impossibly handsome, if you want to know the truth) stepped through the shaft of blinding blue light and he said just three words: “Come with me.”

When did I lose you? On time portal, probably. Maybe a select few were with me until the boy was impossibly handsome. And yet, he almost always is. When book boys have blue eyes, they are intensely blue. When they smile, angels weep, etc. Also, in a lot of books written for teens, these outlandishly gorgeous boys are part of a plot that’s even more outlandish.

Here, in no particular order, a sample list of plots I’ve read or read about in the past couple of years:                

Alien pod people

Genie in the hallway at school!

Time travel

Automaton-ized family members

Everyone dies at either 21 or 25

Shadowhunters!

Love-removal operation (though I wish it were a love-removal machine, because that’s a great song by The Cult)

Boy turns into worm-creature

Fairies are real

...and so on. The best part about the thriving world of teen paranormal romance/fantasy/steampunk is the fact that the passionate following that many of these books and series have amassed is a testament to the fact that kids can still get lost in a story. Coleridge’s willing suspension of disbelief is alive and well.

But how far is too far? Can a premise be too outlandish, or can a writer “sell” any story if they are passionate enough about the world they create, if the characters who live in that world feel real, and if the rules of that world are consistent?

I think maybe writers can sell almost any idea, but I also think we have a lucky trick in our toolbox. A story about angels or demons or fairies or genies appeals to our collective unconscious (sometimes even the writer doesn’t plan it) and resonates on some level we may not even realize.

Maybe that’s why so many alterna-worlds are set in either the present or the sort-of-past. The future usually ends up being all about Science. And it’s hard to avoid at least a hint of cheese when dealing with anything robot-related. If you’ve ever watched Doctor Who, you know: as scary as the idea of being converted into one is, those Cybermen—just, ugh.  

The thing is, the real world is usually sort of boring. Stories are a safe way (well, as long as you keep the book budget under control) of living in a different, non-boring world.

A world in which a majority of boys are heart-stoppingly handsome=bonus.

Book Fair!

That Time I Joined the Circus arrives at my school’s book fair!

It’s load-in day at my school…the circus has arrived!

I wasn’t sure if the book would be out in the Scholastic Book Fairs before its hardcover release this April 1. But here it is! My friend in our high school library Michele cracked open one of the boxes and we set them all up, and then she snapped my picture. It’s so amazing/crazy (cramazing?) to see something that started as an MS Word doc on my laptop turn into forty-eight individual, shiny new books. Still can’t wait for the hardcover release, but so excited that the book fair version has finally arrived at my school. Some of my students have been hearing me talk about this project since their freshman year, and now they’re seniors! It’s been a long trip…can’t wait to take the next step in this crazy circus trip ;}

jk

The movie Life of Pi is coming out in theaters soon. I won’t be a spoiler monkey but every time I see the trailer, I’m just reminded of the “jk!” moment at the end of this book. The author pulls you in to his increasingly fantastic tail, and then he pulls the rug out from under you at the very end.

Let’s call this the “jk” effect. There’s actually a lot of debate these days about whether or not adding “Lol” or a winky face at the end of an insulting sentence takes all the sting out of the words that preceded it. Kids accused of cyber-bullying are even pulling “the emoticon defense”—the premise of which is that it’s okay to say something horrible as long as you put a J after it.

This defense isn’t holding up too well in court, which is sort of comforting, I suppose. But what about the jk effect in stories? Sometimes the entire story is based on pulling the rug out from under the reader. For example, we just read Saki’s classic short story “The Open Window” in my ninth grade class, and that story is built on—literally—a jk moment. The character of Vera convincingly spins a frightening ghost story for a stranger, and sets him up to be scared nearly to death—all for her own amusement. It’s an old story, but one can very easily imagine this girl with a cell phone in her hand, Instagramming a picture of the poor dude’s face as he runs away screaming.

In YA, the jk effect might considered alongside the “To Be Continued…” effect. You’re reading, and you think you’re going to find out what happens to the MCs by the time you reach the last page, but…just kidding! Book II coming in May 2014!... ;)

Sometimes the jk is really well done: I’d cite the central relationship of City of Bones as an example of an effective one. Again, I won’t spoiler it for anyone, but I think Cassandra Clare gets a lot of mileage out of the mistaken identity, making the moment when things are straightened out that much more powerful. This one is more of a “wow” or an "I knew it!" than a “jk.” What’s the difference? It's completely subjective...but...that moment in the new Breaking Dawn film, when Jacob dismisses the events of the previous three films with one sentence? (Everything you thought you felt was because of Nessie, Bella!). That felt like a jk to me. Then again, that film is actually predicated on an even bigger jk.

A cruel jk is a major part of the plot in Will Grayson, Will Grayson, but this time it’s not the author pulling the strings, but a character. One of the Wills (the lower-case one) is devastated when he finds out that the boy he’s had an online relationship with is actually his friend Maura messing with him. The internet is probably the birthplace of the true jk moment, actually, because it’s the perfect place to have an unreal relationship. Online we all hide behind avatars and screen names, and it’s all too easy to publish a lie and call it the truth.

That one's less a jk than a betrayal—but I think worst-case scenario, an author’s jk can become a betrayal. For example, imagine if Harry Potter book 7 had ended with Harry waking up in the Dursely’s, realizing it was all a dream.

The just kidding moment is probably part of our culture at this point, though. We’re post-post modern these days: we like our superheroes jaded and nearly broken (witness the latest installments of Batman and James Bond). The true jk moment involves twisting a knife—figuratively, at least—at least a little. I’m not an emoticon expert, but if there’s a snarky smirk-face emoji, that’s probably the face of the jk. In a world of instant and constant communication, we feel collectively free to say whatever we feel at every moment. The thing is, when I was a teenager, those fleeting moments of venting weren’t posted online—they weren’t going to be accessible, in print, forever. And some things you say can’t unsay with all the smiley faces in the world.

Maybe the true test of the jk, in art or in life, is whether or not it ends with a smile (or a wow)…or a L. Once you’re in on the scam, you want to be impressed with the ingenuity it took to lure you in. Not feel like you’ve wasted your money or your time. Or like an idiot because of an imaginary tiger. (Jk? ;)

Random Amazon Penguin

So there’s been lot of tweeting lately about the Penguin-Random House merger (and some sad commentary, mostly on Tumblr, about the fact that the new company would not in fact be called Random Penguin.) O brave new world that has only three or four companies in it…that’s where we are heading, according to most of the smarty-pants people who read a lot more about the state of the economy than me. 

The new company will have a quarter of the publishing market—a quarter. And I’ve read recently that other major houses are considering consolidation, and that the expected outcome is just a handful of mega companies will control all our entertainment options.

Of course everyone on down the line is watching, concerned. Fewer buyers will of course impact the sellers. But in the case of YA, what about the kids for whom those books are written? I think of these things because I am a selfless and practically angelic individual. Actually, I’m a teacher, and it’s more like a habit. But in all seriousness, if there are only a handful of publishers (or, gulp, one publisher)…how will that affect the options the next generation of kids find when they walk into a bookstore? (okay, probably when they log on to a bookstore…) Will AppleGoogleiBooks make sure there’s a title out there for everyone? Will titles which might appeal to a niche market be taken on when there are so many demands for cross-marketing and product placement and brand synergy?

The answer could, of course, be ebook self publishing. There’s room for everything in that model. But the danger there, I think, could be too many titles, too much information in a disorganized sea. We are already swimming in those random information-without-context waters online: anything can be posted, and it is. As a teacher today, it’s very challenging to convince my students that something posted on line might not true. It is very easy to “publish” information today. In this sense, it becomes very important as a consumer (of information, leaving money aside) to be selective and to pay attention. A hastily cobbled together, unedited story uploaded on a whim could be “displayed” beside a carefully crafted and engaging indie novel. In that scenario, if the consumers can post reviews, we readers can work together to cut through the clutter.

That’s an advertising term: clutter. I know from (trying to) teach my students to be savvy consumers when we study marketing and propaganda and the like. And for a world that’s heading toward five gigantic companies, this world’s awfully full of clutter. I had a very confusing moment last night while trying to watch the latest episode of Revenge. A completely weird and seemingly unrelated scene took place, and I was confused for a full ten minutes, until I realized that scene had been an adverstisement, acted by the series stars, shot on the same film, in the same style as the series. Better yet: it was an ad for a partnership among Neiman Marcus, Target, and, of course, Revenge. For all I know Disney owns all three of these companies, not just the TV network.

So these ads kept coming up all through the freaking show, and it confused my DVRing, at the end of a tired day, because the faces were the same as the actors on the show. Which was, of course, all part of NeiTarvenge’s diabolical plan. It did not, however, make me want to go to Neiman Marcus (and it even made me sort of mad at my beloved Target)—so I’m pretty sure their plan backfired at my house, at least.

The ironic part about marketing is that the more they put out there, the more they add to the clutter, the greater the lengths they have to go to get our attention. Until the day in 2032 when probably Mark Zuckerberg makes one last merger and then we can all just sit back and enjoy the synergy. 

What does that even mean?