Time to Get that Map out of the Glovebox

Until I get to know my characters a little, I can't quite wrap my brain around the journey they'll be taking. So for the past month, I've been driving around the wilderness: writing pages, tossing pages, looking for some signs.

One by one, characters have shown up, some of them almost-eerily developed, as if they've been gestating on another plane. Others are still growing, but at least I have my cast now -- and, in draft form, the first few chapters of the book.

But it's time now to pull over on this dirt track's unpaved shoulder. Time to reach deep into the glovebox and pull out a roadmap. Unfortunately, that map hasn't yet been drawn. Oh, I've come up with a vague premise. I have some idea of the conflicts and the precipitating crisis that will act as catalyst.

But now it's time to come up with the narrative to pull these disparate parts together, to tell the story in some rudimentary form. Other authors do this with notecards, storyboards, or spreadsheets, but I've grown used to sitting down and writing a synopsis, which I call "Colleen's Theoretical Guide to How This Story Could Go."

In reality, I almost always end up at a slightly different destination. All right, sometimes it's radically different. But the map's part of my process, so I'll be writing it this week.

The Synopsis Is Your Friend. Yeah, Really.

During my quest to become a published author, there were few hurdles so fearful as the completion of a synopsis (known to some as the plot outline). I so badly hated the idea of boiling down my gi-normous tome that I put it off until completing the manuscript. Then, sure enough, the boiling-down process was as painful and laborious as I'd imagined.

All that changed in the wake of my first sale, after which my agent told me I didn't have to complete my half-finished second historical romance (what I was writing at the time) to sell it. All I had to do was polish up the first three chapters and send them along with a synopsis. This idea (the book being sold *before* completion)was powerfully tantalizing, but the thought of writing the synopsis ahead of time scared the heck out of me. Since I always thought of myself as a seat-of-the-pants writer, how could I know ahead of time what I would be writing? And later, if it sold, what if I grew bored with the book since I already knew the outcome? Or what if I changed my mind about it or got a better idea as I was writing?

In spite of these fears, the lure of a second contract (and, let's face it, the advance check) cracked its little whip until I had a workable synopis. The proposal did indeed sell, and I agreed to a delivery date quite some distance in the future.

Then I continued working on the book. To my surprise, the work went waaaaayyyyyy more quickly because now I had a roadmap to help keep me on target. With the eending envisioned, there was no more writing down fifty or one hundred page blind alleys that would later have to be cut. And I was never bored because I'd only mapped out the main plot and main characters, which left me free to do whatever I wanted with the secondaries. In fact, I felt I could be more inventive in these areas because I didn't have to fret over whether or not the main plot would hold together. I do remember freaking out because things changed as I wrote, as better ideas did occur. But when I called my editor all in a tizzy, she said something to the effect, "Relax, that happens to everyone. As long as the main premise (especially the set up) doesn't change, it's no problem.

For the first and only time in my career, I turned in a manuscript *six months* before its due date. (Now that I know how to gauge my speed more closely, I usually streak across the finish line with little time to spare.)

Since that time, I've never looked back. Of the fourteen novels I've sold, all except the first have been on proposal. I've learned to look at my synopsis as a handy guide, not only a sales tool but something that helps keep me focused and on track, along with letting me know about how far I am into the story so I can keep the length reasonable. (Left to my own devices, my books would ramble on for seven or eight hundred pages, which would make them too costly to publish.) I think of my synopsis as a road map into alien territory -- but definitely not as holy scripture. In fact, I sometimes jokingly refer to it as "Colleen's Theoretical Idea of How This Story *Could* Go."

And for me, that is a very freeing thought.

So what are your feelings on synopses? Do you use them? Love them? Hate them? Or do they scare the devil out of you?