The Novelist: Why Write a Synopsis?

This post is the first of a series on writing the novel. I'll be drawing from my experiences and providing advice on a range of topics that might interest you.

When I was just beginning as a writer, the publisher guideline request “submit a synopsis and sample chapters” struck fear into my heart. There was something terrifyingly daunting about writing and sending a succinct compelling summary of my novel packaged in just a few pages. As author Katherine Eliska Kimbriel said, “The instinctive response [of the author] is to clap on a helmet and start digging a trench.” I had a right to be terrified. In some ways the synopsis is the hardest thing for a novelist to write. Yet it is the first thing most publishers and agents want (and have time) to see of your cherished project (aside from those sample chapters, of course—more on that later).

Virtually Yours by Nina Munteanu

In keeping with the theme of AI, here is a love story that blurs the realms of virtual and real. This variant of "Beauty and the Beast" strays into the area of disturbing intrusiveness...one plausible scenario of a brain implant. "Virtually Yours" was first published in Hadrosaur Tales and later reprinted in Neo-Opsis Science Fiction Magazine. It was translated and published in Nowa Fantastika in Poland and Bli Panika in Israel. Virtually Yours was nominated for the Aurora Award and the SLF Fountain Award.

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

Are you a poet who sees the beauty of the world around you? Or a potential romance writer? Perhaps you have the makings of a screen writer stirring inside you just waiting to get out. Thanks to Melanie at "A Quiet Symphony" I found this quiz site that lets you figure out what kind of writer you are (should be)...in case you didn't already know, that is...:) The choices are limited and it's kind of cheesy but I thought I'd have a little fun with it. It consists of about 10 questions and in the end I got what I already knew:

You should be a science fiction writer. Your ideas are very strange...I already knew that!...and people often wonder what planet you're from (yeah, like I'm going to tell you!). And, while you may have some problems being "normal" (why be normal?), you'll have no problems writing sci-fi. Now you're talking! Whether it's epic films, important novels, or vivid comics...Your own little universe (yup!) could leave an important mark on the world! WOW! I'm so enlightened now.

Now you try it! I dare you!

I think one of the main reasons I fit into the Sf category was how I answered Question 4: what inspires you? I selected "what if" scenarios.

What if...I'm fascinated with "what if". Our lives are full of "what ifs". They're the stuff of our imagination. Our dreams. And, sometimes, our nightmares...We base a lot of our regrets and guilts on those nasty "what ifs". Here's a sad one I've been carrying around for a while...

A few months ago, I started half-waking up in the morning here and there, thinking I heard Sammy, our cat, outside meowing. Rather plaintively. Then I would hear him by his favorite place, happily crunching on his dry catfood...and I would fall back asleep and forget what I'd heard. It repeated several times...that kind of sad meow, then finally went away. We have a lot of cats in our neighbourhood, so I didn't think much of it. So long as Sammy was okay...

One morning we all got up to find Sammy gone and realized that he'd stayed out all night (we always bring him in nightly because of the coyotes that live in the field behind our house). The boys finally found him inside the small tool shed; he must have strayed inside while my husband was working outside the day before and got trapped inside (he knows he's not allowed inside, but he's a cat). Turns out he had a reason to be there; when the boys let Sammy out they heard a little plaintive call of a cat. It came from behind the wall of the shed! We realized to our horror that a cat was trapped behind the inner wall. Herb quickly figured out that it must have crawled into a small opening at the roof and fallen down a good nine feet between the cramped outer and inner walls. Herb set quickly to work, hacking open the wall to free the poor thing. When we finally got him out, he was a mess, blind and pussy and (pardon) literally rotting. My son and I rushed him to the vet (with blind thoughts of adopting him) who pronounced him too far gone: he'd hurt himself in the fall and had literally starved to death over the course of a few weeks and during the entrapment he'd been infected by vermin (it only takes a few days, apparently for that to start) which had eaten him alive. The vet then euthenized the cat. Herb closed up the gap in the shed roof so no other event like that one could occur again. I can't look at the shed anymore and not think of his suffering. I have no words to describe how that makes me feel. I'm haunted by it. What ifs...I keep thinking, what if I had checked when I'd first heard those calls? What if?...

photo of cat borrowed from wvs.topleftpixel.com/06/03/06

SF Writer

Today’s Friday Feature has been called “the largest genre writer’s home page in existence” by Interzone. It was “widely believed to have been the first science fiction author site” according to Reuters. And John Robert Colombo proclaimed that, “it’s not a home page—it’s a mansion page!” This award-winning site contains over a million words, 530 documents and 25,000 links. No, it isn’t Boing Boing…(I just love that name, so I added it here :). If you’re into science fiction (as a reader or a writer), you may have guessed by now (okay, the title gave it away, didn't it? And that Ontario Licence plate): it’s SF Writer, the official website of Canadian science fiction writer, Robert J. Sawyer. And if you haven’t heard of it or stumbled upon it, you should. Here’s why:

"The Cypol" nominated for Ecata Reviewer's Choice Award

Time for a COMMERCIAL Break... :-)

eXtasy Books in October 2006, was nominated for the 2006 Ecata Reviewer's Choice Award. Here's part of the review: "...The Cypol is a different type of romance...The ending is poignant yet appropriate. Ready for something different yet rewarding? The Cypol by Nina Munteanu is well worth your time."

My SF sensual romantic thriller, "The Cypol" published by

The reviewer's right...The Cypol isn't your ordinary romance. It's rather dark and the ending is not typical for romance readers. It's more typically SF in that way, I guess. There you go...I'm categorizing again :-) This book is a good example of cross-genre that doesn't really fit either the "romance" category (except for some steamy scenes, that is :) OR the SF genre (those same steamy scenes :-D. What I'm hearing on the writer's grapevine is that cross-genre books like this one are being successfully published by small press publishers, who are taking the lead in fresh and innovative works. And they are doing very well too. I'm not surprised; they're taking the chances that the big publishers can't seem to afford to be able to take. Dragon Moon Press was lately featured in the New York Times and Scott Sigler's "Ancestor", published by DMP, reached #1 on Amazon.com.

Alien Musings

OK...so I'm a science fiction writer. I've written a few novels (my newest is coming out this November from Dragon Moon Press, called "Darwin's Paradox"...more on this later). I've published a few SF short stories here and there. I've even had some of them translated and reprinted in magazines abroad (e.g., into Polish [Nowa Fantastika], Hebrew [Bli Panika] and Greek [the Dramaturges of Yan]). I also review SF movies and books (check them out on Gotta Write Network or Strange Horizons). But here's my question...What is SF? I've got a crazy discussion going on with fellow romance writers right now on one of my other listserves. We're having a hard time defining it. Is it speculative fiction? Or is that a sub-genre? And who the @%*& cares, you might ask? Well, the bookshop owners care, that's who. They're the ones who stock the bookshelves so you, the book buyer, can find them better. AHH!! But that's all going by the wayside now, you say, because we now have online bookstores like Amazon.com and Chapters.ca and Fictionwise, etc. who've dispensed with those mortar and brick bookshelves by using virtual bookshelves. Well, I don't know about you, but I still like to browse in a real bookstore, flip and smell the pages, glance at all the glossy covers, lose myself in a maze of paper. And in a place like that, you need categorization. Categories. Genres. So, we're back to SF and what is it? Or, more to the point, WHERE is it?