©The Synopsis©
So you want me to introduce my characters, demonstrate the conflict, highlight the plot, show the character arcs and turning points and how they get to the Happy Ever After in how many pages???
Enter the synopsis or as many writers call them, the 'suck-opsis.'
I confess to writing synopses that are about four to five pages. I write the themes of the book at the top, I follow with an introductory paragraph of each central character and then I precis the story highlighting the turning points, the black moment and the resolution. The synopsis must show the character arcs...what they learn along the journey.
I write a synopsis and submit it to my editor who comments and asks questions. She is mostly concerned with the question, 'will the conflict last the book?'
Here is an example of a synopsis for The Surgeon's Chosen Wife. Please understand this synopsis is copyright so if you wish to use it in any public way, please contact me first.
Good luck with your synopsis writing!
©©©
COMING HOME: Medical Romance
Themes: Healing both physically and emotionally
Reinterpreting the past
Learning to trust and love.
Sarah Rigby is a GP in Yakkaburra, a small coastal country town in Far North Queensland. Sarah loves Yakkaburra returned there after the death of her husband, with her seven-year-old son, Sam.
She knows she had stars in her eyes when she married her charismatic husband, a medical consultant. The marriage had been troubled when has her husband became focused on money and status, two things that Sarah does not value. She values people over possessions. Her husband had treated her like a possession and once he had her, he didn't care for her and by the time she'd worked that out, she was pregnant.
She aims to give Sam a stable home life and care for the town. She has no desire for a relationship, practicality comes first, and romance is not what it is cracked up to be. She's not putting herself out there again, she doesn't trust her choice of men.
Ryan Lang was also raised in Yakkaburra, but unlike Sarah he hates the town and couldn't wait to leave. The town represents everything he didn't have…money, parents and respectability. Raised by his grandmother he believes he experienced the censure the town had for his mother and by default himself. He spent his teenage years planning to get out and left for Sydney as soon as he'd completed high school. He won a scholarship and qualified as a doctor and then as a surgeon, driven to prove his worth and never be poor again. Highly successful, & well regarded, his self worth is tied up with his job. BUT he also loves medicine and people and he hasn't lost his soul and is a caring doctor.
Ryan recently suffered a severe cycling accident which almost killed him and has left him with a badly damaged leg and arm tremors. He is now unable to work as a surgeon, which is a huge grief as his whole life was work. Forced to rein in his lifestyle until he knows what the future holds for him, he returns to Port to live in his grandmother's house while he considers his career options. The house, an old Queenslander, has been rented out for many years, as he has never bothered to return to sell it. As a result it is run down and in need of repair.
He had always planned to return to Yakkaburra in a blaze of glory as a successful surgeon. Instead, he arrives angry and frustrated that his life has been reduced to returning to a town he has always hated.
On arrival at the house he has a fall and is unable to reach his walking stick.
Sarah lives next door to the old Lang Homestead. She bought her house when she and Sam returned and is used to young people moving in and out of the old Queenslander and tends to mother them.
She is stunned to discover her adolescent crush, Ryan Lang lying with a ladder on top of him. She remembers Ryan from school, the only other person who could match her intellectually and vividly recalls their verbal sparring. She'd been attracted to him but he had rejected her friendship as he rejected most people. She feels an instant attraction to him after all these years.
Ryan is both embarrassed that he needs help and frustrated that he cannot remember Sarah from high school. But he knows he has blocked out a lot of his past. He brushes off Sarah's efforts to help.
The following morning he is forced to ask Sarah for help has he has no matches and no hot water. Sarah invites him in for breakfast, which he begrudgingly accepts
Sarah discovers he is a doctor and is thrilled that he is in town, as she can always do with some help asks Ryan to work in the clinic. Ryan refuses. Sarah believes she is being rejected again. In frustration, she pushes him to find out why. He is pushed to explain about the accident and his sacking from his hospital position.
Sarah refuses to accept that Ryan would be unsafe at work.
Ryan, who is scared he won't cope, leaves, asking Sarah to leave things she doesn't understand alone.
Sam, Sarah's seven-year-old boy wanders in to visit Ryan a few days after his arrival and in typical child-like directness says 'this place is a dump.' The upshot of their conversation is that Ryan finds himself in the hardware store with Sam buying supplies to make some repairs. This stuns him, as he had no plans to do anything except hide in the house while he worked out what came next in his life.. This is his first trip into town and he is surprised at the warm welcome he receives from his grandmother's contemporaries. This wasn't quite how he remembered Yakkaburra.
As Ryan starts to renovate the house, he starts to relax and Sarah enjoys his sense of humour and quick repartee. Memories come flooding back and she has glimpses of the intelligent boy she secretly loved as a teenager. She does some research and learns what Ryan had achieved professionally before his accident. She understands from a professional point of view that he is grieving and makes a decision to slowly draw him back to medicine to do what he can cope with. Surely that is her job as a doctor?
Sarah has to deal with a medical emergency in Ryan's area of expertise. He talks her through the procedure; fearful he is not capable of doing it himself. His hands have tremors and all fine motor things take a great deal of concentration. He tries to stomp on his attraction to Sarah as he feels he has nothing to offer her.
Her attraction to Ryan grows and unsettles her. Ryan's life is in Sydney and she knows he is only in Port to convalesce and that being in Port is an unwanted stop in his life's journey, whereas she knows her life belongs in the coastal town.
Meanwhile he both hiding behind and enjoying the renovations, which has surprised him. His tremors are not a problem with sawing wood and painting because they are is nothing like treating people… he can make a mistake and it isn't life or death, so he relaxes and his tremors are not a severe problem. His attraction for Sarah grows and he finds himself doing odd jobs for her, sharing meals, and going fishing with Sam…creating reasons to be with her.
Sarah injures herself and requires stitches. This time, there is no way out, Ryan has to be the doctor. His concern for Sarah combined with his fear of hurting her and botching up the job is paramount and it is only Sarah's belief in him that carries him through. He is successful and for the first time sees that perhaps he might be able to return to surgery.
He becomes actively involved with the town as a doctor, and slowly regains his skills as he works alongside Sarah. He starts to see the town with new eyes, mature adult eyes rather than jaundiced adolescent eyes. He is enjoying being a role model for Sam as well as enjoying the child's company.
He and Sarah's relationship deepens despite both of them knowing that this time together is not forever.
Sarah realizes she has started to depend on Ryan not only as a colleague but also as a friend. He is wonderful with Sam, caring and loving toward her and she is horrified and stunned to realise she has fallen in love with him. That hadn't been part of her plan. Her plan had been to help Ryan return to practicing medicine.
Black Moment: After being observed operating on a trauma patient in Cairns, Ryan is offered a job in Sydney. He has just cleared the final hurdle to becoming a fully-fledged surgeon again and getting back everything he worked so hard for back.. He has never belonged in Yakkaburra and it is time to leave
He asks Sarah come with him to Sydney.
Sarah is devastated. Once again she has loved someone who is putting his own life, prestige and money ahead of her and Sam. She cannot follow him to Sydney, as it would be no life for her or for Sam. It didn't work with her husband, it won't work with Ryan.
He tells her he can't live in Yakkaburra.
She points out to him that him Yakkaburra isn't the problem. That he has actually been happy in the town and that he needs to re-look at it with adult eyes. That he no longer has to surround himself with wealth to prove anything. He is loved and has always been loved but he has built a wall around himself. He has never valued himself and that is problem. He can keep climbing the ladder of success but it won't bring him happiness.
Ryan returns to Sydney, starts his new job but realises how empty his life really is without Sarah and Sam. He also realises that he wanted to 'plug' Sarah into his life without making any concessions to what she might want or need.
He organises to become the circuit surgeon in the Yakkaburra district. His job is important but not as important as Sam and Sarah. He returns, asking Sarah and Sam to forgive him and share their life with him.
