Original subtitles

in this lesson I'm going to talk to you

about the importance of planning your

novel I'm going to show you how to write

a synopsis that will be helpful for both

you and your publisher a synopsis is a

brief summary of your book so if you

pick up a book off a Bookshop shelf and

decide whether or not you want to read

the book you will often read the back

and see what it says about the book this

is just like a really brief outline and

this will be really helpful for you to

be able to send to any prospective

publisher to give them a rough idea of

what happens in your book but I want to

talk to you in this lesson about writing

a synopsis for yourself um which would

be a much longer one it could be

anything from a th000 to 5,000 words and

it should outline your entire novel from

beginning to end and really help you to

avoid stumbling blocks in the future you

will definitely find that there are plot

holes that will need to be filled

characters that maybe you haven't

thought about including and it just

really helps you to give yourself a

general outline of what's going to

happen in your book this synopsis should

list all of your twists and any spoilers

because you shouldn't really be sharing

it with anyone else it's really just for

yourself and once you've written it you

don't even need to look at it again I

never do I tend to write one for myself

it just really helps me to iron out any

potential stumbling blocks and then

after that I put it to one side and I

just write the book that's in my heart

very very rarely do I go back and read

the synopsis in fact it's kind of funny

because doing the preparation for this

course I started to look up some of my

old synopsis IES and they do vary a

little bit from from my books but you

know there are completely different

character names and sometimes the

settings are different so ultimately

it's just about preparing before you

start writing your book you might even

find that you're the sort of writer who

will want to plan much more than just a

5,000-word outline you might like to

plan every single chapter of your novel

and that's completely fine you need to

work out what works best for you I

personally prefer a looser approach

because I like the story to take on a

life of its own and sometimes it will

take me off in strange directions

sometimes they'll be in the direction

that I'll need to pull it back from you

know when I hit a stumbling block but

that's all okay too as I've said before

you're on a journey just as your

characters are on a journey so you know

no words are wasted even if you end up

going back and rewriting a certain scene

again you just need to find the way that

works for

you and you'll probably find that as

you're writing a longer synopsis you'll

come up with other ideas so this is

really again just really helpful for you

know bringing in weaving in lots of

those ideas that we looked at in the

first lesson for inspiration as you

start developing you might even find

that your character is develop too and

you know you might decide that you need

some different settings so it's all just

really really helpful before you start

writing just to get a really good idea

of the sort of thing that's going to

happen in your novel and obviously in

the synopsis you should have those five

key scenes like a minimum of five really

cool key scenes that you're just so

excited to write so list these in detail

in your synopsis as well it might be

helpful if I show you the short synopsis

that is appearing on the back of my next

book Only Love Can Hurt Like This so

I'll I'll take you through that

now if you've got a title fantastic in

fact you need to come up with a title

even if it's something that you end up

changing but when you send your book out

to people it needs a title so my title

as I've already explained came from a

song Only Love Can Hurt Like This and it

just ties in really nicely with The

Emotional Love Story and the themes of

my novel so I've talked to you about the

importance of those first couple of

pages that's all about encouraging the

reader to read on it may be that those

first two pages don't even feature on

the back of your book it might be the

big idea itself is what your publisher

will end up focusing on when it comes to

marketing that's the case for my book we

ended up focusing on this life

shattering secret a life-changing love

story and so that is the tagline which

I'm highlighting now if you can come up

with a tagline for your novel I think

that's really really helpful too just a

way for your publisher to start thinking

about how they might sell your novel how

they might try and get readers in my

case a life shattering secret a

life-changing love

story but then if you go back down to

the first line when Ren realizes her

fiance is in love with someone else she

thinks her heart will never recover so

this ties into the first two pages this

is my life-changing moment and you'll

notice that as I go through the synopsis

it ties in with the structure of my

story so here in the first line we have

that life-changing moment that changes

everything for Ren takes her out of her

comfort zone and sets the story in

motion I think this line is really

important because straight away it gets

across the fact that this is a love

story we've introduced the main love

interest and given him a little bit of a

backstory and a sense of intrigue for

the reader so you might want to consider

doing

that in the third paragraph again

referring to the story structure these

lines are talking about the building of

the characters and the development of

the story so Ren hopes that spending the

summer with her dad and step family on

their Farm in Indiana will help her to

heal there amid the cornfields and

fireflies she enanders cross paths and

the worlds are turned upside down again

also this paragraph introduces a sense

of place so the reader can really know

what to expect when they pick up this

novel they're going to be reading about

a landscape in Indiana with cornfields

and fireflies and they can really start

to Picture This romantic sort of setting

so it's quite nice if you can include

something to do with your setting in

your synopsis as well

and then we get to what forms the basis

of my big twist which is but Ren doesn't

know that Anders is harboring a secret

and if he acts on any feelings he has

for Ren it will have serious Fallout for

everyone this gives a hint to the reader

that something is going to happen which

hopefully will make them want to read

the book to find out what the problem is

and then finally walking away would hurt

Ren more than she can imagine but

knowing the truth how could she possibly

stay so this is the resolution at the

end of the book the readers will know

from the fact that that Ren doesn't know

that Anders is harboring a secret this

is kind of the All Is Lost moment

walking away would hurt her more than

she can possibly imagine it doesn't hint

towards whether or not there will be a

happy ending or not in my books readers

never 100% know it could be a bit

Bittersweet obviously I'm not going to

spoil it for you in case you end up

reading it but you will deceive from the

synopsis and your own synopsis the one

that you write just for yourself should

also reflect the story structure so you

have that life-changing moment that

building of the characters and the way

that they might meet the main love

interest and the main character some

sort of climactic moment when the worlds

are turned upside down again and then

this All Is Lost moment which may be in

your case a big twist or a sort of a rug

pulling moment you know where the

character just doesn't know what's going

to happen and then ultimately you can

write your resolution or you can just

leave it for your imagination this will

be one of the key scenes that I'm sure

you will daydream about so whether or

not you want to write it down it's up to

you but the purpose of doing a synopsis

mainly for yourself is to just outline

your entire book so you can iron out any

potential Stu uming blocks before you

get to them and I do think it's a really

really helpful thing to do but make it

as long as you like like I say it could

be a th000 words it could be 5,000 words

when I wrote my debut novel Lucy in the

Sky I got the book deal based on my

first three chapters and a 3,500 word

synopsis so that longer synopsis was

really helpful for my publisher just to

see that I really did know what I was

going to end up writing but in most

cases you will have written your entire

book before you get a book deal so

hopefully the synopsis will really help

you get there

in the next lesson I'm going to give you

some final words of advice for when you

finish your novel