m. c. de marco

I need to write a novel synopsis or two, so I googled for advice. Pat McCutcheon has a book about it, Writing the Fiction Synopsis: A Step by Step Approach , but I don’t think I need quite that much advice.

Crawford Kilian’s Advice on Novel Writing has a synopsis section that covers the basics. Bill Johnson has an essay about Writing a Story Synopsis which focuses on getting your theme into a one-page synopsis.

WriteCraft’s Synopsis Secrets involve a long list of don’ts (in the sidebar). Pagewise has a list of do’s.

Sometime’s it’s easiest to learn by example. Charlotte Dillon provides a sample synopsis.

My overall favorite is Beth Anderson’s Barebones Synopsis Page, which gives a step-by-step, synopsis-by-synopsis approach.

I needed to plot-doctor a few stories for a non-literary genre market, so I googled the classic 7 point plot. Here’s the basic Point Plot Outline. Zed at MemeMachineGo! described his experiences with the 7 point plot structure.