I know…

I get it.

I understand why literary agents and publishers want a synopsis–a brief summary of the whole novel, including the ending. They need to see that a writer can craft a coherent story from start to finish before they invest time and/or money into the novel.

But the injustice! I’ve spent three years crafting and shaping, perfecting and fine-tuning every word in my 380-page manuscript.

Now I have to cut 379 pages?!

Not all literary agents request a synopsis at the same time as the query letter. Often, agents will ask only for a synopsis if the query–the writer’s marketing tool–interests them. Even then, they may choose to forego the synopsis and request either a partial manuscript or the whole novel.

But just in case that one literary agent who may like my work requests a synopsis, I’d better have it ready.

Sigh.

Where to begin?

Summarize the main plot points, a number of (not-so-helpful) websites and blogs suggest.

Ok. Did that.

That came to about 10 pages.

Sigh.

Don’t concentrate on minor characters or minor plot points if they don’t lend themselves to the gist of the story, other (less-than-helpful) websites and blogs suggest.

Except they wouldn’t be in the book if they weren’t useful in some capacity–otherwise I would have jettisoned them long ago…

Sigh.

Cut, delete, erase, cut, delete, erase.

Down to five pages.

Found a website that suggested five pages was fine for a synopsis! Yay! I’m done!

Checked a few literary agents’ websites re: synopsis: 1-2 pages, max.

Sigh.

I cut again. Down to three pages. Three is close to two, so, good enough, right?

Then I read some more blogs. A synopsis isn’t a dry laundry list of events. It has to be exciting.

I re-read my synopsis.

Sigh.

Think of it as a play-by-play commentary, another bunch of websites suggested. You don’t say Team A scores and then Team B scores and then Team A scores again and wins. You punch up the drama: Team A, the underdog who shouldn’t even have made it to this championship game, is up by one! But the giants of the sport take back control. And here… the last play of the game… your new–unbelievable–champions: TEAM A!

I re-read my synopsis.

Sigh.

I opened a brand new blank document and started over.

With the roaring crowds in the back of my imagination, I listened to my inner play-by-play commentator.

One-and-a-half pages! Woohoo!

I am purposely choosing not to give specific examples (one paragraph represents dozens of pages of story). I don’t want to ruin it for you, my anxious readers, waiting with baited breath for the published copy.

Still, I think I got it.

And, oh, look! A literary agent I’m interested in querying suggests including a synopsis, but it’s “not necessary”, she writes in her submissions guideline.

After all this effort? Damn right I’m including the synopsis.

‘Cause really, why wouldn’t you? After writing 380 pages (x 6 drafts), what’s one more page?

My fictional story opens in a “progressive” world which believes religion of any kind is the root of all evil. It’s the First World in which Lyra, my protagonist, grows up, and the one in which she naturally accepts the anti-religious views of her culture. All evidence, especially the horror of the religious terrorist attack she survives, supports her opinion. Then she’s thrust into a different world, the Second World, where some people vehemently and passionately believe in religion. Lyra wants to stamp out any possibility that those people can make it to her country–or better yet, to make sure that those people never influence her people again.

It’s her mission.

Only, she meets Second World religious people–and they don’t seem all that violent or demented. In fact, some of them seem much more emotionally balanced than the non-religious, homegrown terrorist who had been Lyra’s boyfriend–the one who blew up her school and killed her whole family.

How Lyra reconciles her ingrained anti-religious beliefs with what she encounters is the heart of my novel.

Now replace “religion” for “Muslim”.

Scary, isn’t it?

When I started working on this novel three years ago, I imagined a First World, Second World and Third World as an extension to our own world’s gradual move toward integrated economies. I (naively) expected we’d continue on that path and I simply extrapolated, for the sake of storytelling, that it wasn’t simply economic integration, but cultural integration that evolved, leading to only three separate countries on Earth.

Then, in the real world, along comes Donald Trump and his legion of supporters who voted him in as president of the U.S.

Then along come Donald Trump’s executive orders which effectively bans Muslims (at least from seven predominantly Muslim countries) from entering the U.S., tearing apart families, hopes and dreams.

Then along comes a Canadian shooter, two days later, who targets Muslims and kills six of them at a mosque in Quebec City.

I don’t believe in religious extremism–of any sort–and, as much as the next person, I want to stop religious terror. The attacks my characters perpetuate are not meant to be accepted, but rather, understood for the disillusionment from which they stem. It’s not an excuse, but instead a plea for understanding. Condemn the actions of the killers, absolutely, but learn from the hatred to which they clung so we can find ways to stop (or at least mitigate) the hatred that leads theses killers to what they believe is their fate in the first place.

More importantly, tarring everybody of one religion (or any religion) with the same violent, untruthful brush is a horrific blight on the values we–I–hold dear.

Therefore, if my novel is fortunate enough to see the light of day, if only one reader who otherwise thinks he or she can do nothing about the raging world events, will realize that by acknowledging our individuality, we can see the good that is truly in this (and Lyra’s) world, then I will have done my job as a storyteller. Who are we, as writers and artists, if not mirrors of our own world that we can hold up for others?

Often I get bogged down in the minutiae of writing–what verb is the strongest? Is my description clear? Does my character’s reactions make sense?–and I enjoy that process  (ok, most of the time… ok, some of the time… ok, when it’s actually working for me…), but recent world events have reminded me my work fits into a broader purpose.

Whether multitudes of readers will have the opportunity to judge me on my success in that purpose is out of my control–publishers and literary agents will accept or not accept my manuscript for a variety of reasons–but whether the novel is published or not, whether it remains only to be read by my friends and family, I’m pleased with my efforts to promote empathy for the “other”.

Whoever the “other” may be.

Even if that includes trying to understand–without condoning–Trump supporters themselves.

“Set a schedule,” they say.

“Writing is your priority,” they say.

“If writing is important, fit it in,” they say.

They.

The infernal they. The online advice gurus, the well-meaning “how-to” hacks. They all say that you set aside time to write and nothing, not hell nor high-water, is to interfere.

And…  then there’s reality.

Here’s how my “disciplined” January shaped up:

• Week 1: husband sick.

 Despite many a lecture to girls to take care of themselves while I write (read: watch as much damn TV as you want), they insisted on dinner, and other necessaries of life…

• Week 2: husband away.

 Despite many a lecture to girls to take care of themselves while I write (read: watch as much damn TV as you want), they insisted on help with their homework. Man, the guilt…

• Week 3: husband away again.

  Despite the now-ignored lecture to girls to leave me the hell alone (read: I don’t care what you do, just let me write!), they insist on spending time with me. (“Will you play a board game with us, Mama?”)

• Week 4: scratches on right cornea.

Who can possibly plan for scratches on one’s cornea, making vision blurry and impossible to read, let alone write? My writing time was instead spent at the doctor’s office…

• Week 4 that will affect Week 5: the @#%$ winter weather! No… more precisely, the #%*@ decision makers at the school bus transportation authority! Here’s the frustrating story:
  • The forecast for last Tuesday called for snow and ice pellets.

• Tuesday was to be the first day of our students’ end-of-semester exams.

• • A precautionary announcement by our VP: if the school busses are cancelled (a “snow day”, of which only a small portion of students are, in fact, affected by said cancellation), all exams will be postponed. This could have been good for me. My students did not write on Tuesday. They were to write Wed., Thurs., Fri. I would have the weekend and Monday to mark exams, complete report cards and then I would be free and clear to start my long awaited leave the following Tuesday!
  • the VP announcement ruined my life.
  • The VP said that if Tuesday was a snow day, all exams would be postponed by one day. NOT Tuesday’s exam being written at a later date. Nooooo, let’s complicate things. Tuesday’s exams would be written Wednesday, Wednesday’s exams on Thurs., etc. Which means Friday’s exams (my last) won’t be written until NEXT TUESDAY (because God forbid we interfere with the PD day on Monday…), which means, my students’ last exam isn’t WRITTEN until the FIRST day of my leave!
  • I e-mail HR. “We can’t ask you to come in if you don’t want to,” they say. “You can start your leave as scheduled.” And have someone else supervise and mark my students’ exams, as well as complete report cards? That’s not fair to my students.
  • So, my VERY FIRST DAY of my FULL TIME WRITING CAREER will be spent supervising and marking exams.

• • My VERY SECOND DAY of my FULL TIME WRITING CAREER will be spent marking exams and preparing report cards.
  • All because of one stupid snow day.
  • Which, by the way, ended up with very little snow.

So, how, oh all-knowing “They“, do I prepare for that?

Discipline, schmisipline. I’ll write when I damn well have the time.

I’m taking the plunge! I’m quitting my job to write full time!

Ummm, ok, slight exaggeration. I’m dabbing a toe into the warm waters of the shallow end.

I’m taking a one-semester leave of absence to write full time, starting in February.

Which means: I have five months, plus two months in the summer when I split my time between my writing and my kids, to get my next novel started and finished, from concept to query letter before I delve back into the frantic world of convincing intractable young minds how not to be so, well, intractable.

It took me almost three years of part-time effort to start and finish my current manuscript–and if I’m lucky  to get an agent or publisher, there may be even more work before it sees the light of a bookstore shelf–so I recognize I am delusional to believe I can complete my goal. (Especially when the goal is arbitrary–no one is asking me to finish by September; I will not be letting anyone down if I don’t reach my target and there are no consequences if I don’t; I just keep working on it part-time when I go back to teaching in the fall.) Still, I’d love to have something concrete to show for the time off my day job, a return on my investment, if you will.

Just when I was enjoying the thought of finally knowing the whole of Lyra’s story, now I have to figure out my new heroine Evangeline’s tale.

I may soon be drowning…

Drumroll please…

Phoenix Cells by Jen Braaksma

(Yeah… I like how that sounds 🙂 )

I always liked the idea that my title should relate to Lyra’s super cells, but I never liked the phrase “super cells”. I always hoped I’d come up with a better name for it, but nothing ever came to mind.

Until my youngest daughter traced out and gave to me a beautiful picture of a phoenix.

They always regenerate…

Like Lyra’s cells!

I tested it out: I changed the name of her “super cells” to “phoenix cells” as I revised the rest of the book. I liked it.

The title, then, seemed obvious, but still, I wanted to make sure it’s the name I’d be happy putting forward to the world. I tried all sorts of different combinations of “phoenix”, but I’m partial to clear and concise meanings. Lyra’s story stems from her phoenix cells–they always regenerate–so that’s what I’ll call it. (Unless a literary agent or publishers has a better idea, naturally 🙂 )

Phoenix Cells, the smash-hit, bestselling debut novel by Jen Braaksma.

Yeah… I like how that sounds.

While I wait (impatiently) for feedback from my beta readers, I’m starting to work on my query letter. It’s a one-page “sell” of my book that I will submit to literary agents or publishers in hopes of catching their eye. It’s the first impression–often the only impression–the professionals will see of my writing style and skill, so in one page, I have to convince them of my premise, characters, originality and talent. They get hundreds every week; I have to make mine stand out.

I think it’s easier to write the whole damn book instead.

Thanks to a blog called “Query Shark” (www.queryshark.blogspot.com), on which a literary agent critiques query letters, I’ve learned what agents are looking for. (It helped me land an agent for my first novel.)

• fresh, original voice
• intriguing hook
• conflict, including what’s at stake
• why I [literary agent/potential reader] should care.

My first version appeared as part of my “About the Blog” page. Here’s the intro:

Two weeks before graduation, 17-year-old Lyra Harmon stands in her high school’s entrance hall and watches, in mute, helpless horror, as her boyfriend Jonah blows up the school.

 She wasn’t supposed to survive, but she did. Not because of a miracle—people in Lyra’s country, the First World, don’t believe in miracles or God or religion of any kind. She survived because of a condition she didn’t know she had: Cellulis Non Morietur—cells that never die. It seems her body heals itself from any injury or illness.

 It seems she can never die.

Here’s my revised draft (also revised on my “About the Blog” page):

Two weeks before her June graduation, 17-year-old Lyra Harmon is blown up in a suicide terrorist attack on her high school—carried out by her boyfriend Jonah in the name of religion. It’s all the more shocking because they live in the First World, a non-religious country where a belief in God is irrelevant.

Lyra wasn’t supposed to survive, but she did because of a condition she didn’t know she had: phoenix cells—cells that always regenerate. It seems her body heals itself from any injury or illness.

This version is tighter–Lyra is blown up, not just standing around. I’ve put the focus on the First World as a non-religious country in the first paragraph instead of leaving it like an after-thought in the second paragraph. I also cut out the never-dying part. The tension of whether she can or can’t die plays out throughout the book, so it’s misleading.

Here’s the whole thing (so far):

Two weeks before her June graduation, 17-year-old Lyra Harmon is blown up in a suicide terrorist attack on her high school—carried out by her boyfriend Jonah in the name of religion. It’s all the more shocking because they live in the First World, a non-religious country where a belief in God is irrelevant.

Lyra wasn’t supposed to survive, but she did because of a condition she didn’t know she had: phoenix cells—cells that always regenerate. It seems her body heals itself from any injury or illness.

That’s why Annie Wisteria, a spy with the First World Intelligence Agency, wants Lyra to assassinate the mastermind behind the spate of terrorist attacks. Simon Moto is warlord from the Second World, a country on the brink of civil war, torn between traditional religion and a desire for a more progressive, secular society. Moto now manipulates disillusioned youth like Jonah to bring religious terror to the First World.

Annie intends to inject Lyra with Hecate’s Plague, the deadliest virus on Earth. No one who breathes the infected air survives. Except Lyra. With the help of David, a boy whose own brother died in a Moto attack, Lyra can infiltrate Moto’s compound, breathe out the contagion and kill Moto—all without leaving any First World fingerprints.

Lyra agrees to the dangerous mission. She lost her whole family in the school explosion and wants to protect others in the First World from her suffering. But as she’s thrust into the unstable Second World, she begins to question everything she knows about religion and power. She even questions whether killing Moto is the right thing to do.

But with Moto planning imminent attacks on more First World students, Lyra must decide where her loyalties lie. And what she should believe in.

Whaddaya think? Would you buy it? 🙂

“I loved it, Mama, I thought it was perfect.”

Yay! Somebody likes my book!

Yes, ok, I know it’s my own 12-year-old daughter, but still, she was my first beta reader–a person who reads through a manuscript to see if the whole thing holds together. She was the first person to read my story from start to finish. And I was desperate for her to finish. “How about now, Abby? You have time to read now?” “It’s ok, you can stay up late tonight–if you finish another chapter.”

When we got to the end (I read it with her) I was so nervous. “Does it make sense, Abby? Do you see why Lyra did what she did?” “Did you like it?”

Turns out she did.

Whew.

But that’s only the beginning. I need more than feedback from my own kid (no conflict of interest there, eh?). I need other people to comment on plot holes or character changes or other things I might have missed because I’m too close to the story. They don’t have to be professionals. I don’t expect a literary analysis–just a thumbs-up or thumbs down, really.

But the beta-reader step is hard for two reasons:

1. Asking friends to give up their own precious time to help. It’s not like I’m asking for a five-minute favour. I’m asking them to give up hours of their time to read a whole book. And then face me with their feedback. (How’s that for testing a friendship?)
2.  Fear. Fear of sending the manuscript out the door, into the light of day, then waiting with baited breath. (What if they don’t like it? What if I’ve wasted almost three years of my life? What if I’m deluding myself into thinking I can write? What if my best efforts comes up short?)

The manuscript is now in their hands, the hands of my beta readers–the ones who aren’t dependent on me for food, clothing, shelter and homework help.

Now I wait.

Gulp.

I’m done!

Draft 3 (or 33 or 333)… The point is, I’m done revising the plot points, character voice and descriptions–the major components.

I’m on my final draft (yeah, let’s go with that…) Now I’m onto a satisfying task: I’m zapping words.

I’m combing through the document searching for and eliminating expendable words. Words like “a little”, “almost”, “anyway”, “definitely”, “really”, “seem”, “some”, etc.

It’s crazy, actually, how many of these words pop up. They truly are extraneous. So far, out of 100,000, I have eliminated 558 of those pesky words–that’s more than two full pages–with nary an impact. Not true, the impact is tight writing which means better, clearer, more polished writing.

My nemesis from my first novel was the word “just”. I tried hard this time to keep it out. I mostly succeeded, but here’s an example of how the word sneaks in when it’s not necessary:

Moto lives on a small island in the eastern-most corner of the Mediterranean Sea just off the coast of Rahma. 

Versus:

Moto lives on a small island in the eastern-most corner of the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Rahma. 

There are times I won’t get rid of the word:

He calls down to her every few minutes, telling her to hold on, that they’re coming, just a little longer.

Here, Frank is trying to reassure Lyra when she’s trapped. “Just a little longer” is a common expression, so it makes sense to keep it.

So, I’m getting better on reining in my use of  “just”, but it turns out I have another demon.

That.

“That”. I mean the word that. Oh my God, I can’t tell you how many times I wrote that word. I’m still picking my way through the text and zapping them.

Lyra suspected that the end of high school would be the end of their relationship and it saddened her.

Versus:

Lyra suspected the end of high school would be the end of their relationship and it saddened her.

See? No need for it.

Here’s another example:

She realizes that the pain has subsided.

Versus:

She realizes the pain has subsided.

I still have a lot to eliminate, but it’s  satisfying to hit delete on words I know aren’t necessary. Imagine my pleasure, then, when I came across this phrase:

It’s just that no one chooses.

Hah, hah! Two of them! Gone!

But no one chooses.

Once I’m done with “that”, I’ll be done with that! (I mean, I’ll be done. Just done. Not done with “that”. Damn. There’s that “just” again. And another “that”. Argh!)

It’s cold here. There are mounds of snow and more flakes in the forecast. Icing sugar snow covers the evergreens; we are living in a winter wonderland. Since it’s Christmas, soft, twinkling Christmas lights brighten the long, dark nights. Inside, our halls are decked and bells are jingling and the night before Christmas Eve is anything but silent.

Yet I’m living in the summer.

Late June, to be exact. Have been since April. Lyra’s story is set during the last two weeks of June, at the end of her high school career. It’s always hot where Lyra is.

• It’s an unusually warm spring day in Thorin Hill, a normally temperate northeastern Atlantic coastal town, and the students are impatient to surge outside.
• She feels the rising sun on her back already burning hot at this early hour. The day promises to be a scorcher.
• Annie opens the living room window and lets in a gust of warm, humid air.
• The evening air is breezy, temperate and pleasant.
• She feels a trickle of sweat drip down her back; now that they are stopped, the still air feels stifling.
• An hour later Lyra finds herself at the edge of the water, just down the beach from Annie’s cottage. The sun has risen higher in the gauzy blue sky, but a choppy sea breeze keeps away the heat. It blows Lyra’s long black hair into her face; she thinks of tying it back, but she likes the whip and snap of her hair on her cheek. She turns into the wind, the gust a fresh puff on her cheeks.

How strange to have one metaphorical foot in the heat of the summer and one real one (ok, both real ones) knee deep in thick, cold snowbanks.

The dual life of a writer: a world inside my head and out.

Kinda wish the weather matched up, though.

The hot, sultry, sunny weather, that is.