Shortlisted for the Queensland Premiers Awards
Some time ago I started a blog to chart the creation of a new novel. The idea was to follow the ups and downs in writing—the long drawn out pauses between frantic flurries of activity that make up the writing of a larger work into something that might be something of a success.
That same novel, now titled None of the Other Flies Follow My Crooked Lines, has been shortlisted in the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards in the unpublished manuscript category.
Wahoo! They even plonked my name on the front page of the site after JM Coetzee and David Malouf. How’s that for strange?
Read MoreWhere I come from
Digging around in some of the backwoods of my computer’s hard drive, I came across a writing CV last opened and modified on 31st October, 1999. I was a little surprised at the date on this file. You see, back in 1999, I had no writing credits. I was yet to be published anywhere and in any form.
I opened the file, wondering how exactly I thought I could put a CV together with no credits and little experience.
It turned out to be more like a bio than a CV—a list of qualities and irrelevant experiences pointing out all reasons why I am such a good writer, while side stepping the rather obvious fact that I wasn’t listing any publications. I was embarrassed to read that I was listing all the competitions and publications I was submitting to!
It’s interesting to look back at something you’ve written almost ten years ago, absorbing all the rough edges and sad desperation. I don’t even know what I was using the CV for, nor who had the misfortune of receiving it. If I were to receive such a document now, with the benefit of these advancing years, would I bother reading on?
It’s good to know though that, regardless of my determination to embarrass myself, I was able to get on with writing as a profession and successfully publish short stories. If there’s anything to take away from this strange little tale it’s that you do find your way and the credits do eventually start flowing in.
Just don’t list the publications you’re submitting to. It’s not a good look.
Read MoreHere Today: The Better Synopsis
This is the redraft. I think the differences speak for themselves. Probably.
Read MoreWhen your self-esteem is shattered by harsh reality, can stories save you?
Here Today is a contemporary novel that follows a young occupational therapist’s locum stint in a Brisbane hospital. Astrid is rootless and restless in her life — unable to commit, unable to settle.
Here Today: The crapper synopsis
So here’s the synopsis written for my first novel, the older version that feels a little laboured and floppy. I think I wrote this under pressure of a deadline and it shows. It smells of desperation. Please, please, please make this novel about something, damnit!
Read MoreWhen your self-esteem is shattered by harsh reality, can stories save you?
Astrid Reinhart is set to coast through this two-week hospital job, all she has to do is turn up every morning and smile sweetly, but the ward that awaits both entices and terrifies her. Martin Finn, a successful novelist whose stroke has left him with the rare locked-in syndrome, wants Astrid to help him write his next story – one letter at a time. Leith McAuley, Astrid’s fuck-off-flatmate, through a volley of four-lettered philosophy, encourages Astrid to abandon her professional veneer and immerse herself in the worlds of her patients. Astrid remains unconvinced until a stray bite misses her lunch and takes off the end of her tongue. Unable to communicate beyond painful, barely decipherable utterances, Astrid has no choice but to listen.
On the synopsis
Well, there it is. The synopsis is now out ‘in the wild’, as they say. It seems strange to put out so much information about a novel that exists only as a manuscript on someone’s desk (not mine).
I wanted to put it up on the web site though, partly to prove to myself that I actually complete it, but also to show how the synopsis will change over time. I recently dusted off the synopsis of my first novel, which is itself making a few rounds of prospective tree killers. It astounded me how ordinary and clunky the synopsis now sounded to my ears. I promptly hacked it to pieces and came up with something snappier. I’ll post up examples of those in coming days too.
The synopsis is a difficult piece of writing. How do you summarise 60,000 words of your blood and sweat into a few pithy paragraphs that prompt the reader to want more? Which bits of the story do you emphasise over others? Do you attempt to tie it all together and hint at the conclusion or do you leave the reader hanging? Will that piss them off?
The one essential requirement for writing a good synopsis is the one thing that the author has absolutely none of: perspective. Given time and some distance from the manuscript, it is possible for the author to approximate perspective and use such approximation to good effect. But I suspect that the publisher’s requirement of an author-penned synopsis is one final joke from the industry. You’re stupid enough to write a novel? Now summarise it!
Read MoreThe Books
