Harry Kemmelman, who wrote an amazing book called The Nine Mile Walk and Other Stories, talks in his prologue (I'm a prologue reader) about the genesis for the story idea and how it refused to gel. He put it aside for some fourteen years while he did other things, until one day he pulled his notes out again and the story flowed really quickly. He makes the comment that in answer to the question "how long does a story take to write?" it takes either one day or 14 years, depending on how you look at it.
I'm planning for my "one day".
I hope my book doesn't take fourteen years. So far it's taken five...and I'm only just beginning.
Yup, still working on the synopsis. Yup, the one I started about two months ago. Yup, the one I thought I'd just about finished except for a little bit of polishing and putting it into nice paragraphs.
I sat down this time last week to start writing it up in the style shown me by so many great online synopsis guides, and suddenly thought (yup, at the first sentence), "who is this woman? Have I really got to the bottom of her character arc? Where does this "front story" start from really?"
Oh heck! I don't KNOW!
Seriously, I had no idea writing a synopsis could be this hard. Or this rewarding. A few hours later I'd asked myself a whole bunch more questions, and actually came up with a few answers too. The story, from what I can see, is so much stronger than it was. I found an old piece of paper buried in my notes with an original synopsis on it that looked so vague and blank in comparison. By the time this synopsis is finished and I sit down to do the actual writing I'll have a pretty detailed road map of where the story and the characters are going. So pleased. Thank you God!
Funnily enough, I'm looking forward to writing my NEXT book (yeah coz, you know, I'm just SO close to finishing this one...lol). Watching how the plotting process works has given me ideas on how I'll go about it from the beginning next time.
Back to work. I've got a "one day" to keep planning for!
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