The Synopsis Treasury

by Christopher Sirmons Haviland

  My current agent—I had parted company with the one who sold my mythological fantasies, but not because of the truth she told me; there were other problems—is too kind and too polite to be so blunt. I had switched genres again, as readers—to my sorrow; I really loved putting flesh on myths and writing about the Greek gods—did not take to the ancient Greek setting. Now, because I missed the medieval setting I had settled on doing historical mystery, and synopses are a necessity for mysteries. However, I cannot say whether my synopsis writing has improved or whether it is my current agent’s charm and cleverness that sold my work.

  It is therefore ironic that when I finally feel I have written a synopsis that, if not powerful and arresting, at least describes the book. I do not believe the synopsis really had anything to do with the sale. Harlequin had decided to launch a new “line” called Signature Select. (No, don’t ask what it means or what the name is supposed to convey; I haven’t the faintest idea.) This, I think, although I am not certain, was to be a mixture of “classical” romance and original work by the same author.

  My agent had offered the editor of Signature Select the Roselynde Chronicles which are classical historical romance (I am assured by many sources—including Romantic Times, which gave me an award for them as classics). And Harlequin decided to reprint these works, to my very great joy. I love the Roselynde Chronicles which I think (please pardon me for tooting my own horn in this crude way) embody the best that historical romance has to offer. So Harlequin needed a new work by the old author. Thus, I suspect that Desiree was accepted more to fit the pattern Harlequin wished to establish than on the basis of the power of its synopsis.

  Sigh. I hate writing synopses. I wish I could go back to the sweet days when I knew where I was going because of working within historical events or elaborating on a long-familiar myth. I don’t even mind writing a long working outline—I often do a 30-40 page outline for a mystery to lay out the clues and explain the events. It’s the snappy little synopsis that is supposed to sell a book that gives me the “grue.”

  —Roberta Gellis

  DESIREE—Synopsis

  To save herself from a marriage to Nicolaus of Lewes, a brutal man who might well have killed her for her lands, Desiree of Exceat contracts a platonic marriage with her grandfather’s friend, Frewyn of Polegate. Frewyn is a good man and Desiree is happy, but after more than three years of contented companionship, Frewyn has an apoplectic attack that leaves him nearly paralyzed and hardly able to speak. Thus when Sir Simon, sheriff of Sussex sends a warning that all barons must make ready to defend against an invasion from France, Desiree can only get her priest to write and beg for help.

  Sir Alexandre Baudoin, Sir Simon’s nephew, is assigned to make Exceat ready for war. He does so with great diligence but finds Desiree more and more attractive, as much because of her tender care of her invalid husband as for her charms. Desiree has come to love Frewyn, but Alex is a very attractive man with an obvious softness for women. More and more as they work together, Desiree finds herself desiring Alex. He cannot help but notice. There are some abortive love scenes.

  Both are racked with guilt and do their best to avoid each other, but Frewyn keeps innocently bringing them together, to play games, for Desiree to sing and play, for Alex to explain what he is doing to ready the keep for war. Both are half crazy when Alex’s brother, Vachel, shows up.

  Vachel has been expelled from his home because his father came to suspect him of having killed his two middle brothers and possibly planning harm to his elder brother. Vachel decides to seek a patron at the French Court and while there boasts of his rich and powerful uncle, Simon Lemagne, Queen Mother Eleanor’s liegeman. When Prince John, who is at the French court, comes to hear of this, he tells Vachel that if he can manage to kill his uncle, John will see that he gets to marry Simon’s enormously wealthy wife Alinor. Vachel agrees.

  When Vachel arrives in Roselynde, Simon is temporarily out of his reach; however, he learns of his brother’s appointment to be castellan of Exceat. He decides to go there and see what profit can be made out of Alex.

  Vachel made life hell for Alex in France in their parents’ home–Alex even suspected Vachel might have tried to kill him to get his mother’s letter of introduction to Simon. Nonetheless he and Desiree greet the guest with open arms, welcoming anything to dilute their effect on each other. Both soon regret the welcome because Vachel is unpleasant to Frewyn, whose slurred speech and partial paralysis he finds repulsive.

  Not long after Vachel arrived, Frewyn is found dead and the servants who cared for him in a drugged sleep. No one suspects Vachel because he seems to have no motive; however he does have a motive. Before he went to Roselynde he was with Nicolaus in Lewes, to make sure he would have a safe retreat after killing Simon. He learned there that Nicolaus, who is secretly John’s man, wants Desiree and her lands.

  Desiree suspects Alex, fearing that she had tempted him too far and he killed Frewyn, partly to end her husband’s misery and partly because of his desire for her; Alex suspects Desiree for the same reasons. They avoid each other. Vachel takes advantage of the estrangement to order Alex to leave Exceat. He says he will take charge of the keep and deliver Desiree to the very man she escaped by marrying Frewyn.

  Alex refuses to leave–to protect Desiree and because Simon gave him the duty of castellan of Exceat. Vachel laughs at him and attacks him. Alex defends himself, easily defeats Vachel, and drives him away.

  Desiree, half crazed between desire for Alex and guilt, accuses him of Frewyn’s murder. He proves he could not have done it and the accusation and manner of it proves to him that Desiree is also innocent. Together they reason out that Vachel must be guilty.

  Alex has had the priest write to Simon to tell him of Frewyn’s death. Simon sends a deputy to care for Exceat and orders Alex to bring Desiree to Roselynde. They find Vachel there. Alex cannot bear to show family disloyalty by accusing Vachel of Frewyn’s death when he has no proof; however, Desiree tells Alinor the whole story and associates Vachel with Nicolaus of Lewes, a man Alinor suspects is a liegeman of John’s.

  Alinor knows how much John hates Simon and her; she fears that Simon is Vachel’s true target. She searches Vachel’s luggage and finds sleeping powder and poison, both of which she substitutes with harmless substances.

  Vachel remains in Roselynde when all the others go hunting. He puts what he believes is poison into the wine that is to be used for a feast that night. Then he flees to Nicolaus, who asks if he has killed Simon as promised. He says he has, but that he was seen and that he wants to go back to France; John can reward him there. John’s henchman agrees but then has Vachel killed.

  Simon arranges for Alex to win a small estate and he and Desiree are married.

  ***

  Ian R. MacLeod

  (photo by Gillian Bowskill)

  Ian R. MacLeod had been selling and writing professionally for more than 20 years. His critically acclaimed novels have been widely translated, whilst his short stories have been reprinted in many Best Of anthologies. He has twice won the World Fantasy Award and the Sidewise Award for alternate history, as well as the Arthur C. Clarke and John W. Campbell Memorial awards. His work stretches genre conventions, and he is often regarded as a “writer’s writer”. He lives with his two dogs and one wife in the river town of Bewdley.

  The Art of War and Synopsis

  There’s a military saying about battle plans working very well until you make contact with the enemy. The same could be said about any kind of outline or synopsis working well until it comes to the tricky business of actually writing the story. If the writing is already done, or the battle fought, the process becomes a little easier, although there’s always the chance then that, much like most regimental histories, all the blood and the glory gets lost in a dull listing of events and facts.

  The relationship between a novel and its synopsis is certainly a fluid and frustrating one. As far as The Light Ages is concerned, for example, I could
have written a different synopsis, both in terms of mood and plot, at virtually any point in the writing process. It would be different again, with the mixed blessing of hindsight, if I wrote it now. Still, I think that any reader or editor worth their salt will understand that a synopsis is a different beast to the work itself, and can be taken more as a statement of intent than a detailed battle plan. You have places you’d like to get to, outcomes you’ve toyed with, and moods and feelings you’d like to explore, but, no matter how boldly you state them, that’s likely to be it. Books written too slavishly to a synopsis, especially by inexperienced authors (and I would risk the contention that no experienced author would ever expect to stick to a synopsis), feel wooden and wrong. Characters don’t behave as they should. Events feel wrong or rushed.

  Still, and at the risk of overdoing the military metaphor, a good synopsis has its uses, just as a good plan of attack does, even if you find you can’t keep to it when the ink and the blood start flying. For a start, there’s a sense, which you hope you can convey to yourself as well as to others, that there’s a book there waiting to be written. Secondly, writing a synopsis makes you look hard at issues in the book you might otherwise have been avoiding. On what might seem like negative side, there’s always the risk that either you or the world at large might realize at this point that the whole project isn’t worth the bother in the first place. But I guess that’s better than spending two years writing, and perhaps not finishing, a book, only to make the same discovery.

  It’s obvious from what I’ve said that The Light Ages turned out differently from its synopsis; it would have to. Although I was deep into the book when I wrote it, there were still many issues, both ahead and behind of me, which were unresolved. What was really driving Robbie? How big did the ending need to be to work? What was really going to happen with Mistress Summerton and Annalise? Those of you familiar with the book will recognize some of these issues, and those who aren’t can decide for themselves whether the book feels coherent and complete as it lies in synopsis. Even if it does, though, take my word for it, it couldn’t be, and it isn’t.

  —Ian R. MacLeod

  The Light Ages

  By Ian R. MacLeod

  A Synopsis

  Part science-fantasy, part alternative-history, part magical realism, The Light Ages is a big 150-160,000 word novel set in an England in which the Industrial Revolution took place with one fundamental difference: the discovery at the end of the Renaissance of subterranean seams of a strange natural substance called aether. The full manuscript up to the point marked (1) is attached, whilst the manuscript up to the point marked (2) has been written in word-processed draft. Broadly-speaking, the book is about three-quarters done.

  Aether, which glows in the dark and casts shadows in daylight, allows mankind to manipulate reality. Metals can be made stronger. Plants and animals can be re-formed into fabulous shapes; there are white-leafed trees, incredible flowers, huge mole-like pitbeasts, even unicorns and dragons. Messages can be sent mind to mind along telegraphs. In the wake of this discovery, England and the world has continued to develop since its discovery, but in a way which has become technologically lazy and inward-looking. There are no wars. The advanced nations sink into their dreams. The Americas and the Antipodes remain largely wildernesses. The guilds, who each cherish their secrets and mysteries, rise in the place of monarchies and parliaments, and England becomes permanently stuck in a world of late Victorian steam and coal and mystery.

  The main character, Robert Borrows, is born in the industrial Yorkshire town of Bracebridge which is famous, if for anything, for its deep-set aether engines. His father works at Mawdingly & Clawtson, the big aether factory which pounds day and night in the bowl of the valley. When, after a flash-forward prelude of him as a wealthy grandmaster meeting with a aether-deformed changeling on a ruined bridge on the outskirts of London, the main story begins with six year old Robert’s hard to express disappointment at his Day of Testing; a ritual induction to the guilds with a burning of an aether onto the left wrist. Throughout the story, Robert is both attracted and repelled by the mysteries which always seem to lie just beneath the surface of the ordinary world. As shift sirens blare and chimneys smoke, he’s haunted by his mother’s stories of knights and fairies, and is always seeking a similar place of wonders in the real world. As the book develops through revelations and tragedies and moments of joyous fantasy, Robert’s longing comes to focus more and more on one person, one creature; the beautiful, haughty, and mysterious Annalise. He is introduced to her in the spring after his Day of Testing, when he is taken by his mother on a journey to a deserted railway station, and to a house which is half-coated in engine ice; the white crystalline effusion of used-up aether. There, they are met by a strange, small, dark-eyed woman whom Robbie understands to be that feared creature, a changeling. Changelings, the shadow-folk, about whom Robert has heard but previously scarcely believed, are human beings who have been transformed and possessed by aether. They are regarded with dread and prejudice; monstrous incursions from the world of chaos which aether always opens, but which the rituals of the guilds endless seek to control and make mundane. Mistress Summerton is wizened and brown-skinned, she talks to Robert inside his head, and her eyes are pools of shade, but she is no monstrosity; a human-made fairy. Whilst she and Robert’s mother discuss seemingly grave but unexplained matters, he is sent to play with an aloof blonde-haired girl of about his own age; Annalise, whom he finds strange and fascinating, especially when he sees there is no aether burn on her wrist, and notices a patch of shadowed flesh on her shoulderblade. Is she, too, a changeling? It seems impossible, and yet …

  Back in Bracebridge, winter comes in, and Robbie’s mother becomes ill from some initially unexplained disease. Puzzled and angry, Robert makes the acquaintance of a high Guildmaster named Grandmaster Harrat, who seems surprisingly interested in him. As the manifestations of Robert’s mother’s illness become more disturbing, he finds an escape of a sort in visiting Grandmaster Harrat’s house and joining in his messy experiments with creating domestic light from electricity. It becomes apparent that Robert’s mother is becoming a changeling—but of the nightmare kind which every guildsperson shuns and fears; an expression of aether’s essential madness; a coal-eating, fire-breathing demon. Finally on a wet morning after Robert has tried and failed to kill the monster his mother has become with a kitchen knife, the tollman, whose job is to cart such creatures off to a high-walled asylum, arrives. To escape this fate, Robert’s mother throws herself to her death through the bedroom window. That same afternoon, fizzing with grief and anger, Robert goes to visit Grandmaster Harrat. Amid the failure of his experiments with electricity. Grandmaster Harrat confesses his involvement in the process which precipitated Robert’s mother’s illness. Combined with an aether-induced vision, it seems that his mother and her friend Kate, who both then worked in the aether paintshop at Mawdingly & Clawtson, were sent down subterranean tunnels to paint an object in a dark cave; a black haft; a threatening natural growth of aether. Kate’s finger was pricked as she painted it and Robbie’s mother cut her palm as she tried to drag her away. Grandmaster Harrat, who claims that he was following the orders of a mysterious high guildsman, is wracked with guilt. In his grief and Robert’s anger, he dies amid spills of acid and aether, and the house fills with gas and explodes.

  After his mother’s funeral, Robert is visited by Mistress Summerton. If she dresses in a big coat and hat, if she wears glasses to cover the glowing blackness of her eyes and weaves around herself a spell or ordinariness, she can pass anything but the closest examination as a small guildswoman. As they wander the market and walk beside the river, she explains the difficulty of living her life, born already deformed, but as a seemingly sane and tame changeling; the early days of torture and testing as the guilds tried to ascertain her powers, the endless sense of imprisonment and secrecy. Annalise, she tells him whilst skirting neatly around any details as to her origins, has left to start ou
t on her life, hopefully as an ordinary person, unhaunted by her patch of shadow flesh and her hidden changeling powers. Thus ends the first part of the book, with Robert wandering Bracebridge and waiting for his life to start, then finally leaping from a bridge to the straw of an aether truck, and heading down towards London.

  There, he takes up with Saul in the dubious Easterlies and even more dubious Nethers, and lives a happy life of minor pilfering and odd jobs through his first summer in London. With Saul’s girlfriend Maud, they go the Midsummer Fair in London’s Westminster Park, which is populated with magically aether-transformed trees, and surrounded by the impossible towers and huge aethered domes of the great guildhouses. There, he meets Annalise, or Anna as she has become; now a wealthy young woman about town, fresh from finishing school and with a false past behind her. With Anna’s friend Sadie, she and Robbie go dancing on a pier above the Thames. It’s a magical night. Robbie has never been so happy, or so in love. But they part at dawn with Robbie promised to secrecy as to the truth of Anna’s nature and origins, and the gap between them seemingly bigger than ever. (1)

  As autumn progresses, the easy life of minor crime and guildless irresponsibility turns hard. Robbie and Saul become reliant on the heat of the nursery which Maud runs, and grow hungrier as they prowl in search of somewhere where their faces aren’t recognized by the stallholders and the criminal gangs. Things come to a head when they make a half-hearted attempt to rob a wealthy guildsman down by the docks. Somehow, the guildsman falls into the water and floats away, ballooned in his heavy coat. Fearful, and pricked into attempting a life of honesty, they scurry about making deliveries. But here, too, they find they are treading on the toes of competition; this time, the bagmen. After a beating, they have little option but to join the supposed guild of this despised trade.…