The Synopsis Treasury (29 page)
Read The Synopsis Treasury Online
Authors: Christopher Sirmons Haviland
Tags: #Reference, #Writing; Research & Publishing Guides, #Publishing & Books, #Authorship
Jacqueline Carey
New York Times
best seller Jacqueline Carey is the author of the critically acclaimed Kushiel’s Legacy series of historical fantasy novels, The Sundering epic fantasy duology, postmodern fables
Santa Olivia
and
Saints Astray
, and the Agent of Hel contemporary fantasy series. Jacqueline enjoys doing research on a wide variety of arcane topics, and an affinity for travel has taken her from Finland to China to date. She currently lives in west Michigan.
Further information is available at www.jacquelinecarey.com. Join her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jacquelinecarey.author or follow her on Twitter at @JCareyAuthor.
How do you sell a 275,000 word first novel?
In the first place, it’s a bad idea and an endeavor to be avoided if possible. Publishers are understandably cautious when it comes to taking risks on unknown writers, and big, old doorstopper tomes increase the financial risk involved. The cost of production is higher and there’s less shelf space available. It’s that simple.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a choice. From its first inception, the novel that became
Kushiel’s Dart
was a big idea for a big book. It was big, it was compelling, and I had to write it. However, one of the secrets to writing a polished first novel is to write other ‘practice’ first novels. I had a couple other manuscripts that had made the rounds of slush piles and agency queries without success.
They were much shorter … and not nearly as good.
Still, it helps—a lot—to have a solid grasp of plot structure and how your own creative process works. And it helps to be working in a genre that’s more amenable than most to lengthy novels. There’s a term for them in the industry: BFFs, Big Fat Fantasies.
So I wrote the novel, then titled
A D’Angeline Tale
, and knew it was the best thing I’d ever written. Conventional wisdom holds that it’s as difficult to get an agent as it is to sell a book, and the best way to do the former is to accomplish the latter. While there’s a good deal of truth to it, I decided to try the agent route anyway. More and more publishers were refusing to look at unagented submissions, and I figured a manuscript topping a thousand pages wouldn’t be regarded kindly as it hulked amid the slush piles of those who did.
Toward the end of the writing process, I began compiling a list of ten literary agencies that represented similar material, using Writer’s Market, Literary Marketplace and acknowledgements of other novels to gather information. Once I had finished editing, I wrote the synopsis that follows and sent queries to the ten agencies on my list, adhering to the submission guidelines of each particular agency. Most requested a brief synopsis and three sample chapters. All of them were cold queries—I had a lot of practice writing synopses and cover letters, but no contacts in the industry.
Out of ten agencies, two expressed interest in seeing the full manuscript; one only if I was willing to divide it into two books. Although I was prepared to deal with the possibility, I viewed it as a course of last resort, so I submitted it to the other agency first. There, at Jane Dystel Literary Management, I had the fortune of having my mammoth manuscript with its controversial heroine land in the hands of a literary agent who fell in love with it. “I kept expecting it to fall apart,” he told me. “And it didn’t.”
We spent the summer of 1998 polishing the manuscript, paring it down until it was under a thousand pages. In the fall, it went out on submission to a dozen or so publishing houses. Meanwhile, I began work on the second book in what would become the Kushiel’s Legacy trilogy. Although we submitted
A D’Angeline Tale
as a stand-alone, I had a clear vision for the arc of the second and third volumes, and my agent urged to me start writing.
And a good thing, too, because there’s not much about this process more suspenseful than waiting to hear whether or not a book will sell. I was glad I was able to lose myself in the writing process.… Although, of course, if the first book hadn’t sold, there wouldn’t be much point in what I was writing. Still, it kept me occupied. And as it transpired, several publishers were interested, and as the holiday season drew near, my agent called an auction.
Tor Books made a preemptive bid.
It was a good offer—and they wanted a trilogy. And they wanted to keep the book intact by putting it though an intensive line edit. Oh, and they wanted to change the title
*
, which was fine with me. Theirs was better, anyway.
We accepted it.
Sometimes it pays to buck the odds and defy conventional wisdom. Not always, not even often, but if a book leaves you no other choice, it may be worth the effort.
—Jacqueline Carey
*
Published as
Kushiel’s Dart
in 2001, the first of many novels in the Kushiel’s Legacy universe. —CSH
A D’Angeline Tale
synopsis
Jacqueline Carey
A D’Angeline Tale
is epic in scope, a speculative fiction novel of approximately 275,000 words, set in a feudal Europe at once familiar and strange, where well-known landmarks of history, place and culture emerge from a fantastic terrain, in a nation where the blood of wandering angels runs in the veins of their mortal descendants. It is an intricate tapestry woven by a single thread of narrative voice, undermining the traditional clichés with which the imperiled heroine is imbued.
Born with a flaw—a scarlet mote in her left eye—Phèdre is sold as a young child to Cereus House, oldest of the D’Angeline pleasure-houses that comprise the Night Court. Gauged unsuitable by their aesthetic canons, her bond is sold to Anafiel Delaunay, a brilliant, enigmatic nobleman with an uneasy relationship to the Crown. It is Delaunay who recognizes the scarlet mote as no flaw, but Kushiel’s Dart, the mark of an
anguissette
, one who has been chosen by the angel Kushiel to find pleasure in pain.
Expecting to be trained as a courtesan Servant of Naamah, Phèdre finds herself, along with Alcuin, another protegé, set first to the task of learning: History, theology, the languages of the realm—even barbarian tongues—and above all, the ability to observe, remember, and analyze. By the time she reaches the age of consent and obtains patrons of her own, Phèdre is well-trained as a courtesan and spy alike, aided in both by the dubious gift of Kushiel’s Dart. The only knowledge she lacks is the true nature of Delaunay’s purpose. An aged King sits on the throne of Terre d’Ange, his granddaughter Ysandre his only heir; and somewhere in the past, with the death of Ysandre’s parents, lies the answer.
Skaldi barbarians raid the borders, held back by the warrior Duc d’Aiglemort, while princes and courtiers vie for the throne and Ysandre’s hand, and the beautiful, dangerous Melisande Shahrizai—scion of Kushiel’s line, Phèdre’s weakness and Delaunay’s equal in wit—plays a deep-laid game of her own. With the help of her childhood friend Hyacinthe, the self-styled Prince of Travellers, Phèdre seeks to solve the puzzle of Delaunay, despite a warning from Hyacinthe’s mother, a Tsingani fortuneteller, that she will rue the day she succeeds. Thus far, the only thing Phèdre rues is the appointment of Cassiline Brother Joscelin Verreuil, a disdainful young warrior-priest, to guard her.
On the day Phèdre is to complete her marque, freeing her from bond-service, the prediction proves horribly true. A messenger from the Royal Admiral sends Phèdre and Joscelin racing back to the house, only to find Delaunay slain and Alcuin dying. With his last breath, Alcuin tells them that Delaunay had sworn a vow on the ring of Prince Rolande—his beloved—to protect and serve his daughter Ysandre, heir to Terre d’Ange.
Now it falls to Phèdre … and she’s about to be betrayed, setting in motion events that will culminate in full-scale war at the very heart of the realm.
***
Chris Roberson
Chris Roberson is a
New York Times
best-selling writer best known for the Eisner-nominated series iZOMBIE, co-created with artist Mike Allred; for multiple Cinderella mini-series set in the world of Bill Willingham’s Fables; and his creator-owned series Edison Rex with artist Dennis Culver, and his work on
Superman
,
Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes
, and
Elric: The Balance Lost
, among others. He has written more than a dozen novels, three dozen short stories, and numerous comic projects. Chris and his wife, Allison Baker, are the co-publishers of Monkeybrain Comics, and the couple lives with their daughter in Portland, Oregon.
This novel had a strange and circuitous genesis.
It began life when I was part of a Texas-based writers’ collective called Clockwork Storybook. Every Labor Day of the groups’ brief and tumultuous existence, we took part in a combination writing exercise/publicity stunt that we called the Annual Clockwork Novel Weekend, in which we would write a complete (if short) novel over the course of seventy-two hours, posting chapters online as we went. Our small (but dedicated) group of readers could follow along as the stories progressed, interacting with us and with each other on our message boards, trying to guess where the stories were going next, catching typos, that sort of thing. We’d stolen the idea from Harlan Ellison, who did this stunt long before us, sitting in a store window and composing stories on a manual typewriter, manuscript pages taped up one at a time to the glass. Writing as performance art. Writing as a dare.
(It only makes sense that a certain kind of writer would be drawn to this sort of thing. Many of us, down deep, are frustrated rock stars, or actors, or comedians, hungry for applause that we’ll never hear. Turning writing into a spectator sport is just one way of filling this void.)
The result of my labors over the 2001 Labor Day weekend was the nucleus of this book, a novella of thirty-thousand words that carried the name
Out of Joint
. It covered Roxanne Bonaventure’s life in broad strokes, and shared with this final version the first chapter, the last chapter, and bits of the middle.
When our writers’ collective decided to start our own Print On Demand imprint, I thought it only natural that we should publish Roxanne’s story. At its original length, though, the novella was far too short to stand on its own, so I wrote an additional twenty-five thousand words, bringing the grand total to fifty-five thousand. This expanded edition (which added the chapters about Roxanne Grant, and Nigel, and Atalanta Carter) was released under the title
Any Time at All
in 2002, to positive reviews in
Asimov’s Science Fiction, The New York Review of Science Fiction,
and
Infinity Plus
, and extremely tepid sales.
After the release of
Any Time at All
, I expanded Roxanne’s story yet again, adding another twenty-five thousand words (including the chapters about Tycho Maas, and Julien, and the death of Roxanne’s dad), and started looking for a proper publishing house that would be willing to print it. The revolution that POD technology had promised to writers and the small press had, I felt, failed to materialize, and I decided it was time to try more traditional routes. However, the expanded novel was rejected by several outfits as being “not commercial,” one even remarking that the book was “too smart.”
Enter Lou Anders, to the rescue.
Formerly the Executive Editor for Bookface.com, a freelance editor (responsible for anthologies like
Outside the Box, Live Without a Net, Projections
, and
FutureShocks
), and Senior Editor for the first two issues of
Argosy Magazine
, in 2004 Lou Anders took a fulltime position as Editorial Director for Pyr, the science fiction and fantasy imprint of Prometheus Books.
Lou and I met a convention a few years ago. He first was a drinking companion (as most acquaintances at conventions are), then a frequent email correspondent, and before long a valued friend. In his capacity as editor, though, he’s something closer to a patron. By the time I’d sent him the following synopsis, he’d already bought a story of mine for his anthology
Live Without a Net
, my first professional sale, which at the time of this writing has garnered nominations both for the Sidewise Award for Best Short-Form Alternate History and for the 2004 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction. Fortunately, the synopsis piqued his interest to a sufficient degree that he went on to request, and then buy, the full manuscript.
Here, There & Everywhere
was one of Pyr’s first titles in its inaugural launch in the spring of 2005.
—Chris Roberson
Here, There and Everywhere
synopsis
by Chris Roberson
Here, There and Everywhere
is the story of Roxanne Bonaventure, a woman who is granted at an early age the ability to travel anywhere in space and time by means of a strange device called the “Sofia.” With this device, Roxanne is able to travel not only through times that were and will be, but also through the worlds that could have been and might someday be. Despite the unparalleled freedom and mobility offered by the device, though, Roxanne finds herself cut off and isolated from all of those around her, unable to make lasting, meaningful relationships with friends, family, or strangers.
Roxanne’s story, then, is one of a woman attempting to find a place for herself, and to find someone with whom to share her life. The episodic chapters of
Here, There and Everywhere
take the form of snapshots, brief glimpses every few years of Roxanne’s life, bound together by interstitial first-person diary entries that provide continuity between the episodes. Roxanne’s adventures take her from Victorian England to Ancient Egypt, from the End of Time to the birth of the Beatles. The various chapters play with the genre conventions of science fiction, romance, adventure, detection, and more, all with an underpinning of theoretical physics.
***