Now we post our 500 Words.
First of all, I have a very long outline. I could write a 500 word synopsis, but that would be a little silly given the way we outline. The outline had a lot of text already, more or less in the form of a synopsis. So my goal here, really, is to just write a short piece that is complete enough.
What do I mean by “complete enough”? Well, I’m taking part of my outline — the beginning — and I’m going to try and just make a super short piece that feels finished, can stand on its own.
Recap of the project so far:
We started off talking about the importance of finishing something and just getting it out into the world in Your Authorial SEO
Week 1: We developed a log line.
Week 2: We made our Super fast outline
This week, we’ll write a first draft of a super short piece we can then edit next week. And that will complete the cycle. We will have created something and edited and more importantly, practiced getting out work out into the world.
For full disclosure, I will be going back to 1994 to listen to REM’s What’s the Frequency Kenneth?, to keep me peppy. I am writing this as we speak. This, my friends is what a first daft looks like.
Here’s the section of my outline that I’ll be developing today:
Once upon a time there was ___a bored housewife ____. Everyday, this ____housewife_____ liked to ___study at personal development seminars___. Then, one day ____she discovered she has super powers____.
Why did I choose this section of the outline? In a nutshell, it has a built in arc. Someone seeking something she doesn’t have finds it. In this case, she desires to be special. She seeks that feeling at personal development seminars and discovers she actually already is special. I will be writing this to be complete, as I mentioned, but it also sets me up to build the story further out from here. Let’s see what happens: Scrivener — tell me when I’ve hit 500.
Mostly she wanders the airport hotel lobby looking for a sign. Not that kind of sign. Maybe that kind of sign, but she’d be happy with something that would tell her how to find the Tongan Room and Samantha Ricci’s Walk Tall and Carry a Big Lipstick seminar. She stops and looks about. Outside of the wall-height window, planes loft into the air above her. Inside, a nasty pointing finger taunts her — “You’ll never fly. You’re too afraid.”
Nobody’s heels click here. The carpet syphons off the sound and the only thing that tells her to turn is an increase in the rumble from behind her. A herd of women, with boxy purses and hair vaulting above her own ceilings at home, stampedes toward a hallway she had not seen before. She watches them pass and waits. She does not want to be seen needing to follow. Instead, she eddies out into a bar chair and looks at her watch. She’s got time. Twenty minutes or something. A woman wilts over a drink next to her.
She orders a mimosa. The daytime bartender at the airport hotel is gentle and he greets her above his bow tie with great consideration. Behind him, a wall of empty bottles, almost as if it were wallpaper, stare down ridiculously. Once they were top shelf, now they are — art?
The woman next to her stirs above her drink. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
She looks at the woman who has still not lifted her head. “I’m sorry?”
The woman lifts her head all the way up on a somewhat over limber neck. “We are not afraid of our darkness, but of the goddamn unrelenting nature of our light. Turn it off! Turn off the light, lady.”
The drunk woman quoting various popular women of history and poetry is a sauced up Samantha Ricci.
“I think you’re wanted on stage. Soon.” The mimosa arrives.
Samantha lifts her glass. “I am always wanted. I planned it that way. These folks, they’re too busy looking at me to figure out how to be awesome on their own. You know? You know?” Samantha’s breath smells a little like cigarettes, but she figures it’s probably not that.
“What’s the difference between you and all those other women?” Samantha swivels to her full height — she is an easy six feet. “No, really? What?”
She shrugs.
“You didn’t pay seven hundred dollars to spend three days in a crap hotel, eating crap food and with a bunch of hopeless jackasses.” Samantha downs her glass. “And that’s not fearing your light.”
She watches Samantha swim through the hallway, her hips a perfection of rocking motion and a dress designed to draw your attention just so. She runs a hand down her own backside.
The bartender arrives to offer another round. Seven hundred and ten dollars is what she’s spent now. “No thanks.”
On the way out of the door, because she cannot stand the shame of seeing Samantha now, she drops her seven pound binder in an ashtray/garbage can. It does not fit. And for the first time ever, she doesn’t stop to make it work. She exits and finds a rock to sit on and just watch the planes as they lift off and away from the ground.
She lolls in the bright spring sunlight, listening to the rise and fall of the parking lot arm. San Francisco Bay offers up whispers of diesel and jet fuel.
Maybe she is asleep. Maybe sun stroke, but she spins when she hears it, a car slamming through the lot arm. It does not swivel or turn, but barrels right at her. For a moment she is distracted by confusion — is it still accelerating? But her attention slaps hard on the car the moment it strikes her, and at first, she is horrified — the paramedics will later tell her family that she died instantly, but it won’t be true because she can see the woman unconscious behind the wheel, she can feel her feet pushing against the unsubstantial surface of the water, kicking up great rooster tails. And this spray continues on.
She laughs. That paramedic really fucked up. Because now, she can see how far they have come over the edge of the water, she can feel her own muscles flexing still against the weight of the car. She has time to wonder how much time she has left to wonder. Looking out over the car, she sees a group of people collecting in the parking lot. She expects them to move slowly, caught in the frozen second of her demise, but they don’t. They point. One person runs inside. She looks down. They have stopped now — the unconscious woman, the car and herself. Over the water. The moment does not end.
She does not end.
She listens to the frequency of the sirens as they approach the parking lot. She leans back against the car and watches the water under slide backward. She does not end.
She begins.
Okay, that was 844 words. I didn’t have time to write something shorter, as they say.
Grab a section of your outline and go. Make a change happen. An arc. And let it be the first draft. I already know the things I will change for next week’s revision. But for now, I’m letting it all hang out.
Can’t wait to see what you write in the comments. Shoot for 500 words, but definitely not over 1000. GO!
Angie, I tried to get more specific with the outline. I really prefer the specifics and HATE the blah, blah, blah flatness that I seem to produce anytime I try to describe the book or anything about it. For this exercise, I AM trying to write a 500 word synopsis for a book proposal. I want to ask for advice about doing that instead of writing a piece of the outline, but the REALITY is that I already know the answer. Darn. Ho hum. I will give it a shot.
Lea-
You can totally do a synopsis. I would again think about what will engage your reader, even in a synopsis. Bring your particular voice, the question your readers will be looking to solve and use the form to create an arc – from problem to solution. Post it when you have it!
OK, Angie. I am biting my tongue and NOT worrying about the creeping generalities, the fact that I address “you” because I feel totally unable to speak to just someone and I am not sure that is legal, I changed the name and am rolling my eyes about it, and I still feel like it doesn’t pass the gut test. Did I say I was biting my tongue? Anyway, what I want to say is that the book does for you, the parent/reader, what I do for my own children: I absolutely see them and love them with my whole being (you too!) AND, at the same time, I give them a good kick in the ass when they need it, (which is my shorthand for guidance, high expectations, and a few well-placed limits).
Here is my rough synopsis (I should probably go look that word up in the dictionary– I will do that after I push send, so typical):
This is not an easy time to be a parent. You wake up every day and strive to do a good job, only to be faced with yet another book or article bemoaning the sorry state of parenting. You have followed all of the usual advice, and still you may find yourself facing the same roadblocks and beset by the same gremlins, anger, fear and guilt. When you fall short of your image of what family life could be, you may feel frustrated and lost and assume that there is something wrong: with your kids, with the world, or with yourself. And you are right. There is something wrong. You have been misinformed. A whole host of false assumptions and misconceptions about raising children abound, and reliance upon them causes no end of strife for today’s hard-working and well-meaning parents. Beacon: A Guide for Parents beams through that murk, illuminating the true contours of the parenting landscape and allowing parents to get their bearings.
Parents want their children to listen to them, and so they try to say the right things. Beacon explains how and why action works better than words. Instead of encouraging parents to control their anger and their frustration, which is nearly impossible to do and which sets the stage for more feelings of guilt and inadequacy, Beacon shows parents how those troubling emotions can be transformed into allies. Parents give their children choices in order to avoid conflict and are baffled when their children don’t show more appreciation. In Beacon, they will learn why timing matters and why the temptation to instill democracy in early childhood leads to tyranny. Parents want their kids to do their chores, so they make job charts and offer rewards. Beacon teaches parents how to develop a child’s internal motivation for the tasks of the day. Parents want to be liked by their kids, but Beacon shows them how to build trust, the foundation of a deeper and life-long relationship.
Reading Beacon is like going for a walk with a trusted friend: you will feel recognized but not judged. Writing in a warm and companionable style, the author does not shy from straight talk. Having made her own mistakes and discoveries as a mother, she addresses the reader with honesty and clarity, compassion and humor. With the benefit of this new perspective, the reader will feel more confident in relying on her own inner compass and will feel energized, motivated and inspired to act.
OK, Angie. I am biting my tongue and NOT worrying about the creeping generalities, the fact that I address “you” because I feel totally unable to speak to just someone and I am not sure that is legal, I changed the name and am rolling my eyes about it, and I still feel like it doesn’t pass the gut test. Did I say I was biting my tongue? Anyway, what I want to say is that the book does for you, the parent/reader, what I do for my own children: I absolutely see them and love them with my whole being (you too!) AND, at the same time, I give them a good kick in the ass when they need it, (which is my shorthand for guidance, high expectations, and a few well-placed limits).
Here is my rough synopsis (I should probably go look that word up in the dictionary– I will do that after I push send, so typical):
This is not an easy time to be a parent. You wake up every day and strive to do a good job, only to be faced with yet another book or article bemoaning the sorry state of parenting these days. You have followed all of the usual advice, and still you may find yourself facing the same roadblocks and beset by the same gremlins: anger, fear and guilt. When you fall short of your image of what family life could be, you may feel frustrated and lost and assume that there is something wrong: with your kids, with the world, or with yourself. You are right. There is something wrong. You have been misinformed. A whole host of false assumptions and misconceptions about raising children abound, and reliance upon them causes no end of strife for today’s hard-working and well-meaning parents. Beacon: A Guide for Parents beams through that murk, illuminating the true contours of the parenting landscape and allowing parents to get their bearings.
Parents want their children to listen to them, and so they try to say the right things. Beacon explains how and why action works better than words. Instead of encouraging parents to control their anger and their frustration, which is nearly impossible to do and which sets the stage for more feelings of guilt and inadequacy, Beacon shows parents how those troubling emotions can be transformed into allies. Parents give their children choices in order to avoid conflict and are baffled when their children don’t show more appreciation. In Beacon, they will learn why timing matters, why the temptation to instill democracy in early childhood leads to tyranny. Parents want their kids to do their chores, so they make job charts and offer rewards. Beacon teaches parents how to develop a child’s internal motivation for the tasks of the day. Parents want to be liked by their kids, but Beacon shows them how to build trust, the foundation for a deeper and life-long relationship.
Reading Beacon is like going for a walk with a trusted friend: you will feel recognized but not judged. Writing in a warm and companionable style, the author does not shy from straight talk. Having made her own mistakes and discoveries as a mother, she addresses the reader with honesty and clarity, compassion and humor. With the benefit of this new perspective, the reader will feel more confident in relying on her own inner compass and will feel energized, motivated and inspired to act.
My mother looked slightly yellow and maybe that was natural to her. She wasn’t, any more. What does “was” or “wasn’t” mean here and now? But what other way to think about it, unless I thought about the gaps we all slip through to get here and leave, harboring a hope of a two-way street, once you think about it. Slightly yellow, and her skin was glistening. Her side was rising and falling with her breathing. Her tousled, boy’s haircut, thinned, black, dyed even with grey roots, was a mess over her head and on the pillow. Her scalp looked yellow, too. She hadn’t opened her eyes, not once. I could not believe she couldn’t. Was she dreaming? Was she visited? My husband, gone after singing with me for two hours, had gone to pick up our daughter from friends. I continued singing. “Give My Regards to Broadway,” “Bicycle Built for Two,” “East Side, West Side.” There was not much to say. Soon, the nurse, in a royal blue nurse’s top, so subtle in her talk and quiet, came in to look at numbers on the monitor. What I would have given for my mother to know I was there because I meant every note? What did she know about me? Everything felt shallow. Was this the depth of all mothers and daughters? Maybe she was too busy and merely tolerating my singing? Her breathing slowed, then stopped. She looked just the same. Who was she? I wanted to know everything, even what the nurse could not tell me about the other side. If there was another side, which I went back and forth on. But I was looking for something more tangible and mundane, and didn’t realize it until almost two years later when I started writing this. I wondered, was she glad had she never told the building management to contact me? Was she content now? What was the set-up? Why, really, had she not once wanted me to tell the doorman to tell her that her daughter was downstairs?