Saturday, March 25, 2006

POV in SYN

I've been diligently working on my synopsis trying to get down to a manageable length. So far, I've managed to get it down from 25 pages to 15, which is great. I still need to find someway to either get it down to 10 pages. I doubt that I'm going to get it down to 5, not since at the moment it's still in the POV of three different characters.

See this is my dilemma. Writing my synopsis in the first person POV.

When I first started writing, of course, all my synopses were in the third person because I was writing in the third person. But then I wrote my first chick-lit novel in the first person. And it just seemed a logical choice to write my synopsis in the first person as well. I was a little trepditatious at first. It seemed so out there, but then I read Melissa Senate's synopsis for See Jane Date on the chick-lit loop, and it was if a light bulb went on over my head. It could be done.

I immediately rewrote my synopsis for Nearly Famous in the first person and it was a big difference. Not only did the synopsis come alive, but you could hear Julia's voice. I've written first person synopses for the next two books that I've written. Now for the YA, I'm facing a choice of do I continue with the first POV for this synopsis since the book is narrated by three different people or do I do a simple third person POV.

Well, I tried to write one in third person. I even managed to get it down to only 3 1/2 pages, but it's dull, dull,, dull. It lacks pizazz. It just sits there on the page. You don't get the fun of the characters. But it's also short.

So now I don't know what to do. It seems that some agents/editors like the first person POV in a synopsis, some don't. So really if someone rejects my book because the synopsis is in the first person, they might not be the right person to represent me.

So I'm curious to find out what people think? First Person POV in a synopsis if the book is written in first person? Or the regular old third person?

1 comment:

thewriterslife said...

I'm with you. A first-person chick lit deserves a first-person synopsis. I always wrote my synopsis' in third person until I started writing chick/hen lit. It does make the character come alive. So, I'd say you're on the right track. ;o)