Mark: What small thing has made a big difference to your creative process?
Zoë: Just sitting down and writing? The only thing that ever stops me because I find I get more creative the more I write.
Mark: Yeah, yeah.
Zoë: It’s a bizarre thing, isn’t it? So if I sit there and don’t write, the writing doesn’t get done. And the creativity doesn’t happen either.
Mark: You can’t just sit down, not do anything, get up and walk away. It’s just embarrassing for all concerned, even if you’re completely on your own. So yeah, turn up sharp, tap some keys, see what comes out.
Zoë: I couldn’t think of anything to start today, and I actually wrote Need Something about Hunter and his gang days, and perhaps something about when his dad used to beat him up. And that’s all I’ve written into one of the chapters, but it immediately made me go, oh, in that chapter there, I need to do… And I just went off then and couldn’t stop writing.
This month’s special guest, Zoe Richards is unusual in that she loves writing a synopsis. Here, she gives us a few top tips…
TRANSCRIPT
Mark: You recently tweeted, “Am I weird in that I quite like writing a synopsis?” Yes you are. Can we discuss what it is you like about writing synopses and any top tips for writing them?
Zoë: Again, I think it might be my career that helps are the reports I would write. I always had to write an executive summary to the report, so that meant that I had to take something that was anything from a three to six page report. So we are talking short compared to a novel, but often my reports would start at twenty pages, and then I’d whittle it down to what’s the real crucial information these exactly need to read. And then I’ve got to produce something like about a one-hundred word, a summary synopsis of what the report’s about, but one that is going to make them want to read the rest of the report. Because they receive so many reports, they’re not going to want to read it. So I do have an advantage, don’t I? Do you use, Scrivener?
Mark: I do indeed, yes. Big fan.
Zoë: So, you know, on the way I’ve set mine up, you know, on the top right corner it has a little box that says synopsis when you’re writing each chapter.
Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Zoë:So I just write a sentence or two in there about what’s the purpose of this chapter. And then once you’ve got all of your chapter one or two sentences, I mean, the idea of it being there is for the corkboard, but actually forget the corkboard. It’s a place for you to then gather… So I’ve just written a chapter today, and the chapter is to to raise the emotional stakes in the story. So I’ve written a couple of lines in, into that little corner box that’s headed ‘synopsis’ and then when I come to write the synopsis, I just pull all of these sentences out. If I can’t necessarily add anything to the synopsis through adding in what that chapter is about, then it doesn’t need to go in the synopsis. So is it moving it forward? But also if it’s not moving the story forward enough, do I need the chapter? So it helps me to do that kind of thing as well.
Zoë is the author of Garden of Her Heart, and host of the podcast, Write Damn It! An experienced coach with more than 35 years working on mindset, Zoë shares a ton of practical advice for writers including how to deal with self-doubt and rejection.
WE DISCUSS…
How stand up comedy helped Zoë’s writing
How to rethink your attitude to resilience
Great tips for writing a synopsis
Writers’ flow and getting started each day
Building characters using their childhood trauma
How to get people to show up at book events, and much more…
Mark Stay Writes 