Pirates and Mermaids

While I continue my search for an agent for my current story, I'm also struggling to find an entry point for my next story and, until yesterday, this was baffling me. Let me put it this way -- if I want to be a writer of stories -- fictions -- I have to have stories to tell, one after another. At this point I've told three stories in writing, all "unpublished," but, as noted, while waiting for the right agent to call, I've got to march onward and start story number four. That's where I've been stumped.

Yesterday evening, lying in bed, an idea struck me: an entry point. For me, an entry point is a theme that can begin a story. It's not necessarily the beginning of the story but it's an idea for a story. So, having found the entry point for as story which I may or may not pursue, I was excited, especially because this entry point would lead to a story that would be difficult -- very difficult -- to write, but the task would, for me, be exciting.

Then, while I was contemplating how I might write this difficult story, my dear wife chimes in -- "Oh, I have an idea for your next story: pirates and mermaids."

Now I have no interest in pirates and only a passing interest in mermaids but I know where this was coming from. We had just arrived at our summer house which is on a cove off the ocean. An hour's drive north is a seaport which boasts that it was once "the home of the privateers," privateers being nothing more than pirates licensed by a letter of marque from the government, in our local case the King of England. So pirates were on her mind and, where there are pirates, there are sure to be mermaids. Doesn't it follow?

But, logical as all this might be, I don't think I'll pursue "pirates and mermaids" as my next story. I really have no experience with either pirates or mermaids. But maybe, in a few years, in the distant future when I've finished the story I (might) want to work on now ... who knows?

Writing your author's bio for a literary agent can give you three rewards

 Writing your bio for a literary agent is a necessity but doing it can give you three rewards.

First, you'll have that essential personal biography for the literary agents you're querying.

Then there are two other "rewards," if you take the time to dig and go over your life with all its highs and lows, all its joys and sufferings, and all its happy and unhappy surprises.

Reward number one: you'll come up with some great material to share with your kids, grandkids, and friends -- who may or may not be interested.

Reward number two -- and this is the really big one: you're likely to uncover incidents, events, and impressions that can launch you on your next literary project. The kernel of something remembered can grow into a luscious literary fruit. Just water it with a bit of imagination and think about how you might have liked that faint memory to have developed. Bingo! Story time! All from doing a job you had to do anyway.

Writing a synopsis can be therapeutic

When you've finished writing your novel you may be asked for a synopsis. This is another writing project and you might cringe at the request. Some say writing a synopsis is so onerous that it causes your mind to go blank and your eyes go blind. But writing a synopsis can be therapeutic.

Writing a synopsis forces you to look at your novel and see what you've really done -- not what you thought you had done. Writing a synopsis forces your eyes to see the gaps -- the left out parts that the reader will spot but you have overlooked. These gaps need to be filled, even though they may force you to go back to your story and write more -- to plug those gaps and give your readers the satisfaction of a story well told.

Where did the thoughts for this article come from? Where else but my own experience, the wake up jolt received when ... writing a synopsis. But thanks to the "whoops" moment the synopsis uncovered, the final revision of the novel is much improved, as will be yours.