Hello, fellow-travellers in Sequel Country. In recent weeks I’ve been showing you around my own route into the territory, telling you about some landmarks important to me because of the decisions I made in writing the novel called Parallel Lines that I’m now trying to write a sequel to. I thought I’d round off this leg of the journey by sharing some fragments of the synopses that I’ve written to describe that first novel. Different literary agents ask for synopses of different lengths, and developing these is interesting because it forces you to think and rethink what the most important features of the novel are. It will also provide context for you to understand what I’m talking about when I’m talking about the sequel I’m writing.
Some writers like to prepare a synopsis before starting a novel, to use as a roadmap. I have a different process, writing a document I think of as a ‘manifesto’, a statement of purpose giving the key themes. I did this for PL, and I won’t share it here because some of what it contains are spoilers and some never made it into the novel at all. But as well as focussing me on the key themes of the story, it was a useful document to share with people I discussed the novel with, particularly my MA advisor Preti Taneja (author of We That Are Young and other masterpieces). And the core of my manifesto eventually became the first draft, of many, of my first synopsis.
I’ve mentioned most of the key elements of PL (forming the core of my manifesto) already in this column: Realism, Yorkshire, Roy, Ashley and Mandy. I haven’t mentioned Cris the Crow. That’s because, although he’s integral to the story, the presence of a character who doesn’t speak is too esoteric to be of interest to anyone else writing a sequel. To be honest, I had doubts about his inclusion myself. He just fluttered into my head one day demanding to have a role in the story, so I auditioned him and it worked. He’s a little flirt with magic realism that adds another dimension to the story, a counterpoint to the ‘gritty realism’ of most of the book.
Having introduced Cris, here’s the first four sentences of the one-page synopsis. (I stopped at four because the rest is all spoilers; agents want a full synopsis, describing every part of the story including the ending.)
Parallel Lines tells the story of the relationship between Roy (the phlegmatic, bisexual son of a miner) and Ashley (the gay, daydreaming middle child of a middle-class family) as they progress through their twenties in the 1980s. The long time-span of the story is dealt with by structuring the novel in five acts: three main episodes in which the protagonists make attempts at romance together, bridged by two much shorter sections in which time speeds up across the intervening years, telling one key event in the life of each of them while they are apart.
The novel opens with the origins of the romance in the summer of 1979, which for Ashley and Roy is the breathless pause between school and university. A mysterious crow named Cris is the only witness to their embarrassments, sexual awakenings and emotional labour.
Here’s the same material, condensed into three sentences for a 350 word synopsis:
Parallel Lines tells the story of the relationship between Roy (bisexual and a miner’s son) and Ashley (gay and middle-class) as they progress through their twenties in the 1980s.
The novel opens with the origins of the romance in the summer of 1979, which for Ashley and Roy is the breathless pause between school and university. A mysterious crow named Cris is the only witness to their embarrassments and sexual awakenings.
You can see that what I’ve cut, for the short synopsis, was the character description and the detail of the novel’s structure; it’s the bare bones, just the setting and what happens.
Those are from synopses – summaries of the story. For comparison, here’s a 176 word “blurb”, the kind of thing that appears on the back cover of a paperback. This is supposed to contain the elements that might attract a reader, and not give the plot away.
In the summer of 1979, nerdy miner’s son Roy and glass-hearted, gay Ashley are awaiting their A-level results and the chance to catch trains out of their native Yorkshire villages. Mrs. Thatcher is newly elected (to the joy of Roy’s crush Mandy) and an encounter in the local bike shop prompts Roy to begin exploring his bisexuality with Ashley’s help.
But Ashley wants the world and the moon, while Roy just wants a steady job. Across the whole of the 1980s, long after their early fumblings, they find themselves on parallel tracks again and again, always going at different speeds or in opposite directions. But there’s a coal train coming down the down the line, along with AIDS and the miners’ strike, and crows are circling. And if both Ashley and Roy switch tracks, won’t they still be on parallel lines that will never meet?
Parallel Lines is a warm-hearted but unflinchingly realistic LGBT romance, showing that even in the 80s there was gay life – good and bad – outside London. It’s as Yorkshire as white roses.
Cris is no longer named, because, well, it’s a bit weird to have a character who’s a crow isn’t it? Originally Mandy was going to be the mutual friend who Roy and Ashley could talk to when they can’t talk to each other, but as I said, Cris just showed up and auditioned for that role, and I felt it would be a lot more original than Mandy being there for that. I have written (and will again) stories with a much more obviously ‘magic realism’ aspect, but here Cris is only the very lightest possible touch of magic realism. They both know he’s a crow, and they can’t understand what he says (and neither can the reader - this isn’t Snowy in Tintin).
Finally, sometimes you need a one-line pitch to describe a novel; here’s what I have:
Between Thatcherism, the miners and AIDS, 80s gay life in Yorkshire was never easy.
Or: Normal People in Tales Of The City with the flavour of Yorkshire Tea.
So that’s my manifesto, synopsis, blurb and pitch, and why I think it’s important to develop them in that order. I find the manifesto approach particularly useful, and I’ve already gone through half a dozen drafts of the manifesto for my sequel, which is interesting in itself – some elements I’m sure I want in there, others come and go. It’s certainly not quite right yet.
If anyone has suggestions how I could improve my synopsis/blurb/pitch they’d be very welcome. Does this sound like a book you would like to read? What parts of the synopsis appeal most and least? Please comment in the chat. And if any of this is interesting, please share this substack socially so that I can reach a wider audience.
Nothing weird about having a crow as a character at all. I always talk to crows.