Thoughts on synopsis

Scaletalon

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So my story is currently on hiatus and I revised a bit of my synopsis and want to hear your thoughts and where it could be improved.
The roar of thunder filled Ferric's ears, jolting him awake. He gazed downwards at the mud stained raincoat he wore. His instincts were right. He was in a different body.
After the death of the former president, Ferric, his right hand man, became successor and ruled Lumea with an iron fist. With his strengthened army, he seeked to conquer the rest of the continent.
However, his defeat led to a unique punishment. An endless death loop in a dimension similar to his own. Now reborn as a conscript, Ferric must now fight the very war he himself started. Filled with regret, anger and a desire to fix his past mistakes. Ferric seeks to reunite with his former companions and alter the course of history.
 

sbdrag

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Hi there! So, first, I don't think the prose intro for the synopsis is doing much for you. It's not giving us any information outside of the rest of the blurb, and it's not characterizing Ferric much, either. So I think you can start by dropping that.

You need a stronger start - I think a good rule of thumb is to try and open with a log line, like a movie script. A one sentence summary that tells us the Who, the What, and the Why. Not a hard rule, just one that can help set things up well.

Log lines also generally don't include names, so let's break it down:

Who: A former conqueror
What: is trapped in a death loop as a conscripted soldier
Why: as punishment for his defeat

Pretty simple, but gives you something solid to play around with:

A former conqueror is trapped in a death loop as a conscripted soldier as punishment for his defeat.

In one sentence, I know the entire plot of your story - and if it interests me, I'll want to know more of those specific details. But like I said, you can play with this, for example:

Reborn as a conscripted solider in an endless war, a former conqueror must right his past wrongs to escape his punishment.

A little snazzier, but still gives us that really basic information - and this version gets more of the plot you mentioned later in there.

Now we can get into those finer details.

Ferric once ruled the [country?] of Lumea with an iron fist. Strengthening his armies after the death of his predecessor, he launched a campaign to conquer the rest of the continent.

We don't really need to know Ferric was rhe right hand man of the former president right now - but if the former president was assassinated, I would mention it here. That would give us a peek into Ferric's motivation for starting his campaign, of it were the case. Just replace "death" above with "murdered" or "assinated" if it's the case, and you'll have a solid start.

Now, as a solider forced into the very war he started, an angry Ferric must reunite with his former companions to fix his past mistakes and change the course of history.

Since we already established he was reincarnated in the opener, we don't have to restate it here. I added forced here for anyone that's not familiar with the term "conscripted", and cut some of the wordiness down where I could.

Longer blurbs - especially on platforms like SH, where people are often only seeing the first three lines - are a harder sell than shorter, more concise blurbs. Most people are skimming, and if they can't pluck out the things that interest them easily, they're more likely to skip just because of how many other stories are out there.

So I'd even cut the first paragraph here down to the first sentence, since it covers the relevant information and the second part is covered in the log line.

Now, doing that, let's wrap up your blurb with a hook:

Reborn as a conscripted solider in an endless war, a former conqueror must right his past wrongs to escape his punishment.

Ferric once ruled the country of Lumea with an iron fist. Now, as a solider forced into the very war he started, an angry Ferric must reunite with his former companions to fix his past mistakes and change the course of history...

...or else be doomed to die for his hubris for eternity.

Hubris might not be the exact thing he's being punished for, it's just pretty common to this type of story. Feel free to play with this until it suits your needs, and I hope my break down helped!
 
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