fiction

Late last year, I was doing some editing for my old friend, queer rights activist and all-round good guy, Rod Goodbun, who I met as part of the first Queensland Pride Collective back in 1990. He mentioned he’d like to create an anthology of stories from a wide spectrum of queer voices, and that he’d like to call it Queersland. “Great title!” I said. “Let me know if you need some help editing.”

I mentioned Roddy’s idea to Matthew Wengert, the publisher at AndAlso Books that I’d worked with to create my first social history anthology Bjelke Blues, and he was keen. He also suggested we get an Arts Queensland grant to cover some of the costs and to enable us to pay contributors.

Fast forward past the arduous and odious days spend getting the grant together (that’s another book on its own!) and our great good fortune in securing funding for the project and… WHAM! We were on! Thank you Arts Queensland.

The process of collecting voices for the anthology began, with the aim of giving voice to as many of the different colours of the Queer QLD rainbow as possible, as well as covering some of QLD’s queer history (we have a story set during WW2) and the length and breadth and of this huge state.

An old photo of me and my old friend Stevie who has his first story in the collection!

TIPS FOR CREATING AN ANTHOLOGY

Here are a few tips for people wanting to create their own anthology around a topic/theme or subject.

COLLECT CONTRIBUTIONS

For Queersland both Roddy and I had a number of contacts who were either writers and/or had a good story to tell. We wanted to showcase established writers but also provide a forum for new and emerging voices and to record some of the history behind the queer movement that arose during and post the Bjelke-Petersen regime. We also wanted to ensure we had a strong First Nations voice and voices from cultures other than white Australia. Most importantly, we aimed to include a variety of writing and art.

Queersland includes poetry, song lyrics, memoirs, personal essays, fiction, photographs and artwork. After our initial call out, we realised we had some important voices missing, eg Transwomen, so searched for these missing voices. Luckily, in my teaching capacity I meet lots of lovely people in workshops, so found a few of our missing pieces in my classes and leapt upon them with the lure of publication. For Bjelke Blues, I’d put an advertisement up on Facebook to gather extra pieces, but we didn’t need to do that for Queersland. We were also lucky enough to score a foreword from one of Queersland’s most successful sons, Darren Hayes, who grew up in Logan but went on to international music stardom with Savage Garden.

SELECT & EDIT CONTRIBUTIONS

Most of the stories were requested which took away the need for any rejections – the worst bit of doing anthologies. So once we had our stories in, both Roddy and I rolled up our sleeves and helped each writer polish their contribution until it shone. Stories from established writers like David Kelly, Kris Kneen, Kelly Parry and Steve MinOn, were a breeze. Other stories needed a bit more tidying, or tone adjustment, and others from brand new writers attempting their first pieces, needed a lot of back and forth. Our story from Aunty Dawn Daylight, Blak Queer pioneer and respected elder, was a longer process, with my friend Sitara interviewing Dawn over a few sessions, then typing up the notes, which I then shaped into the story you’ll find in the book. Most stories took more than one edit, so it was a long process, but worth it in the end. And, thanks to the grant, each contributor was paid.

ORDER STORIES

When ordering stories, we decided chronology would be the main shaping force of the collection, with oldest stories first. I wanted a light touch and a sense of humour for the opening piece though so chose a short pithy memoir piece from Evalyn Eatdith where she tells someone, “Buy a girl a drink before asking personal questions”. This made sense to me, as Roddy and I had bought the drinks for all the contributors and inside the book was the answer to very personal questions.

In ordering collections/anthologies too, I always like to consider light and darkness, making sure any heaviness is tempered with a lighter story. We also wanted to have a good balance of masculine, feminine and non-binary voices. Our closing story is a timeless modern metaphor that resonates beautifully with Kris Kneen’s piece early in the book. Finding these echoes and resonance between stories is one of the joys of creating anthologies. Using these echoes and patterns to help order your stories also helps the collection feel more satisfying for the reader.

SELECT IMAGES

We were very lucky to have images from artists like Jackie Ryan, Garett Huxley, Ivan Dyke-Nunn andAnge Bailey. When inserting images, a lot had to be sorted out directly with the printer, as good quality white paper is needed for the best reproduction of the artworks. This limited the number of images we could use and also where they could be placed.

ANTHOLOGY LAYOUT

After several rounds of proofreading – Thank you Tuesday! Thank you Georgina! – the anthology then went to our designer, the wonderful Susi Blackwell, who was also an inaugural member of the 1990 QLD Pride Collective. Susi designed an eye-catching cover and wrangled with the interior and fonts, and everything involved in making the book a pleasant reading experience. If you are creating an anthology with a large trade publisher, then all this will be handled for you.

Being from FNQ I wanted a cassowary on the cover – colourful, uniquely Queensland and a little bit scary – but a bush turkey will do!

MARKETING AND EVENTS

Luckily, we’ve been able to use grant funding to employ someone to help with organising our Queersland launches. The book is being released at the first launch in Brisbane at Come to Daddy’s on Friday 5^th September – yup, not long! FULLY BOOKED.

This is followed by a Melbourne launch at Hares and Hyenas at the Victorian Pride Centre on 18 September.

On October 11, 2- 4 pm, we’ll be at Rosetta Books as part of the Rangebow Festival.

The happy crowd at the Bjelke Blues launch.

A fabulous panel led by Steve MinOn follows at the Brisbane Writers Festival on October 12 and then we’re at Avid Reader on Sunday 9 November at 3pm as part of the Melt Festival.

On 24 November we will be in Sydney at Qtopia for our NSW event, and to top them all off we have two events at Woodford Folk Festival right over the new year! WOWZA!

It would be wonderful to see you at any of these. Do come along and say hi!

Along with all these events comes marketing through reviews, interviews and articles etc. Whatever your anthology topic is, focus on that audience and do your own launches and talks/panels of voices from the collection at venues where you will find your readers.

I really enjoy creating these social history anthologies about aspects of Queensland that are often hidden or overlooked. It is a pleasure to provide a platform for voices that aren’t often heard and a publishing opportunity for emerging writers. I also get to publish stories of my own in them. Bonus! You can buy a copy of Queersland HERE – available now for preorder and from all good bookstores after September 5.

Have you got an idea for anthology? What topic, group or theme deserves multiple voices? What missing part of history needs to be recorded? Bear witness for your tribe.

I hope these tips will help you get started! Having a grant helps, but we didn’t have one for Bjelke Blues and the process was the same, just less money to play with!

In the meantime do get dressed up fancy and come along to celebrate Queersland with us at any of the events above!

Lots of love

Edwina 🙂 xx

a winding dirt road over a stream, where children play — The winding path of writing your synopsis can be fun!

WHAT A SYNOPSIS IS NOT.

A synopsis in not a pitch. If you’re needing to send out a query email or a pitch to a publisher or producer, see my post on writing PITCHES HERE. In a pitch you cover genre, comparative titles, author information and give a one paragraph synopsis that gives the main action and themes of your story, but not the ending.

SO WHAT IS A SYNOPSIS?

A synopsis is your entire story in a page, or two if you’re lucky. I can hear the screams from here! “What? How do I get my 80 000 word novel into one page. It’s impossible!”

Well yes, writing your whole book in a page IS impossible. But if you do a good job of writing your synopsis you can give your reader (a prospective agent, publisher or producer), a good idea of what you story is about and how the plot unfolds.

Your synopsis will introduce your main character/protagonist and their primary story goals; and also let us know who or what is opposing that goal. The body of your synopsis shows us how the battle between our hope that the protagonist will achieve their goal and our fear that they won’t and the worst will happen, plays out. For more on this see SUSPENSE = HOPE + FEAR.

Your synopsis needs to include all major plot points, including the ending. Yes, even if there’s a twist you don’t want to give away.

Let’s get to it!

STEP 1

Who is your main character?

Brainstorm your protagonist – what makes them stand out from the crowd? Harry Potter isn’t just a child wizard, he’s an orphaned child wizard whose parents were killed by Voldemort. In Jaws, Chief Brody isn’t just the police chief on the island, he feels responsible for the deaths on his watch, and he’s afraid of the water (important detail to include when he’s fighting a shark).

Think of some contrasting adjectives to describe your character. In ‘Dear Madman’, my work in progress, the murderer is violent but vulnerable after a childhood of abuse in institutions.

Write a sentence describing your protagonist. Remember to make them as interesting as possible. We want our characters to be a little MORE than us regular humans. A passionate but psychotic police officer is a lot more interesting than a lazy accountant.

STEP 2

What does your character want?

What is your character’s goal? Your primary character goal is established in your inciting incident – the unexpected event that sets the whole story in motion.

In Harry Potter, Harry gets a letter inviting him to attend Hogwarts. In Jaws, a shark kills a swimmer at the same time as the holiday crowds arrive. In ‘Dear Madman’, the man is hired to work on the family farm.

Brainstorm your character’s goals. You can do this on three levels:

Physical – the material world (this is where the synopsis will mainly focus)

Emotional – the world of love, romance, feelings

Spiritual – often, as in Harry Potter, this comes down to the battle between good and evil

STEP 3

What opposes your main character’s goal?

Who or what is stopping them get what they want? If you’ve written a romance, this may be a love rival, or societal or cultural issues, or even warring families (think Romeo and Juliet). It may be an antagonist like Voldemort or the shark in Jaws, or it may be the political or social setting of the story as in Hunger Games, or even the sea, if you’re writing a story about a lone sailor circumnavigating the world. Setting is important. See my article on setting HERE.

Identify the opposition to your main character’s goal and write it down.

STEP 4

What is at stake?

What’s the very worst thing that could happen if your character doesn’t achieve their goal? Make it worse!

In Harry Potter, Voldemort will come to power and the world will be plunged into darkness. In Jaws, the shark will go on a human feeding frenzy and in Dear Madman, the man will murder the entire family in their beds.

Brainstorm what’s at stake.

You should already have all the answers within your story. If you’re having trouble coming up with answers to any of these questions, you may need to rethink before submitting. Write your synopsis then use it to ramp up the tension in your whole book/screenplay.

STEP 5

Write your logline/premise

Put STEPS 1, 2, 3 and 4 together to make your logline. For example: A police chief who’s afraid of the water and blames himself for the deaths on his watch, must hunt down and kill a giant shark before it kills again. Or: An orphaned child wizard must defeat the powerful warlock who killed his parents or the whole world will be plunged into darkness.

Write your logline and use it to keep a tight focus in step 5.

STEP 5

Write down all your main plot points

Focusing on the primary goal of your character as identified in your logline, and the actions they take to achieve that goal, jot down all the major plot points in your book. Include other characters that play a significant role in the story, but don’t include subplots or other characters that don’t move the story goal forward.

If you’re not sure what I mean by plot points, think of all the key emotional turning points in your story.

Start with your inciting incident or hook. Then move onto what happens that makes it impossible not to take on the challenge, the plans your character makes, what happens to those plans, and a big unexpected event at the middle of your story – the midpoint – that makes everything worse.

What actions does the antagonist take, or what events derail things? What’s the next big plan that fails and your character’s darkest moment? What gives them the determination to defeat the antagonist and achieve their goal? How do they change and grow? What’s the biggest plan and the big emotional moments in the climax? And then of course, what’s your ending.

Don’t worry if this takes pages, the next step will narrow it down.

STEP 6

Focus and finesse your list of plot points and write them in sentences.

Remember to keep the focus in tight on your premise, and your protagonists attempts to achieve their main story goal. Start with your inciting incident and logline: Eg When a man-eating shark kills a young woman at the start of holiday season, a police chief who’s afraid of the water and blames himself for the death, must hunt down the shark before it kills again. Then move on through each of your significant plot turning points.

Include your setting. This is vital for speculative fiction set in other worlds, or in any story where the setting impacts the action.

Cut, cut and cut again until you get as close to one page as you can. Then cut again.

STEP 7

Inject your unique tone or voice

This is the trickiest part. If you’ve written a comedy, your synopsis needs to be funny. If you’ve written a thriller, the synopsis needs to keep us guessing. If you’ve written a romance, then the reader has to sigh and get dreamy. If you’ve written a literary novel your own unique voice needs to shine through.

Redraft your synopsis making sure it matches the tone and genre of your book.

Don’t despair the hardest part is done!

DONE!

Well not really, synopsis writing takes time. Be prepared to work on it for over a week, refining and finessing it. Show it to your writing buddies who know your story, but also to writing buddies who don’t.

Have you shown enough of the storyline to hook them in? Does the story still make sense cut down to such a minimal outline?

Does it feel dead on the page? Often they do – don’t worry – as long as your storyline has enough action, it will still work. You can try including a line or two of dialogue, especially if that’s one of your strengths.

Don’t give up. Yes, writing a synopsis is hard, but you’ve done hard things before. You’ve written a whole book!