Synopsis: The Drake War

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Lil Tailor
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Synopsis: The Drake War

Post by Lil Tailor » December 9th, 2010, 10:24 am

Here is my synopsis. As always, any comments are wonderful!

**

Synopsis
Reborn and on the run from the supernatural mercenaries she served in a former life, Lillim Callina stumbles into a vampire plot to revive an ancient war between dragons. Now she must find a way to stop the ancient drake from awakening before her ruthless former mentor, Warthor, slams a planet-killing meteor into the dragon.

Stopping Warthor becomes the least of her worries when she inadvertently kidnaps the infant son of a werewolf king and turns him over to vampires she is trying to stop. Now threatened into responsibility for the child’s safety, Lillim ventures into the vampire stronghold after him. No match for the vampires within, her life is spared only by the bittersweet arrival of Caleb, one of the supernatural mercenaries she has been running from.

Managing to ditch Caleb at gunpoint, Lillim turns to her former lover, a half-demon named Joshua. As their relationship rekindles, Joshua tricks her into showing him a gun rumored to be able to kill any supernatural being. With the fabled weapon in his hands, Joshua vanishes.

Betrayed, Lillim summons the Emissary of Tragedy, a being reviled by the entire supernatural world, to aid her. Armed with the Emissary’s power, she confronts Warthor about the meteor. Joshua steps in and knocks her unconscious, lamenting that she forced his hand because she wouldn’t ask for help.

Caleb finally tracks down the unconscious Lillim and wakes her up. Despite his dogged insistence that she let him help her, Lillim confronts the drake by herself. Even with the power of the Emissary at her disposal, she quickly finds she is no match for the unstoppable power of the drake.

As the drake begins to crush her Warthor steps from the shadows and shoots the drake with her stolen gun. With an almost casual effort, Warthor absorbs what remains of the fallen drake’s power and departs, leaving the now used gun behind.

Caleb pleads with Lillim to return with him, but she refuses despite their feelings for each other. As Caleb starts to leave, Lillim kisses him, because for one night, she has forgotten why she left.

Emily J
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Re: Synopsis: The Drake War

Post by Emily J » January 1st, 2011, 6:57 pm

Lil Tailor wrote:Here is my synopsis. As always, any comments are wonderful!

**

Synopsis
Reborn and on the run from the supernatural mercenaries she served in a former life, I think this raised a lot of questions regarding how Lillim was reborn/who she was in a former life/why are the mercenaries supernatural or otherwise after her? Lillim Callina stumbles into a vampire plot to revive an ancient war between dragons. Now she must find a way to stop the ancient drake from awakening before her ruthless former mentor, Warthor, slams a planet-killing meteor into the dragon. this is a lot of plot to condense and I am slightly overwhelmed, here we have mercenaries, past lives, vampires, dragons and dragon wars, planet-killing meteors oddly being described as a weapon against dragons NOT planets... there are a lot of plot threads but I'm not really seeing how they all tie together yet.

Stopping Warthor becomes the least of her worries when she inadvertently kidnaps the infant son of a werewolf king how do you inadvertently kidnap someone? and turns him over to vampires she is trying to stop. Now threatened into responsibility <- this is an awkward turn of phrase, being threatened into responsibility for the child’s safety, Lillim ventures into the vampire stronghold after him. No match for the vampires within, her life is spared only by the bittersweet arrival of Caleb, very passive here, "her life is spared" by whom? and why? does Caleb save her? If so why? one of the supernatural mercenaries she has been running from.

Managing to ditch Caleb at gunpoint, who was at gunpoint? Lillim or Caleb? Lillim turns to her former lover, a half-demon named Joshua. As their relationship rekindles, Joshua tricks her into showing him a gun rumored to be able to kill any supernatural being. With the fabled weapon in his hands, Joshua vanishes.

Betrayed, Lillim summons the Emissary of Tragedy, a being reviled by the entire supernatural world, to aid her. Armed with the Emissary’s power, that was simple, hello Emissary of Tragedy? I need power. righto! she confronts Warthor about the meteor. Joshua steps in and knocks her unconscious, lamenting that she forced his hand because she wouldn’t ask for help. riiight, Joshua's sentiment doesn't really make sense here. Is he allied with Warthor? Or is he like 'if you dont ask for help I will kill you!'

Caleb finally tracks down the unconscious Lillim and wakes her up. Despite his dogged insistence that she let him help her, this sounds familiar, this is a recurring problem of hers? Lillim confronts the drake by herself. You did already use the verb confront. First Warthor and now the dragon who I am assuming woke up at some point? Even with the power of the Emissary at her disposal, she quickly finds she is no match for the unstoppable power of the drake. But what is the power of the Emissary? For that matter what IS the Emissary of Tragedy?? I mean I know what tragedy is, but not quite why it needs an emissary. I think you could expand/explain this more.

As the drake begins to crush her Warthor steps from the shadows and shoots the drake with her stolen gun. With an almost casual effort, Warthor absorbs what remains of the fallen drake’s power and departs, leaving the now used gun behind. I do find this kind of amusing. "I have this awesome gun of power that can kill any supernatural creature! Well now it's been used and therefore useless" *tosses in dumpster* Why does he leave the gun behind?

Caleb pleads with Lillim to return with him, but she refuses despite their feelings for each other. Wait, are these mercenaries not her enemy? I am confused as to why they are after her As Caleb starts to leave, Lillim kisses him, because for one night, she has forgotten why she left.
Well this feels a bit short for a synopsis. Granted there are many different acceptable lengths and you should always go by an agent's submission guidelines but this feels brief not only in terms of word count, but also with regards to the level of plot. The outline of the story here is very brief and I don't feel as though I understand any of the character's motivations. I think you could expand on this. But these are just suggestions to take or leave as you see fit!

Lil Tailor
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Re: Synopsis: The Drake War

Post by Lil Tailor » May 17th, 2011, 2:48 pm

I completely re-wrote my synopsis, but I'm thinking its too long (and kinda boring). thoughts?


**
Lillim Callina’s day isn’t supposed to go like this. No self-respecting sixteen-year-old girl should start her day with an attack from a supernatural pizza guy. Now granted, he was just delivering a message… from her half-demon, ex-boyfriend Joshua.

Sure they haven’t spoken since Lillim blasted a hole the size of Jupiter in him with a shotgun. Unfortunately, before she can figure out his message, a gang of submachine gun toting thugs break into her home and start shooting.

There is a new dragon in town and he’s one bad mama jama. On the upside, Lillim has an exciting opportunity to join his flock. That’s so not happening.

And Joshua’s message? Well that isn’t much better. In fact, it is downright creepy. He is in trouble and needs her help.

So being the good ex-girlfriend that she is, Lillim follows Joshua’s trail straight into a church. It’s run by a vampire named Voln, and he totally tricks her into helping him recover an object from some werewolves.

Awesome.

Before she can even protest she’s standing in front of a werewolf camp. After finding the object of Voln’s desire and shoving it into her magical pouch, she runs into a gigantic werewolf. They tussle and soon she is hanging upside down from a tree awaiting an Aztec-style ritual.

Still, magic is on her side, and she escapes before anyone notices and makes it back home. Well… she makes it back to what’s left of her home. It’s on fire. She looks to her left. Fire. She looks to her right. Fire. Needless to say, the roof is on fire.

Then a vampire slugs her in the face and steals the object from her. Except it’s not an object. It’s a baby. A living, breathing baby.

Papa werewolf isn’t happy about this. Lillim can tell because he’s very conveniently showed up just now. He wants his baby back which, in all reality, is totally reasonable.

So she’s going after this baby unless, of course, she wants to experience an Aztec-style ritual. At this rate, Lillim is never gonna slay that dragon.

She knows some vampires, but they are too busy trying to stop a renegade fire demon from burning down their home to help her. Thankfully Lillim is able to stop the demon before it does too much damage. The vampires are so happy that one of them, Logan, grudgingly decides to help her find the baby werewolf.

They arrive in Rome, which is a burned out husk by the way, because that’s where all the really old vampires live. The particular vampire Lillim’s after is called Bob. He lives in a house made of human flesh. It’s really, really gross and their meeting doesn’t go well. He doesn’t have the baby.

When she gets back outside Logan is no where to be found. Lightning crashes and Lillim sees him in the distance… with the baby. She’s been tricked.

She races over there only to narrowly avoid being hit by a sports car. Bob has decided that Logan must finish whatever creepy vampire ritual he is doing. Screw that.

Lillim is pretty sure she holds her own in this fight because, at the end, it’s Bob who is unconscious on the ground. Not that it matters because Logan finishes his stupid ritual and escapes with the baby. Papa werewolf is not gonna be happy.

That’s pretty much when the dragon shows up. He still wants Lillim to join him. She can still get in on the ground level after all. Or she can die. Before she can choose, her knight in shining armor shows up.

Caleb Oznek works for Lillim’s mother and, wouldn’t you know it, she wants Lillim to come back home. She should have sent a better knight because about five seconds into the fight the dragon totally incapacitates Caleb. Good thing his transporter still works, because that’s why they make it out alive.

Lillim spends three days in the hospital after that. She even tries to sneak out but Caleb won’t hear of it. He says he knows a guy who can tell them where to go. Lillim reluctantly allows him to come with her.

Long story short, Caleb takes Lillim to a dive bar to play pool with a demon. She can tell from watching that he is about to lose so she opts to do the honorable thing. She steals the magic eight ball they’re playing with and uses it to show her where the baby is. Then she ditches Caleb. Come on, the guy is basically an invalid. She doesn’t want him getting hurt.

The baby is in a giant castle. She blasts her way through and, as luck would have it, rescues the baby. When she gets home, she hands the child over to a man who says he’ll return him home. Lillim has no choice but to trust him as his power keeps her from moving in his presence.

It’s about then that a demon comes after her. In a case of extreme coincidence Joshua shows up immediately after and chases the demon away. He keeps being nice despite the fact that Lillim still wants to throw him off a building.

They go after the demon and as soon as Lillim shoots the demon with her magic gun everything fades away. In fact, she doesn’t even have her gun anymore. The whole thing was an illusion so Joshua could steal the weapon. That bastard.

Lillim goes after him. If he thinks he’s seen the extent of her ex-girlfriendy wrath, he is wrong. It will be a hell of brambles and fire.

She tracks him to her old Master’s place. Warthor is a peculiar fellow because he has all the maturity of a six year old and the intelligence of… well he’s really smart. He proceeds to beat Lillim within an inch of her life. Then Joshua shows up long enough to knock her unconscious, for her own good apparently.

Caleb wakes her up. He wants to help her stop the dragon and it’s really sweet. Lillim finally relents and he takes her to where the dragon is supposed to be. Then he lights Logan on fire.

Lillim resolves to never piss Caleb off as she ventures into the dragon’s stronghold. She should have known she couldn’t fight a dragon. They’re really big and strong after all. Needless to say, the dragon hands Lillim her ass on a silver platter.

As she stares up at the creature, wondering if her life is going to flash before her eyes, Warthor steps from the shadows and blows away the dragon… with Lillim’s magic gun. He forced Joshua to steal the weapon so that they could slay the dragon. He knew she wouldn’t use it. The worst thing is that he’s right.

Outside Caleb is waiting for her. He’s so sweet that it very nearly breaks Lillim’s heart when he begs and pleads for her to come back home. She’s not exactly sure what came over her then. Maybe it was the moonlight shining down on them, or the smell of fresh lilacs in the air. It could have just been that she’d never had a super hot, muscle-bound warrior say nice things to her. Whatever it was, she couldn’t stop herself from kissing him.

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Watcher55
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Re: Synopsis: The Drake War

Post by Watcher55 » May 17th, 2011, 6:29 pm

This is part of my process of trying to figure out what a synopsis is supposed to look like, so for what it’s worth:

I copied and pasted both versions. The first is just under a page (single space 12pt font), the second one is a little over 2 pages. Technically (and this is just what I think) I don’t think you’re outside the length parameters for a 1-2 page synopsis, but frankly I liked the first one a lot better. It flows a little more easily, and with the first one, it looks like you have a whole page and a half to work with to expound on what you already have.

What did Lillim do for the mercenaries she served? Is she/was she human? What kind of creature is Warthor? Is a Drake a type of dragon or something completely different? What’s the baggage that goes along with her not asking Joshua for help?

Things like that.

Emily J
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Re: Synopsis: The Drake War

Post by Emily J » May 23rd, 2011, 8:09 pm

Hmm, so I must admit I like the first synopsis better as well.

The second synopsis to me had an over abundance of voice. I think that style might work in a query, but it felt a bit too much in the longer synopsis. I agree that maybe you could just consider expanding on the first synopsis. While the first seems to lack some important plot points, the latter seemed to include more than were necessary. That's why writing a good synopsis is so hard, it's really a tight rope walk between giving away too little, and overwhelming the reader with too much.

Lil Tailor
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Re: Synopsis: The Drake War

Post by Lil Tailor » June 6th, 2011, 12:19 pm

What about something like this then?

**


Lillim Callina is not what you’d call normal. Sure, she looks like a regular sixteen-year-old girl, but that’s about where the similarities end. To start with, her overbearing, psycho mother is all but consumed with eradicating the supernatural. Hell, she taught Lillim to swim by throwing her into a lake filled with sea monsters. Needless to say, Lillim’s childhood wasn’t exactly idyllic.
That being said, when it comes to dealing with supernatural baddies, Lillim has been around the block a few times, in this life and in all her previous ones. So when a bunch of gun-toting maniacs invade her home begging for her help, it means just one thing. She’s going to kill a goddamn dragon.

Unfortunately, on her way to stop the new overgrown lizard on the block from touching off a war with the resident dragon, she’s forced into helping Voln, an ancient vampire, steal a mysterious box from some werewolves.

She totally manages to escape with the box, but before she can give it to Voln, it gets stolen by a rival vampire. And what’s worse? The box holds a baby werewolf rumored to be one of the legendary dragon knights reborn.

A dragon knight is a single individual chosen by a dragon to serve as an anchor in our world. Without an anchor, a dragon can’t be around for long. Could it be that the theft of the child is related to the appearance of a new dragon in town?

Either way, Lillim is getting that baby back. She tears apart a house made of human flesh and a German castle to find him, but not before the vampires use the baby’s blood to anchor the new dragon to our world.

As Lillim is trying to save the baby, her pain-in-the-ass ex-boyfriend Joshua shows up just in time to save her from a vicious demon. Of course, since he is the Lord of Illusions, showing up in time to stop one little demon from goring his ex-girlfriend can’t be that hard. Especially when the demon is an illusion he creates himself to scare the bejesus out of her. Why do that? So he can steal her magic gun, rumored to be able to kill anything.

As angry as she is, in her heart of hearts Lillim knows that Joshua would never willingly betray her. She also knows that there is only one man who could force him to do so, and that’s the current dragon knight Warthor Ein.

Good thing she’s already saved the baby werewolf, because now she has bigger fish to fry. When Lillim tracks Warthor down, she tries her well-known tactic of over-whelming force first, questions later and he responds in kind. Still she manages to turn the tables on him and just when she thinks he’s going to spill his plan, Joshua shows up and knocks her unconscious. Bastard.

Her mother’s right hand man—and Lillim’s one time crush— Caleb, is the one to find her. Sure, he’s shown up in time to save her once or twice along the way, but that gives him no right to insist on accompanying her into the dragon’s lair. It’s one thing to want to help her fight a dragon. It’s another to want to help, knowing you’ll be playing into one of Warthor’s plans to do it.

Lillim forces him to stay outside while she ventures inside… alone. She should have known she couldn’t fight a dragon. They’re really big and strong after all. Needless to say, the dragon hands Lillim her ass on a silver platter.

As she stares up at the creature, wondering if her life is going to flash before her eyes, Warthor steps from the shadows and blows away the dragon… with Lillim’s magic gun. He forced Joshua to steal the weapon so that they could slay the dragon. He knew she wouldn’t use it. The worst part is that he’s right.

Outside, Caleb is waiting for her. He’s so sweet that it very nearly breaks Lillim’s heart when he begs and pleads for her to come back home. She’s not exactly sure what comes over her then. Maybe it’s the moonlight shining down on them, or the smell of fresh lilacs in the air. It could just be that she’s never had a super hot, muscle-bound warrior say nice things to her. Whatever it is, she can’t stop herself from kissing him.

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