In the Shadow of the Dragon King - 2 page synopsis

Ugh. You got stuck writing a synopsis. Help is on the way.
Post Reply
User avatar
slavandria
Posts: 33
Joined: March 14th, 2010, 9:40 am
Location: Florida
Contact:

In the Shadow of the Dragon King - 2 page synopsis

Post by slavandria » March 16th, 2011, 10:13 am

I'm ready to start querying and would like some eyes on my synopsis. any comments would be helpful. I also have a four page synopsis in the event an agent or publisher wants a longer version. It reads much like this one but is a bit more detailed.

“There’s no such thing as other worlds, not unless you believe in fairytales, which I don’t.”

“Well then, Master David — I suggest you start believing.”


When fifteen-year old DAVID HEILAND finds a recent letter from his mother, his perfect little rich-boy world turns upside down. His parents are supposed to be dead.

Convinced his godmother, LILY, is lying, David confides in his best friend, CHARLOTTE STINE. Charlotte tries to convince David he’s over-reacting, but he rejects her reasoning. He is adamant his parents are alive and is determined to discover the truth.

One night while in the mansion’s library, he overhears a conversation between a stranger and Lily. An enemy has found David and he must leave Havendale in the morning for his protection. David takes off with Charlotte at dawn, but they are attacked by the neighborhood bully, MARTIN SANDERMAN. David is stabbed. Back at his house they find Lily is gone, but in her place is a man named TWILLER. Before David can extract information, Martin storms in the house with a gun, aims and fires.

David wakes and discovers he and Charlotte are in the realm of Fallhollow. Twiller escorts them to the sorceress, SLAVANDRIA, and learns he is the paladin. In order to return home, he must locate the secreted heir to the throne of Hirth, return the kidnapped queen and king to Gyllen castle while evading an unknown creature of great magic, and the infamous dragon, EINAR. David agrees to take on the quest provided Slavandria help him find his parents and return everyone to Havendale. Slavandria agrees.

David and Charlotte set out on their journey across Fallhollow with a grand master knight from Hirth, SIR TROGSDILL 'TROG' DOMNALL. When they reach the Field of Palinar, David befriends the dragon, MIRITH, one of two souls with the power to kill Einar.

The companions trek through Einar’s domain when Einar attacks. Mirith and Trog fight while David and Charlotte run. Mirith suffers what David believes to be a fatal blow. Einar retreats for a moment, but then returns and attacks again. David separates from the group and runs deep into the Forest with Einar in pursuit. He escapes and winds up in the care of a sestra who tells David that Einar has kidnapped Charlotte. Plagued with guilt for leaving his best friend, David abandons his quest and makes for Einar’s Lair – Berg Castle, to find Charlotte.

Inside, he fails to find Charlotte, but he discovers the king of Hirth and a boy about his age named ERIC. Using magic, David and Eric search the castle for weapons but Einar senses their presence and gives pursuit. David and Eric evade Einar, confiscate what they need, and return to the dungeon to get the king. They almost reach Hirth when Einar and his army strike. Hirthinian knights and soldiers arrive across the Haldorian Bridge. A battle erupts. David hears Mirith’s voice in his head and whips around to see the dragon, Charlotte and the queen running across the battlefield. David joins them and runs toward the bridge for safety, but the sorcerer, SEYEKRAD captures David in a thread of magic. Einar and Seyekrad assail each other over David. Mirith bombards Einar with ice bolts. Slavandria casts spells upon Seyekrad. Einar and Seyekrad are wounded and retreat. David and the others are taken to Gyllen Castle.

After Slavandria heals David, he discovers the king and queen are safe and that Eric is the heir to the throne. He also finds out that Seyekrad is the unknown man of magic who sought him as well as the one responsible for writing the letter from David’s mother.

Remembering his horrible words to Lily, David sobs and vows to listen more and react less in the future. Slavandria comforts him and tells him to not berate himself, that there is more he needs to know: his parents are not his real parents. And while she is unclear who they are, Slavandria stands by her promise to help David find them and return everyone home. Brimming with confusion and hope, David falls asleep and dreams of Havendale. Tomorrow, his search for his parents begins.

In the Shadow of the Dragon King is the first installment in the Chronicles of Fallhollow trilogy. In the second novel tentatively entitled, The Lost Crystals, David, Charlotte and Eric must find the seven lost crystals necessary to restore the ancient mage magic to Fallhollow. Their journey takes them on a harrowing adventure across Fallhollow and into David’s and Charlotte’s hometown of Havendale, Tennessee where forgotten mysteries of the town begin to unravel.

User avatar
DanielaTorre
Posts: 11
Joined: March 4th, 2011, 6:35 pm
Location: Miami, Florida
Contact:

Re: In the Shadow of the Dragon King - 2 page synopsis

Post by DanielaTorre » March 16th, 2011, 11:57 pm

I'm not quite at the stage of creating my own synopsis, therefore it's still a bit foreign to me. However, there was one thing that caught my eye:

MARTIN SANDERMAN - you refer to him as the neighborhood bully, yet he's running around stabbing and shooting people? That sounds more like a dangerous felon than a neighborhood bully.

DAVID is shot and then he wakes - how did he get from being shot to being in the realm of Fallhollow?

A Paladin - what is his function and why is he so important to these people in particular? Paladins were known to be christian, that's why I ask.

Perhaps you should introduce Seyekrad earlier on so he won't feel like he was just thrown in there for good measure. If he's important, you should give some sort of foreshadowing to his introduction.

There's a lot of high fantasy toward the end with them casting spells and what not. I don't believe the actions are crucial to the summarization of the story i.e. threw icebolts, etc. I know explaining it is exciting (trust me, I know) but I think you can polish that up a bit.


Hope that helps!
Through the Looking Glass - A Wannabe's Perspective of Literary Wonderland

User avatar
slavandria
Posts: 33
Joined: March 14th, 2010, 9:40 am
Location: Florida
Contact:

Re: In the Shadow of the Dragon King - 2 page synopsis

Post by slavandria » March 17th, 2011, 11:43 am

Thank you, Daniela for your comments and taking time to read. I will see how I can incorporate your thoughts to make it a bit tighter.

littlelostalien
Posts: 1
Joined: August 15th, 2011, 9:06 am
Contact:

Re: In the Shadow of the Dragon King - 2 page synopsis

Post by littlelostalien » August 27th, 2011, 5:32 am

Hi Slavandria!

I am also new here, and not experienced at synopsis writing, but I have a few comments that might be helpful. I got the impression that this is a really interesting story, but from your synopsis I found it hard to understand how it fits together. Here are some of the confusions I had:

How does the supposed letter from David’s mother connect to the rest of the story?
Why do David and Charlotte leave without Lily?
Why does a neighbourhood bully (in a neighbourhood with mansions no less) go around stabbing and shooting people?
How does being shot connect to going to the realm of Fallhollow?
What is the unknown creature of great magic? Is it Seyekrad? How does he fit into the story? Why does he want David? Presumably this means there’s more going on here than just the need to find the royal family, because Seyekrad doesn’t seem interested in them.
What does ‘his parents are not his real parents’ mean? Maybe there’s a mystery here you don’t want to reveal in this book, but I found it a bit off-putting that it be expressed by a contradiction.

I don't know that you'll want to answer all of these questions - I expected a synopsis is supposed to leave you wondering about some things, to encourage you to read the story. But maybe you could amke it a bit clear how the parts of the story connect to each other, especially the beginning to the rest?

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests