THE TIME Synopses (new version further down)

Ugh. You got stuck writing a synopsis. Help is on the way.
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hannah_dreamergirl_3
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THE TIME Synopses (new version further down)

Post by hannah_dreamergirl_3 » March 14th, 2011, 1:16 pm

Hi guys,

You were all amazing in helping me with my query, you know how it is, the first draft is always awful when you look at it again. So here is my synopses, it is the two pager to be sent to literary agents. It is specified with the agents that I'm sending to it should be a brief outline of the story, including the ending.
Any constructive criticism, as always, is more than welcome...

Thanks you lot!!!

THE TIME Synopses


After yet another night of drinking, Teri Monohan is more than a little surprised to find herself in her old work place, the Secret Departments, having been drugged. She faces her ex-fiancé, Carter Green. Teri was a secret agent for the British government before trouble with Carter left her fired whilst he continued his career. Not long after Teri awakes from her drug-induced sleep, Carter tells her about a mysterious time traveller who is causing the government huge problems; he can get through any type of security and appears to know all of their secrets.

Carter tells her that despite any previous misconduct, Wills, the new Head of Department has decided to give her a chance to prove herself as everyone else has failed to bring the time traveller in. Teri soon begins to think that all is not as it seems, as she faces Wills for the first time in months. The last time they met they were on equal footing and Wills is all too pleased to make sure Teri knows who is boss. Teri instantly gets the feeling that there is more to Wills than meets the eye.

After their meeting Teri is kept captive in one of the old on-call rooms, before being met by her old friend, Mac. He fills her in on what she has been missing and although he isn’t very happy not to have seen her in so long, he soon forgives her and he joins her as she goes to learn about how to time travel. But, just one day into training, after a night in a hotel as she is not allowed back to her own apartment, the time traveller has put the government on red alert as he tried to kill the Prime Minister and so Teri is thrown straight into the mission.

She finds herself in the midst of New Years Eve celebrations, though she’s not sure of the year, in London. It does not take her long to find the man, Michael Deapzey and begin to persuade him she is a friend so that he will tell her why he is doing what he is doing. After that evening they agree to meet in Paris and a quick phone call to Carter has arrangements made for clothes, money and a hotel. But on her way to the time machine she is attacked by a man in a black coat who warns her to stay away from Michael.

Once in Paris, Michael begins to open up and Teri soon discovers that Michael is being forced to carry out the activities which have drawn so much attention. Going back to her hotel, having made arrangement for their next meeting, Teri is again attacked, with a promise for worse to come if she doesn’t stay away from Michael. Teri decides to return to the Secret Departments to let everyone know what she has learned. Mac is instantly protective of her, whilst Carter is furious she has returned without completing the mission. Neither Carter or Wills will listen to her when she tells them there is an organisation behind Michaels actions. Teri wants them to bring Michael in to learn about this organisation as the problem is far bigger than one man.

Teri meets Michael in New York as he wants to show her the city. After a meal together which revealed Michael was not so open to revealing his secrets as Teri had hoped, they are shocked when they step outside to the sound of a gunshot. A young woman has been shot and Teri sees a man in a black coat running away from the scene, gun in hand. Without thinking, she follows.

Teri argues with the man who doesn’t give any information about the organisation other than to promise that every time she meets Michael Deapzey another person will die. Returning to the murder scene she grabs Michael and tells him he is coming with her.

Back in the Secret Departments, Wills is furious Teri has disobeyed him and without listening to her, has her thrown in a cell. When she is later released by Mac, she learns they are going to kill Michael anyway. In the following days Teri and Mac form a plan to save Michael before he’s killed. Teri also wants to find out about The Controller, which Michael told her he had to steal from the government, which can delete parts of history or stop time travel, forever.

The plan works, with Teri going undercover to get back into the Secret Departments and Mac planting false information that says to kill someone in time you must use an explosion. Teri returns to her own time without anyone realising what has happened, they all think Michael Deapzey is dead. But Teri isn’t finished yet, she is still suspicious of Wills and wants to know more about the secret organisation behind Michael’s actions.

Not long after Teri returns, her close family friend, Matthias is abducted from the Secret Departments, by the secret organisation. Teri learns through searching his desk and private laptop, that Matthias, with help from her own parents, created The Controller. This link to her parents makes her dwell on the time when they disappeared.

It is not long, however, before Matthias miraculously appears in Macs apartment, where Teri has been staying. He explains that the secret organisation is called The Time and Wills’s father was the man behind the group, now Wills himself has taken over. They want to use The Controller to open up time, creating one huge society that they can have leadership of. They already have The Controller and took Matthias to try and force him into explaining how it works, but he was able to escape. The Controller is hidden at Wills’s country house and he explains that Teri must go to his house, find the Controller and destroy it, she must also, for the greater good, stop time travel altogether. But Teri isn’t sure she wants to stop time travel as she now knows her parents might still be alive, trapped in time.

Whether she chooses to stop time travel or not, the plan is set. They will use the day of the department award ceremony for Teri to go to Wills’s house. She will find The Controller, take it somewhere safe and secret, then destroy it. Mac will create distractions for Wills to keep him away from his house, whilst Matthias will be on hand, just in case. Teri also learns that Wills had purposefully had her put on the case as he had been hoping to trick her into joining The Time, turning her against her own parents. Wills was also using Teri and Michael to cover up his own dark plans.

Teri and Macs plan is successful, with a few minor problems along the way. Teri returns to the Secret Departments in time for the awards ceremony which she has only been invited to as Macs plus one. Teri can’t resist facing Wills afterwards knowing all that he’s done and that he no longer has The Controller. But what follows is a huge fight and Wills pulls out a gun and shoots Teri.

Mac arrives just as Teri is shot. He manages to shoot and kill Wills and then rushes Teri to hospital.

Whilst Teri is in hospital the whole truth comes out. The department council decide to give Teri a new start and with Mac and Carter, she is a candidate to take over from Wills. A few members of the department disappear and Teri suspects there were more than just Wills involved in the plot to bring down the government.




I'm not sure if its a little long, though it fits into the two pages specified, any tips on where I could tighten it, let me no!!!
Last edited by hannah_dreamergirl_3 on March 18th, 2011, 1:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Check out my new blog at, http://hannahbullimore.wordpress.com

'Good writing is to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon'

ELDoctorow

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slavandria
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Re: THE TIME Synopses

Post by slavandria » March 16th, 2011, 11:09 am

Hannah, my first observation is I think you can skip a lot of the back story. Come up with your elevator pitch, those crucial 15 seconds to tell someone what your book is about. A one-liner. What is your book about? A woman who is sent back through time to find the person responsible for a string of murders.

Slowly build off of that line or that thought. Who is the woman? Why is she the one to do this? Where does she go? Why is she the one who has to find this murderer and How does she do it?

Make sure you bring in your conflicts and your resolutions but do it as economically as possible. You might want to start by doing a list of characters:

Wills: occupation, relationship to protagonist. what does he want?

Mac: same thing

Teri: same thing

Once you have your main characters who will be interacting with each other (forget all the side-kicks and behind the scenes people), start showing the conflicts between then, again using as few words as possible:

Teri wants ________. Wills doesn't want her to have it because _________

Do this for each character and then resolve them. I just think for now there is a lot of extraneous info and not enough of what matters.

I am really digging the way this ends, though. Nice wrap up.

jen

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hannah_dreamergirl_3
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Re: THE TIME Synopses

Post by hannah_dreamergirl_3 » March 16th, 2011, 1:26 pm

thanks Jen :-) that is really helpful! I will post the revised version here later.

Thanks!!!
Check out my new blog at, http://hannahbullimore.wordpress.com

'Good writing is to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon'

ELDoctorow

User avatar
hannah_dreamergirl_3
Posts: 53
Joined: February 16th, 2010, 12:11 pm
Location: Washington, England
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Re: THE TIME Synopses (new version further down)

Post by hannah_dreamergirl_3 » March 18th, 2011, 1:29 pm

‘“Teri, you join that game you end up chasing and chasing until you’re the one who gets chased.”’

Teri’s father’s favourite expression suddenly has new meaning when she wakes from a drug induced sleep to find herself back in the Secret Departments after having been fired. Carter, the reason she was thrown out, stands before her. A man from another time is causing huge problems for the government, somehow getting into high security areas, stealing documents and he’s getting worse. But all attempts to bring the man in, or kill him, have failed.

Carter tells Teri that despite any previous misconduct, Wills, the new Head of Department has decided to give her a chance to prove herself as everyone else has failed to bring the time traveller in. Teri soon begins to think that all is not as it seems, as she faces Wills for the first time in months. The last time they met they were on equal footing and Wills is all too pleased to make sure Teri knows who is boss. Teri instantly gets the feeling that there is more to Wills than meets the eye.

Teri, joined by her old friend Mac, attends training in time travel the next day, but, after a night in a hotel, as she is not allowed back to her own apartment, the time traveller has put the government on red alert. He tried to kill the Prime Minister and so Teri is thrown straight into the mission.

She finds herself in the midst of New Years Eve celebrations, though she’s not sure of the year, in London. It does not take her long to find the man, Michael Deapzey and begin to persuade him she is a friend so that he will tell her his secrets. After that evening they agree to meet in Paris, but on her way to the time machine she is attacked by a man in a black coat who warns her to stay away from Michael.

Once in Paris, Michael begins to open up and Teri soon discovers that Michael is being forced to carry out the activities which have drawn so much attention. Going back to her hotel, having made arrangements for their next meeting, Teri is again attacked, with a promise for worse to come if she doesn’t stay away from Michael. Teri decides to return to the Secret Departments to let everyone know what she has learned. Mac is instantly protective of her, whilst Carter is furious she has returned without completing the mission. Neither Carter, or Wills, will listen to her when she tells them there is an organisation behind Michaels actions. Teri wants them to bring Michael in to learn about this organisation, as the problem is far bigger than one man.

Teri and Michael meet in New York, 1939 and after a meal together which revealed Michael was not so open to revealing his secrets as Teri had hoped, they are shocked when they step outside to the sound of a gunshot. A young woman has been shot and Teri sees a man in a black coat running away from the scene, gun in hand. Without thinking, she follows.

After a tense altercation, the man won’t give any information about the organisation other than to promise that every time she meets Michael Deapzey, another person will die. Returning to the murder scene she grabs Michael and tells him he is coming with her.

Back in the Secret Departments, Wills is furious Teri has disobeyed him and without listening to her, has her thrown in a cell. When she is later released by Mac, she learns they are going to kill Michael anyway. In the following days Teri and Mac form a plan to save Michael before he’s killed. Teri also wants to find out about The Controller, which Michael told her he had to steal from the government, which can delete parts of history or stop time travel, forever.

The plan works, with Teri going undercover to get back into the Secret Departments and Mac planting false information that says to kill someone in time you must use an explosion. Teri returns to the present day, without anyone realising what has happened, they all think Michael Deapzey is dead. But Teri isn’t finished yet, she is still suspicious of Wills and wants to know more about the secret organisation behind Michael’s actions.

Not long after Teri returns, her close family friend, Matthias is abducted from the Secret Departments, by the secret organisation. Teri learns through searching his desk and private laptop, that Matthias, with help from her own parents, created The Controller. This link to her parents makes her dwell on the time when they disappeared.

It is not long, however, before Matthias miraculously appears in Macs apartment, where Teri has been staying. He talks about the secret organisation, The Time. Wills’s father was the man behind the group, now Wills himself has taken over. They want to use The Controller to open up time, creating one huge society that they can have leadership of. They already have The Controller and took Matthias to try and force him into explaining how it works, but he was able to escape.

The Controller is hidden at Wills’s country house and he explains that Teri must go to his house, find the Controller and destroy it, she must also stop time travel altogether. But Teri isn’t sure she wants to stop time travel as she now knows her parents might still be alive, trapped in time.

Whether she chooses to stop time travel or not, the plan is set. They will use the day of the department award ceremony for Teri to go to Wills’s house. She will find The Controller, take it somewhere safe and secret, then destroy it. Mac will create distractions for Wills to keep him away from his house, whilst Matthias will be on hand, just in case. Teri also learns that Wills had purposefully had her put on the case as he had been hoping to trick her into joining The Time, turning her against her own parents beliefs. Wills was also using Teri and Michael to cover up his own dark plans.

Teri and Macs plan is successful, with a few minor problems along the way. Teri returns to the Secret Departments in time for the awards ceremony which she has only been invited to as Macs plus one. Teri can’t resist facing Wills afterwards knowing all that he’s done and that he no longer has The Controller. But what follows is a huge fight and Wills pulls out a gun and shoots Teri.

Mac arrives just as Teri is shot. He manages to shoot and kill Wills and then rushes Teri to hospital.

Whilst Teri is in hospital the whole truth comes out. The department council decide to give Teri a new start and with Mac and Carter, she is a candidate to take over from Wills. A few members of the department disappear and Teri suspects there were more than just Wills involved in the plot to bring down the government.
Check out my new blog at, http://hannahbullimore.wordpress.com

'Good writing is to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon'

ELDoctorow

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