The Vampire Next Door-Paranormal Romance- Synopsis-1st Draft

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garnell wallace
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The Vampire Next Door-Paranormal Romance- Synopsis-1st Draft

Post by garnell wallace » September 23rd, 2012, 3:36 pm

Hello Everyone,

This is my first attempt at a synopsis; which was as hard to write as the query. I plan to submit to one agent who wants a 3-5 paragraph synopsis, but I decided to do a longer one in anticipation for those agents who will request it. I'm thinking once I get the longer one as perfect as possible, I can further narrow it down to a one-page. I'd appriciate any comments or suggestions.





The seemingly idyllic city of Bern, Switzerland with its rich Alpine mountains and cobbled streets is poised to become

the battle ground for a war between vampires and witches that has been brewing for five hundred years. RAINE

JENSEN is the catalyst of the war. She possesses enough life-force to resurrect an entire coven of witch’s intent on retribution against the vampire clan who massacred them.



Raine, a psychic medium, moves into the house next door to ROMAN CONTI, a handsome, mysterious man who comes with two small children and a long list of questions; not the least of which was did he murder his wife?



(Don't quite know how to connect this with the next sentence)



Raine was born with a sense of loss. Left on a church step by her birth mother, she grew up feeling deprived of a history which could’ve explained the dark powers she’d been cursed with; the most innocent of which was seeing ghosts. Her devoutly religious adopted parents identified her powers as demonic and after a particularly traumatic attempt at an exorcism when she was ten, Raine decided to bury the rest her powers so deep inside herself they would never surface again. Her ability to help spirits obtain justice and closure assures Raine she’s not completely bad and for a while she leads a very co-existent life with her fiancé. After her fiancé dies tragically Raine’s world shatters.



Roman grew up mad at the world with a mother who never got over her husband’s desertion. Roman tried desperately to get his mother to love him before finally giving up and leaving home at seventeen, determined to find the only version of love he needed in the arms of any woman who would have him. He never gives his heart to anyone until he meets KATHERINE; a trust-fund wannabe-rebel he marries and has two children with before Katherine realizes she doesn’t want to be a mother and leaves him to raise the girls on his own.



One night after their divorce, Katherine disappears and her parents, who’ve always hated Roman, are convinced he murdered her. Three months later Katherine shows up on Roman’s doorstep with a change of heart and species, ready to make them one big, happy, immortal family. Roman is turned and wakes up among vampires who have saved him and his children from Katherine.



But there are many in the clan who do not support Roman, and in an effort to gain their respect, Roman has to kill Raine. The attraction between Raine and Roman is instant and consuming, and in an to attempt to put the pieces of her life back together, Raine decides on a one night stand with Roman.



Their night together unleashes more than just sexual tension. Roman illicit Raine’s dark energy as much as he does her sexual side. As usual, Raine’s afraid of surrendering to it, but she can’t help surrendering to Roman, and her energy consumes them both in an explosive release.



Roman knows it was risky to sleep with Raine, but as she cries in his arms for the fiancé and life she’s lost, he acknowledges that he is a complete fool. What was it about Raine that prevented him from keeping his heart out of the bedroom like he’d always done? Why did he now want to protect her when keeping her alive could destroy everything that he loves?



After her night with Roman, Raine knew he wasn’t just a man and when she confronts him Roman confounds her with the amazing story of his life and the vampire ex-wife he has to protect his children from.



Raine is intrigued by the contradictory aspects of Roman’s life and begins to believe she could use all of her powers in a positive way. She has no clue that the thing that could make her stronger could also kill her.



Raine learns that Roman is her killer when she’s attacked in the woods by Katherine and MIDIAN; the original vampire who led the attack on the coven. Katherine is about to kill Raine when instinctively Raine starts a witch’s keen which incapacitates the vampires and allows her to run out of the woods right into Roman’s arms.



When Raine confronts him, Roman doesn’t deny that he had intended to kill her; but he has fallen in love with her and will do all he can to save her from her fate. Raine admits she loves the man she thought he’d been, but now she wants nothing to do with him.



Needing to get away, Raine goes to Paris to stay with friends. So she’s shocked when she wakes up and one of them has a gun pointed to her head because she’d been having an affair with Raine’s fiancé and feels Raine was the cause of his death. After Roman saves her, Raine realizes that despite his lies, Roman is the only person she can count on and she goes back to Bern with him to try and fight for her life.



Roman meets Katherine once again in the woods and though he knows he has to kill her to protect their children, it’s still a heart-wrenching experience. Soon after, they learn that the only way to change Raine’s destiny is for Roman to travel to hell; a place where he spent the first three months of his vampire life fighting his way out. But he’s willing to go back to save the woman he loves.



In hell, where his powers don’t work the same as they do on earth, Roman defeats an invincible warrior for Raine’s soul. He makes a mistake in trusting the devil because though he releases Raine, Lucifer decides to keep Roman for himself and seals up the gateway between heaven and hell.



Raine has to embrace the power she’s always been afraid of in order to open the gate and free Roman. But their problems are far from over. Raine is attacked by Midian and Roman battles with him to save her life. Just when Roman is about to kill Midian he confesses that he was the one who sired Roman and if he is killed, Roman will die also. But he underestimates what Roman is willing to do for the people he loves. Roman kills Midian and soon after his body starts to die.



The only way to save him is for Raine to die. She bounds Roman to her incredible life-force and then allows herself to surrender to the lake. Raine goes to the other side and brings Roman back to life; a life they can now happily share.

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Shipple
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Re: The Vampire Next Door-Paranormal Romance- Synopsis-1st Draft

Post by Shipple » October 5th, 2012, 7:34 am

Oh, dear, the spacing, it is distracting me and driving my brain crazy.
I realize that this forum can be a little awkward to use, formatting-wise, but it is definitely things like this that emphasize for me that that I don't want to send anything to an agent that is unappealing to the eye b/c they might just delete it (not that you would, I do recognize the limits of formatting here). Sorry for the side-rant.

But aside from that . . . this sounds interesting.
garnell wallace wrote:Hello Everyone,

This is my first attempt at a synopsis; which was as hard to write as the query. I plan to submit to one agent who wants a 3-5 paragraph synopsis, but I decided to do a longer one in anticipation for those agents who will request it. I'm thinking once I get the longer one as perfect as possible, I can further narrow it down to a one-page. I'd appriciate any comments or suggestions.





The seemingly idyllic city of Bern, Switzerland with its rich Alpine mountains and cobbled streets is poised to become the battle ground for a war between vampires and witches that has been brewing for five hundred years. I like the contrast you set up here between the peaceful idyllic city and a battlegroundRAINE JENSEN is the catalyst of the war. She possesses enough life-force to resurrect an entire coven of witch’s intent on retribution against the vampire clan who massacred them.

Raine, a psychic medium good-I definitely wondered what she was, moves into the house next door to ROMAN CONTI, a handsome, mysterious man who comes with two small children and a long list of questions; not the least of which was did he murder his wife? So she's a war catalyst who everyone is fighting over and she jsut lives in an ordinary neighborhood? Is she hiding out and pretending to be someone else? Also, for me, the way you say this makes me think he comes with a literal list of questions, and it does almost sound like they might be his questions, not questions Raine has. You might consider a sentence like, "Raine has a million questions about him" or possibly something a little less cliche that conveys what you mean more clearly.

(Don't quite know how to connect this with the next sentence)

Raine was born with a sense of loss. Left on a church step by her birth mother, she grew up feeling deprived of a history which could’ve explained the dark powers she’d been cursed with; the most innocent of which was seeing ghosts. This sentence might be better as two separate sentences. It feels a little like a run-on.Her devoutly religious adopted parents identified her powers as demonic and after a particularly traumatic attempt at an exorcism when she was ten, Raine decided to bury the rest her powers so deep inside herself they would never surface again. Her ability to help spirits obtain justice and closure assures Raine she’s not completely bad and for a while she leads a very co-existent life with her fiancé. Wait. How is she helping spirits if she buried her powers so deeply that they never resurface?After her fiancé dies tragically Raine’s world shatters. You might want to mention how the fiance dies because "tragically" just makes me wonder.
Maybe you could make this your second paragraph, then, once we know more about Raine, introduce the fact that now she's living next to Roman, and then go into Roman's history.
I'm sorry, and maybe it's just me, but I actually got confused between your two characters, despite the fact you obviously have very different personalities for them. It's just that both their names start with R and are very similar in length, and I was skimming, but I have the feeling agents will skim too, so you might want to think about that.


Roman grew up mad at the world with a mother who never got over her husband’s desertion. Roman tried desperately to get his mother to love him before finally giving up and leaving home at seventeen, determined to find the only version of love he needed in the arms of any woman who would have him. So up til this point I think you've crafted some unique settings and used a few tropes, but I liked them because I like the genre, and this book sounds like it could be fun, but this descriptions of Roman feels like the back of every romance I've ever hated, and I actually love romances, just not the ones with annoying MCs. Honestly, I think I could like Roman, but please don't describe him like this. Make it more personal and unique. Make me feel real sympathy for him-I know that's really hard in a short synopsis, but after reading that last sentence I do not like him.He never gives his heart to anyone until he meets KATHERINE; a trust-fund wannabe-rebel he marries and has two children with before Katherine realizes she doesn’t want to be a mother and leaves him to raise the girls on his own.

One night after their divorce, Katherine disappears and her parents, who’ve always hated Roman, are convinced he murdered her. This might be more effective if it happens the day before the divorce is final, just b/c then her parents could say he did it all for the money.Three months later Katherine shows up on Roman’s doorstep with a change of heart and species fun way to put this!, ready to make them one big, happy, immortal family. Roman is turned and wakes up among vampires who have saved him and his children from Katherine. I thought she wanted them to be one happy, immortal family. Why do they need to be saved? Is it because children can't grow up once they're vampires? That's pretty common, but this still feels a little confusing.

But there are many in the clan who do not support Roman Why not? They just saved him. Why did they bother to save him then?, and in an effort to gain their respect, Roman has to kill Raine. The attraction between Raine and Roman is instant and consuming, and in an to attempt to put the pieces of her life back together, Raine decides on a one night stand with Roman. You might want to separate these two ideas more, just to convey the difference between Raine and Roman's very differing perspectives/choices.

Their night together unleashes more than just sexual tension. Roman illicit Raine’s dark energy as much as he does her sexual side. Confused.As usual, Raine’s afraid of surrendering to it, but she can’t help surrendering to Roman, and her energy consumes them both in an explosive release.

Roman knows it was risky to sleep with Raine, but as she cries in his arms for the fiancé and life she’s lost, he acknowledges that he is a complete fool. What was it about Raine that prevented him from keeping his heart out of the bedroom like he’d always done? Why did he now want to protect her when keeping her alive could destroy everything that he loves? I'd build up to this with some info on personal interactions, so it's not just the magic of the sex speaking.

After her night with Roman, Raine knew he wasn’t just a man and when she confronts him Roman confounds her with the amazing story of his life and the vampire ex-wife he has to protect his children from.

Raine is intrigued by the contradictory aspects of Roman’s life and begins to believe she could use all of her powers in a positive way. She has no clue that the thing that could make her stronger could also kill her. THis is a little vague. You might want to refer to Roman more explicitly.

Raine learns that Roman is her killer when she’s attacked in the woods by Katherine and MIDIAN; the original vampire who led the attack on the coven. Katherine is about to kill Raine when instinctively Raine starts a witch’s keen which incapacitates the vampires and allows her to run out of the woods right into Roman’s arms.

When Raine confronts him, Roman doesn’t deny that he had intended to kill her; but he has fallen in love with her and will do all he can to save her from her fate. Raine admits she loves the man she thought he’d been, but now she wants nothing to do with him.

Needing to get away, Raine goes to Paris to stay with friends. So she’s shocked when she wakes up and one of them has a gun pointed to her head because she’d been having an affair with Raine’s fiancé and feels Raine was the cause of his death. After Roman saves her, Raine realizes that despite his lies, Roman is the only person she can count on and she goes back to Bern with him to try and fight for her life.

Roman meets Katherine once again in the woods and though he knows he has to kill her to protect their children, it’s still a heart-wrenching experience. Soon after, they learn that the only way to change Raine’s destiny is for Roman to travel to hell; a place where he spent the first three months of his vampire life fighting his way out. But he’s willing to go back to save the woman he loves.

In hell, where his powers don’t work the same as they do on earth, Roman defeats an invincible warrior for Raine’s soul. He makes a mistake in trusting the devil because though he releases Raine, Lucifer decides to keep Roman for himself and seals up the gateway between heaven and hell.

Raine has to embrace the power she’s always been afraid of in order to open the gate and free Roman. But their problems are far from over. Raine is attacked by Midian and Roman battles with him to save her life. Just when Roman is about to kill Midian he confesses that he was the one who sired Roman and if he is killed, Roman will die also. But he underestimates what Roman is willing to do for the people he loves. Roman kills Midian and soon after his body starts to die.

The only way to save him is for Raine to die. She bounds Roman to her incredible life-force and then allows herself to surrender to the lake. Raine goes to the other side and brings Roman back to life; a life they can now happily share.
You lost me a bit when Roman had to go to hell. It felt kind of out of nowhere. I didn't even know people in your world COULD go to hell. Maybe you established this much more clearly in your novel, but in the synopsis, it just sort of popped up after a lot of other traumatic events had happened, and I was like, "Wait? Hell? Did I know about that?"

I love the way you start off, and I think that you might have some great elements working here, but at times you really lapse into romance cliche, and even if you make it sound better in the book (which I think is very possible), that isn't well conveyed in the synopsis. I love romances. I know they are about a man and a woman who overcome all odds to be together, but you do have to watch the way you phrase everything to make it sound more unique and personal and make the characters sound as sympathetic as possible.
I'm sorry. I know that is very difficult to do in synopsis form, but I think that if you succeed you will get much more interest in your novel.
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garnell wallace
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Re: The Vampire Next Door-Paranormal Romance- Synopsis-1st Draft

Post by garnell wallace » October 7th, 2012, 5:05 pm

Thanks Shipple for all your wonderful advice.
I've made some changes that hopefully makes the synopsis a lot better.
I also made a shorter version for those agents who only want a page or two but your advice really helped me to polish it so much more.
Thanks for the fresh eyes!

RAINE JENSEN was born with a sense of loss. Left on a church step by her birth mother, she grew up feeling deprived of a history which could’ve explained the dark powers she’d been cursed with; the most innocent of which was seeing ghosts. Her devoutly religious adopted parents identified her powers as demonic and after a particularly traumatic attempt at an exorcism when she was ten, Raine decided to bury the rest of her powers so deep inside herself they would never surface again. Her ability to help spirits obtain justice and closure assures Raine she’s not completely bad and for a while she leads a very co-existent life with her fiancé. After her fiancé dies in a plane crash Raine’s world shatters.

ROMAN CONTI grew up mad at the world with a mother who never got over her husband’s desertion. Roman tried desperately to get his mother to love him before finally giving up and leaving home at seventeen. He never gives his heart to anyone until he meets KATHERINE; a trust-fund wannabe-rebel he marries and has two children with before Katherine realizes she doesn’t want to be a mother and leaves him to raise the girls on his own.

One night after their divorce, Katherine disappears and her parents, who’ve always hated Roman, are convinced he murdered her. Three months later Katherine shows up on Roman’s doorstep with a change of heart and species, ready to make them one big, happy, immortal family. Roman is turned, but before Katherine can immortalized the children she’s chased away by another vampire who then takes Roman and the children to a vampire sanctuary in Switzerland.

These two lost souls who both grew up in New York City, are about to be reborn in the seemingly idyllic city of Bern, Switzerland with its rich Alpine mountains and cobbled streets. The city is also about to become the battle ground for a war between vampires and witches that has been brewing for five hundred years.

Raine is the catalyst of the war. She possesses enough life-force to resurrect an entire coven of witch’s intent on retribution against the vampire clan who massacred them. It is Roman’s job to kill Raine and prevent Anastasia’s attempt at a coup d'état.

The attraction between Raine and Roman is instant and consuming, and in an to attempt to put the pieces of her life back together, Raine decides on a one night stand with Roman. Their night together unleashes more than just sexual tension. Unbeknownst to them, their hearts is as ready for love as their bodies, and they are forever changed.

Roman knows it was risky to sleep with Raine, but as she cries in his arms for the fiancé and life she’s lost, he acknowledges that he is a complete fool. What was it about Raine that prevented him from keeping his heart out of the bedroom like he’d always done? Why did he now want to protect her when keeping her alive could destroy everything that he loves?

After her night with Roman, Raine knew he wasn’t just a man and when she confronts him Roman confounds her with the amazing story of his life and the vampire ex-wife he has to protect his children from.

Raine is intrigued by the contradictory aspects of Roman’s life and begins to believe she could use all of her powers in a positive way. But then Raine learns that Roman is her killer when she’s attacked in the woods by Katherine and MIDIAN; the original vampire who led the attack on the coven. Katherine is about to kill Raine when instinctively Raine starts a witch’s keen which incapacitates the vampires and allows her to run out of the woods right into Roman’s arms.

When Raine confronts him, Roman doesn’t deny that he had intended to kill her; but he has fallen in love with her and will do all he can to save her from her fate. Raine admits she loves the man she thought he’d been, but now she wants nothing to do with him.

Needing to get away, Raine goes to Paris to stay with friends. So she’s shocked when she wakes up and one of them has a gun pointed to her head because she’d been having an affair with Raine’s fiancé and feels Raine was the cause of his death. After Roman saves her, Raine realizes that despite his lies, Roman is the only person she can count on and she goes back to Bern with him to try and fight for her life.

Roman meets Katherine once again in the woods and though he knows he has to kill her to protect their children, it’s still a heart-wrenching experience. Soon after, they learn that the only way to change Raine’s destiny is for Roman to travel to purgatory; a place all vampires went to as they transitioned from one life to the next. Roman had spent the first three months of his vampire life fighting his way out. But he’s willing to go back to save the woman he loves.

In purgatory, where his powers don’t work the same as they do on earth, Roman defeats an invincible warrior for Raine’s soul. He makes a mistake in trusting the devil because though he releases Raine, Lucifer decides to keep Roman for himself and seals up the gateway between heaven and hell.

Raine has to embrace the power she’s always been afraid of in order to open the gate and free Roman. But their problems are far from over. Raine is attacked by Midian and Roman battles with him to save her life. Just when Roman is about to kill Midian he confesses that he was the one who sired Roman and if he is killed, Roman will die also. But he underestimates what Roman is willing to do for the people he loves. Roman kills Midian and soon after his body starts to die.

The only way to save him is for Raine to die. She bounds Roman to her incredible life-force and then allows herself to surrender to the lake. Raine goes to the other side and brings Roman back to life; a life they can now happily share.

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