Having serious trouble

Ugh. You got stuck writing a synopsis. Help is on the way.
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Philabuster
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Having serious trouble

Post by Philabuster » February 20th, 2013, 5:07 pm

So this is my first time writing a synopsis and I'm having serious trouble. I read all of Nathan's posts, as well as some others from random author blogs, but I'm still having trouble implementing that golden knowledge into my own synopsis. A big problem I'm facing is:
A) My book is told through multiple 3rd person POV
B) The story itself is not linear. (Similar to Pulp Fiction where the reader see's part of the story and then later on revisits the same scene from a different angle)

I wrote a rough draft and have been staring at it for the past week. It's not good enough, but I can't see where I can improve. Maybe you guys can help!



Martin’s twenty year old gambling problem resurfaces when he and his girlfriend Jenny visit the Hotel Reverie & Casino. There for only one night, he loses all of his money, Jenny’s money, and a five thousand dollar deposit for his boss on a combination of roulette and the Lakers. Jenny leaves him, and Martin quickly becomes suicidal, plotting to take his own life with a knife from the hotel’s restaurant. Before he is able to go through with it, he runs into Dan, a man he was gambling with earlier on in the night, along with Dan’s friend Alex. Dan and Alex are at the hotel, along with three other men, for Alex’s bachelor party, and they invite Martin to smoke a joint with them in their suite. While smoking in the lavish hotel room, Martin meets Janice for the first time; and a short time later, he runs into her again and invites her up to his room.

Janice is a foul mouthed, argumentative waitress working in the hotel’s signature restaurant, Fantaisie, where she desperately is searching for a way out of her job and her life. Dreadfully lonely, she tries to find companionship in Alex while he and his bachelor party friends are eating dinner at her restaurant; but is forced to settle for his friend Sean when she discovers Alex is the one getting married. Sean turns out to be a monster creep and she later runs out of Sean’s suite feeling dejected and embarrassed. She bumps into Martin on the casino floor, and follows him up to his room.

While together in Martin’s room, Martin confesses to Janice about his suicidal thoughts, and Janice does her best to not confess hers to Martin. As Martin grows to understand how deep Janice’s emotional wounds run, a blackout occurs in the hotel, blanketing all of the rooms, hallways, the casino, and the lobby in darkness.

Alex, Dan, and Sean are searching for a fourth member of their group, Joey, immediately before the blackout occurs. They find him at a secret gay party, hosted by the hotel’s concierge Miguel, where Joey’s true sexual identity exposes itself in a highly public form. Miguel’s party friend, Fernando, is injured as a result of the blackout and Miguel calls his coworker Noah for assistance while he helps the bachelor party get back to their suite on the top floor.

Noah entrusts his recent fiancé, Mary, to help with Fernando and Mary calls her best friend who waitresses with her at the hotel, Janice, to be with her during the blackout. Janice brings Martin with her and it’s there where Janice discovers that Noah and Mary are getting married. Mary and Janice talk about the wedding and Noah’s proposal while Martin aid’s Fernando’s injury. Fernando gives Martin two hundred and fifty dollars, thinking that Martin is somebody else, and then passes out on the couch and shuns Martin out into the hallway with Janice and Mary. After Mary leaves to help Noah with the blackout, Janice runs away in tears, and Martin, who very recently himself fought with suicidal thoughts, chases her to a stairwell platform outside of Fantaisie, where he consoles her and they grow together through the pain and embarrassment which they both share. It’s then where Martin and Janice make a promise to each other: Martin will never gamble again as long as Janice never tries to kill herself, and vice versa.

The fifth member of Alex’s bachelor party, Tim, during all of this is outside in the hotel’s courtyard, talking to a woman named Jenny, and how she broke up with her boyfriend Martin for losing all of her money in the casino. Tim keeps her company and walks her back into the hotel’s lobby at exactly the same time Janice and Martin walk into the lobby. The power comes back on and Martin takes Jenny from Tim, walking her outside into the courtyard to talk, leaving Janice to run away once again feeling embarrassed and alone. She later is heard by Miguel screaming in her room as she grapples with the decision to end it with Martin now no longer around.

The blackout occurs when a pair of Russian bank robbers cut the power to the hotel so they can rob the casino. As they do this, they inadvertently trap a pair of cocaine dealers in an elevator. The cocaine dealers become volatile as they sweat it out in the elevator, ditching their coats as the temperature rises and cursing at each other when neither can stand the heat any longer. They are already fighting when the power comes back on and storm out to the garage only to find they had left their coats containing the car keys and the five thousand in cash back in the elevator. At this time, the Russian bank robbers yell at them to move out of the way as they try to escape, and the cocaine dealers, both jittery and on edge, kill the Russian bank robbers, and discover the massive amount of money the Russians had stolen in the trunk of their jeep. The cocaine dealers then steal the jeep, abandoning their coats in the elevator, and the two dead Russians in the garage.

Martin and Jenny find closure outside, and while there they hear gunshots from the garage, and Martin eye’s a speeding jeep leaving the scene. Tim, hearing the shots as well, runs up to Martin, where they both find two dead bodies bleeding out by their feet. Martin tells Tim to stay with Jenny, and he himself stays by the dead bodies for hours as he waits and talks to the police about what he saw and heard. Following spending several hours with the police, he briefly searches for Janice; but after eyeing a group of guys making prop bets on The Price is Right, Martin becomes distracted and his gambling problems begin to resurface when he discovers the two hundred and fifty dollars Fernando had given him before.
Spoiler:
Waking up the next morning, Martin is thankful when he finds out he didn’t gamble the money, and is ecstatic to find Janice in the lobby with only a small bandage on her wrist, and about a half a dozen bags packed around her. She tells him that she’s decided to quit her job and Martin, with nowhere to go himself and a promise he still wants to keep, asks to go with her. She accepts, elated she is no longer alone, and tells Martin that she wants to go North. Noah hands them both a pair of coats he had found lying in the elevator and Martin and Janice leave together toward the bus stop. Outside they stumble upon a set of car keys in the pocket of one of the coats, along with almost five thousand dollars in cash. They drive away as the sun rises, ready to begin their new lives together.

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Beethovenfan
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Re: Having serious trouble

Post by Beethovenfan » June 20th, 2013, 3:43 am

Seriously dude, this would make a fantastic play. People love dark comedy, too. Have you ever considered turning it into a script?
"Don't only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine."
~ Ludwig van Beethoven

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