Putting the Novel Synopsis Before the Horse

Since my NaNoWriMo page (I'm on the website at https://nanowrimo.org, under Mark R Hunter) has a place to put a synopsis for my work in progress, I'm doing something I've never done before: writing a synopsis for my work in progress.

Like most authors, I hate writing a synopsis. You want me to boil my eighty thousand word novel down to a five hundred word description? Or worse, a two hundred word blurb? Sure. While I'm at it I'll design a working cold fusion generator and use a hammer without hurting myself. Come on.

But it is an author's job, once he finishes his work, to boil it down into an outline, a long synopsis, a short synopsis, a blurb ... all for the agent, editor, or for the self-published, back cover and publicity. But just as I wait as long as possible to do anything that's hard, I hold off on the synopsis for as long as possible. Now I was faced with doing one for a book I haven't even written yet, which might change along the way. But, ah well ... I love a challenge. Well, not so much as I used to.

The working title is Fire at Misty Creek, which I invented quite literally as I wrote it down. The title, and the synopsis, might change a little or a lot along the way:

Wandering ex-firefighter Reed Carter might be just what the little town of Mist Creek, Kentucky needs: Thanks to an economic downturn there’s a shortage of volunteers to man the local fire department, so the eclectic townspeople draft a reluctant Reed to help.

But to volunteer Alice Delaney, Reed is just another problem to worry about. Dedicated to preserving Mist Creek, the widowed Alice is trying to run her antique shop while serving as fire department captain, and the last thing she needs is the distraction of a handsome man renting her building’s empty apartment.

But when a series of fires threaten the town, Alice and Reed must work together to protect its future—and in the end, they may save each other in more ways than one.