Writers Tricks of the Trade May-June 2015

PRESS “CONTROL” THEN CLICK “BUY” TO PURCHASE THE BOOK WHAT IS A SYNOPSIS... her biological parents via a private investigator, which she does. But finding her real mother isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Although she meets her biological brother Vance, 20s, as well, her mother, Callie, late 30s, is an alcoholic and drug addict who wants nothing to do with her. But that’s only the start of her problems. BUY NOW Keenan, a career criminal, has made plans with his buddy Pedro, 20s, to rob a local drug dealer and convinces Toby to help them out. Meanwhile, Shannon and Kurt exhaust every possible lead trying to find their missing daughter. It all comes to a head when the robbery goes horribly wrong and Pedro is killed. Toby and Keenan get away but the dealer, Dawson, finds out where they live and comes looking for revenge. Unfortunately for Candace, she finds herself in more danger than she ever thought possible. To illustrate the difference, here is what the synopsis would be like as a one-pager. MISSING AT 17 – ONE-PAGER 17-year-old Candace has always been a bit of a rebel. Since her parents Shannon (late 30s) and Kurt (early 40s) divorced three years ago, Candace has become increasingly estranged from her mother and brother Andrew (13) even though Shannon, a makeup artist, is by anyone’s standards, a wonderful mother. Candace, however, blames Shawna for the divorce, and she hasn’t been able to let it go. BUY NOW Things aren’t about to get any better for Candace. A few days after being dumped by her boyfriend Ian, Candace discovers—during a genetics discussion in her biology class—that she’s adopted. After a huge fight with Shannon who feels guilty that she never told her daughter the truth about the adoption, the devastated teen runs away with nowhere specific to go. Ultimately, she finds herself at a gas station with no money. That’s when she meets Toby (23) an attractive bad boy that invites her to the house he shares with his cousin Keenan (late 20s) to party. What Candace doesn’t know about Toby is that he operates a low level theft operation, stealing whatever he can and selling it for pennies on the dollar. His cousin, recently paroled for armed robbery, has set his sights on bigger scores and has been trying to convince Toby he’s been wasting his time on the petty thefts. BUY NOW Candace and Toby find they have more in common than they expected—they both feel like they don’t fit within society’s norms-- and one night of drinking turns into several days of getting to know each other. Toby truly falls for Candace and when they hear from Candace’s best friend Avery (17) that Shannon and Kurt have called the police to look for her, he begins to get worried that she might end up going back to parents that wouldn’t welcome him in her life. Believing that helping Candace find her biological mother may be his only chance to keep her away from Shannon and Kurt, Toby offers to cough up enough cash so that Candace can hire a private investigator. but he did discover something else—she has a biological brother named Vance (20s). MAY-JUNE 2015 PAGE 16 WRITERS’ TRICKS OF THE TRADE

Writers Tricks of the Trade May-June 2015 | Page 26