This is unheard of for a NZ’er. Especially during the World Cup. What world cup you ask? Well, the Rugby World Cup. It’s kind of a big deal here because we’ve been hosting it (no, not me personally though I could use the $100 million or so revenue that’s apparently been generated). Plus the fact that we are a really tiny country and rugby is just about the only team sport we can compete on the world stage and stand a good chance of actually winning. Which we did on Sunday night.

Now, as I said, I never watch rugby but it was difficult to get away from the final game since we were in it and we were supposed to walk all over poor, old France. In actual fact, France nearly walked all over us. I could not watch the game. Jackie, who actively dislikes rugby, could not watch it because I was too damn nervous. In fact, it was ridiculous how invested I was in this game. I played computer games while trying to ignore the howls from the living room, my little heart leaping every time there was a cheer.

What’s this got to do with writing? Hang on, I’m getting there. Anyway, we finally won. By one point. And I was watching the commentary afterwards and hearing what they were saying and thinking, wow, this game is a little like writing for publication. The same nervousness (as you wait on a submission), the same grim determination to hang on when everything looks like another big rejection, the same sense of helplessness when the other team score….
And then the commentary started talking about this one, particular All Black. Two weeks earlier, Stephen Donald had been watching the cup on TV, having a beer and doing a spot of whitebaiting (fish, if you don’t know what whitebait are). He wasn’t in the Cup squad and had been told pretty firmly he wouldn’t be either. And yet two weeks before the big final, due to injuries concerning other players, he got a couple of calls on his mobile – which he didn’t answer because he was too busy with his whitebait. Eventually when he did, the news was that he had been called up onto the squad. Then on the night, after more injuries, and he was called onto the field. Then he kicked the goal that earned us the Cup. From zero to hero in two weeks.

The commentary afterwards talked a lot about Stephen Donald. About how, when you think it’s all over, when the country has forgotten you, opportunities can come along and you can suddenly find yourself right in the middle of it again. That these opportunities come when you least expect them to. Apparently sport is full of these moments, but, from what I hear from other writers, writing is like this too. That right when you least expect it, when you’ve got your hundredth rejection, something comes round the corner that you never thought would happen.

I hope that’s the case. Because right now, I’m feeling a little like Stephen Donald. I’m sitting on my couch with my beer (no whitebait though cos I hate fish. Okay and replace the beer with a martini, cos I don’t like that either!). I’m watching the Cup on telly and cheering everyone else on, wishing I was there too and wondering if I’ve missed my chance. I hope not cos unlike Stephen Donald, I have been training really, really hard. And one thing’s for certain – if the call ever comes, I won’t be too busy fishing to answer it.

So what’s my secret? Well, I kind of don’t want to say in case it proves that I am wrong, wrong, wrong. And also there really isn’t a secret (except some good advice from Maisey Yates). It’s a case of learning to let go the details of the story and focus on what is really important – the development of the romance and the character arc. I know, it’s hard to figure out what are ‘details’ and what aren’t. If you include this bit, then that means you have to include that and before you know it, you’ve got one page just on the first chapter! (my hint is if you think it’s a detail, it probably is. So leave it out!).

In fact, in many ways, for me it’s easier to write a synopsis for a story I haven’t written yet. Because that way, there are no details to bog me down, plus it’s great for figuring out whether your conflict works or not. Nothing like getting halfway through a synopsis and realising that your characters don’t have enough conflict. Or that what you thought was the conflict, isn’t what they thought.

But anyway, why were these ones so easy to write? Because I did totally leave out any extraneous details apart from the external conflict that brings them together. The rest is just how broadly the romance develops – their first impressions of each other. How that makes it worse for them. How they find connection. How that connection makes it worse. What they do about that. Why that doesn’t work. And then the change they have to make in order to be together (the resolution of the conflict). The turning points of the story, etc, etc.

Now this could all be entirely wrong of course and in fact my synopses are crap! But at this point, taking an hour or two to write one instead of the usual three days, with another two for hair pulling and complaining, is AOK with me.

And just to show you I’m not all about how wonderful my synopses are (not), I am also going to include this little linky thing here (Sonny Bill Williams and his ripped shirt). I am not a rugby fan but since the Rugby World Cup is happening in my neck of the woods (American visitors, please visit this link hehe), I thought it pertinent to gift to the world a small incident that actually made me watch part of a game. I think the person behind the camera must have been a woman…:-)