Okay, so I was doing an exercise where I write the synopsis of my story to see if I could actually...you know get the whole idea out in a concise and non-ridiculous way. But to me it feels SO melodramatic. What do you think? Skylar Braden had always considered herself normal. Until the night she learned she could enter other people's dreams. After that, her life was propelled in a direction she would never have imagined. Unbeknownst to her and the rest of the student body, there is a secret band of dream-walkers that protect the vulnerable from the nightmare creatures known as the Mara. They each have a designated skill that aids them in their quest to save their classmates from the horrible fate that the Mara have in store for them. Will Skylar heed their advice and learn all she needs in time to save those closest to her from a tragic end? Or will her clever mind and independent spirit drive her into making a mistake that could lead to repercussions for all dream-walkers?
This isn't really a synopsis, more of a blurb. The sort of thing you'd find on the cover to entice a reader into thinking that this is something they want to read. A bit of characterisation of the MC. A bit of exposition of the main plot point. And then the conflict that you hope will hook the reader. As to the content of the "synopsis"? In this instance, the conflict that drives the story is an inner conflict between her being stupid and doing things like a modern, independent-spirited girl, or behaving like a grown-up woman and learning from others who are wiser than her, so it's perhaps a coming-of-age/rite of passage story. And, of course it sounds melodramatic. It's a variation on the "Chosen One" trope, in that your MC has the power - unbeknownst to her - to make a mistake that could lead to repercussions for all dream-walkers! It's the same as Harry Potter being the wizard who'll save everybody, or Luke Skywalker...However, if you wrote a synopsis of Romeo and Juliet, I'm sure that too would sound melodramatic. It's all about how you write it. Although, I might tone down JUST how dramatic the consequences of her mistake could be - either that, or have some sort of logical (within the rules of the world you've created) reason for it.
Holy crap, it IS a blurb! I had a long day and was going through some self doubt issues. You know, where you think you can't write at all and that even if you could, you could never convey what your book is actually about to anyone. That it would just come out a convoluted mess. So I did the synopsis (but apparently not a synopsis) thing to shut up that voice in my head. As for the intensity of the repercussions for the the character, see that is where I am kind of stuck because she is the "chosen one." She is going to have the abilities of all other dreamwalkers combined, and more. But she won't learn that until the end of the book. It is part of a series. I wanted the first one to be where she has her 'coming of age' story and fights some bad guys (but not THE bad guy) and then the next two where she learns to fight the real villain. If she is the Harry Potter of this series, then the big bad would be the Voldemort and the mara are the Death Eaters. So, given that, should the blurb hint at what is coming for her, or focus on the bad guys that she faces in the actual first book? I was planning on one of her friends being slowly drained of energy by the Mara until she actually attempts suicide in the real world. That was what I was thinking about when I said that there might be a tragic end for those closest to her.
If Blurb is the genre, then your first shot above sounds OK to me. Certainly, your first book needs to be standalone, so you don't want to introduce something that she won't encounter until a later book. I'd also still back-pedal about how chosen she is...because otherwise the reader will know that the hero always survives for the next episode. One of the good things about GoT is that you never know who's going to survive - unless you caught that spoiler in the paper!
This is the synopsis for Wake by McCann. Maybe it will help you write your own... Not all dreams are sweet. For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people's dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody-notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie's seen enough fantasy booty to last her a lifetime. She can't tell anybody about what she does -- they'd never believe her, or worse, they'd think she's a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn't want and can't control. Then she falls into a gruesome nightmare, one that chills her to the bone. For the first time, Janie is more than a witness to someone else's twisted psyche. She is a participant....
