If you are a reg blog reader, then you know that I sent out a bunch of queries last month asking if some of my fave literary agents would be interested in taking a look at my book. Well freakin' THUD, man! I got hits from most of the agencies I sent out to, save for two. Good grief. But thankfully, two of them were the highest on my "I want THAT agent" list, soooooo...it's all good.
Bad part is my idea that YA books are immune to the dread synopsis....is so not true. Three of the agencies asked for one. Another asked for a detailed synopsis, which I took from my outline. So, I spent the last five days agonizing over a three-page summary of my book. It wouldn't have been simpler if I could have gotten away with a dry summary, but all advice was--make sure it maintains your author's voice and your entire story arc. In three pages or less. Dude, it can take me that to say "it was raining. And my author's voice? Can't I just do three pages of expletives expressing how bad writing an effin' synosis sucks? ::Big sigh::: Guess not. So, this is what I've been doing for the last seven days (between wiping up barf....youngest boy got the most heinous barf bug known to mankind--we did two trips to the ER for IV's and....I swear I haven't slept more than three hours a night this week....)
So, here goes. My synopsis....save for a minor smooth and polish before I hit "send" tomorrow.
SYNOPSIS
It's (so not) A Barbie World
A YA paranormal novel of 62,000 words
High school? Ugh. Pink Drama? Forget about it. Katya can't understand
how her dream to become an opera singer will ruin her (already trashed)
grade point average and destroy her (absent) social life. It's not
like she wants to become a brain surgeon, or (barf) a cheerleader.
"Be careful what you scoff at," KATYA's dad warns. "It might just
become a force to contend with." Now he's suggesting that Katya's
afraid to try and keep up with the elite crowd. Puh-leez.
All Katya wants is to score an audition to Juilliard and make her
escape from the mind numbing cheer mom enclave of Harmony Acres.
Should she score some suck-face time with her gothalicious audition
partner, TRISTAN, in the process? Bonus!
Keeping your head beneath the mean girl radar isn't that easy when
you have a learning disability. Katya lays low by posing (gasp) Goth
with her best friend, GERT, and the wildly eccentric cling-on boy,
SIGGY HAINES.
Shunning all things pink becomes easier said than done when the
mysterious CANDY DEMINT comes to town hawking BEAUTOXIA COSMETICS.
When she performs a beyond-extreme makeover on Siggy's estranged mom,
all the women of Harmony Acres start going toxic. Beautoxic.
Katya is convinced whatever is sweeping her town isn't in the water.
She suspects the real culprit lurks inside the new Beautoxia
Cosmetics factory. Even Gert is trippin' on lipstick. Come Monday,
the girl has morphed into TRUDY, a veritable pink princess who has
one goal in life—spreading the news about Beautoxia to anyone who
will listen.
Now there's a new breed of pinks at Harmony High. Like the A-list,
squared. Beautoxics. Led by Candy's daughter, Niko, these girls
have killin' powers of persuasion. Save for the Goths and the short
bus scene, social castes are dropping like dominoes.
In spite of the fact that the Beautoxics have sucked in Katya's best
friend, her dad, and her (almost) boyfriend, she resolves that a
perfect face and a wicked hot wardrobe won't sway her from her dreams
of attending Juilliard.
When Trudy/Gert's usefulness as Beautoxia's guinea pig is over, NIKO
chews the girl up and spits her out like yesterday's chewing gum.
The way KATYA sees it, now, more than ever is the time for herself
and her friends to bury their heads. She plans to go on perfecting
her operatic range so she can get herself to Juilliard's last
summer session audition of the season. Then she can get out of town—
for good.
Or not.
Beautoxia is launching a viral My Space campaign that will take their
product nationwide. When Katya's mom sees what Beautoxia did to Gert,
she promises to "poke around" and see what she can find out about
Candy. By the day's end, she's become the victim of a drive-by
makeover. She has suffered an allergic reaction to Beautoxia that
has left her convinced that she's BARBIE, incarnate. Certain that
Katya's love life is in dire need of a pink overhaul, Barbie sets out
to see her daughter crowned Queen of the Prom. Or else.
Katya, Gert and Siggy realize that alone they can accomplish little.
They must pool their talents to overcome their individual
weaknesses. Together they devise a plan that should open up a can of
internet whoop-ass on some Beautoxic butt before anyone else gets
hurt.
Problem is, in order to get their hands on the proof that can
circumvent Beautoxia's My Space campaign, Katya must pose (gag)
Beautoxic to appease Barbie and Siggy and Gert get a sample of the
formula out of town to be analyzed.
In the process of faking it, Katya nearly becomes charmed by
everything she never wanted to be. Tristan is certainly smitten with the new
Katya. Only when SIGGY and GERT step forward to remind her of what she's fighting for
does Katya regain the focus that helps her friends pull off their
plan. In the end, Barbie is gone and BEAUTOXIA's spell on Harmony
Acres is released.
Katya makes it to her audition still wearing her prom queen crown.
While her friends look on, she realizes how much they've overcome.
Facing her greatest fear has steered her dreams in new
directions—into places she never thought she'd go. While Katya
stands on stage singing with the boy she thought she always wanted,
she looks down from the stage to see her parents, Gert and Siggy beaming up at her.
She realizes that the Opera can wait. These are the only high school years
she'll ever have. Though she and Tristan win their early admission to
Juilliard, Katya finds that she wants nothing more in the world than
to spend time with her friends and perhaps even go on out a real date
with her unlikely knight in shining armor—Siggy.
