[Boneman]

Teresa makes a very good point, and oh, roll on those days....Trying to write a synopsis that is perfect for every agent/publisher is impossible, so many of them give different advice as to what is needed. The only way I can do it, is to write a synopsis that I'd like to read, and then re-write it, rewrite it, rewrite it.........

So: here's a short paragraph of what I wanted to hear, followed by what it actually became ( and it still ain't good enough, but I think it's getting there).

Peggy and Paul are gobsmacked to find she's pregnant: she'd been told she was infertile after losing a baby, but after their trial-by-fire in the forest, and the amazing healing by Wa'Leila, they fall in love, and the mysterious events when the stranger is killed and Grace goes through the portal into another world have incredible repercussions on their lives. (You can see the sentences are too long, the thing's a bit disjointed, but I got it down on paper....)

It became: Jack Anderson should never have been born. His parents Peggy and Paul are drawn together when a stranger uses unnatural abilities to open a portal between worlds, and they are cruelly hurt, along with Peggy’s adopted daughter, Grace. When a native from a different world challenges the stranger to combat, they are healed miraculously by his female companion, and his father shoots the stranger dead. The astonishing world inside the portal calls to them but they remain where they are, a small backwater American town they both grew up in, and allow Grace to go with their saviours, recognising a kinship between them.

I hope that the first sentences grabs people. It's a work in progress, and it will continue to be so, but I honestly find that if I try to write a synopsis to please others, it sounds wooden, stilted and guaranteed to have them putting it down without being read! Keep at it......