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Dark Pupils Synopsis 2

by eanna 

Posted: 18 April 2006
Word Count: 510
Summary: A second Stab
Related Works: A ghost between us - Synopsis • 

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What payment can even righteous aims exact in their achievement?

Dark Pupils is a novel about three university students who murder the president. It is a novel in three parts.

Part one: The deed…
Terry, Peter and Rachel are experiencing reoccurring nightmares and other symptoms as the opposition party conditions them for their exploit.
On the eve of the assassination the students experience a group delusion, followed by the death of their friend Marie. These events coupled with the drugs they have been taking, trigger their activation and ultimately the murder of Walter Thisgo, the Treoraí of Ireland.

Part two: The Plot…
The three escape through tunnels below the city of Dublin, led by Terry's estranged father Oscar, a homeless man who attempts to save the students from their fate.
In hiding in the Wicklow Mountains, miles from the citizens that are now creaming for their blood and the medication they now badly need, the students begin to unravel the plot and their part in it; their own parents have delivered them into this predicament and they can see no way out.
During this period the love between Peter and Rachel grows whilst in a fit of madness and jealousy Terry abandons his father and his friends to return to Dublin and betray them to the authorities.

Part three: The two trials…
The judgment of the three students is quick and moot, the media having already decided their fate. On the eve of their sentencing Walter Thisgo, more alive and far younger than he should be, visits them. Thisgo tells the three how he usurped his father's political position and person many years before. He explains that the staging of his death using his father as a victim was necessary to immortalise the Progressive Party state he has nurtured, and destroy that remained of the public's belief in the old Regressive Party.
In payment for their sacrifice, Walter Thisgo promises to return from hiding when the scandal has died down and take the three with him to exile.
The dark pupils are sentences to life in a mental institute where they remain in that vain hope that Thisgo will return. Terry is the first to crack, even with all his fathers efforts to the contrary he takes his own life, leaving Peter and Rachel alone to wait.
In the end Walter Thisgo does return, a Jesus like character in a white limousine, he arrives at the hospital and takes Rachel and Peter to exile, where Terry and Marie await their arrival.
This is, of course, one final fantasy shared by the two as they slip towards death, a year's dosage in their stomachs, while Walter Thisgo - our narrator - sits in exile, bitter and indignant. He has the blood of his father, the students and his sister Marie on his hands, and for what? To see all of his work undone with time and Ireland returned to its former corrupt self.
He was a fool to think that anything righteous could come from the manipulation of others.

The End







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Comments by other Members



strangefish at 08:19 on 21 April 2006  Report this post
Hi Eanna,

I'm not sure this is ready to go to an agent yet. You seem to be leaving out a lot of simple information about what the novel is about, where it's set, etc as if the reader is already aware of it. You need to treat the reader as a blind one and boil the story down to short, simple ideas.

ie...
Dark Pupils is a novel about three university students who murder the president. It is a novel in three parts.
Doesn't need the second sentence, this can be put in the first, but does need information about the students (where?) and the president (of what? or where?) and the murder (why?)

Terry, Peter and Rachel are experiencing reoccurring nightmares and other symptoms as the opposition party conditions them for their exploit.
On the eve of the assassination the students experience a group delusion, followed by the death of their friend Marie. These events coupled with the drugs they have been taking, trigger their activation and ultimately the murder of Walter Thisgo, the Treoraí of Ireland.

reoccuring - recurring?
Why are they having these nightmares? What are the symptoms? What are the drugs? Whose giving the drugs to them? What have they been activiated to -- the assassination, something else? Is all this really necessary in the synopsis?

It might not be what you want to hear but I think you need to go back and look at the synopsis as a means of telling a perfect stranger what your story is about. Think of it as meeting a man down the pub who asks you what your book is about. As it is, he's going to be interupting you for information before you've got as far as the second para.

Sorry if I'm being a bit harsh.

Michael

Nik Perring at 10:46 on 24 April 2006  Report this post
Hi Eanna,

SF's right. It would benefit from a bit more information.

That said, on a more positive note, that's all that's wrong with it. You've got the style and tone right, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get it up to scratch!

Nik.

Dee at 13:38 on 29 April 2006  Report this post
Eanna,

I'm inclined to agree with the others. We need to know the reasons behind these events. Why are the students taking the drugs? How does Marie die? Why do they murder Thisgo? These are questions agents will be asking and, unless your sample chapters are shit-hot, they won't wait for the answer.

There are a few typos you need to sort out, such as:

destroy that remained of the public's belief in the old Regressive Party.
Should ‘that’ be ‘what’? It doesn’t make sense otherwise.

The dark pupils are sentences to life in a mental institute where they remain in that vain hope that Thisgo will return. Terry is the first to crack, even with all his fathers efforts to the contrary he takes his own life, leaving Peter and Rachel alone to wait.
‘sentenced’, ‘the vain hope that’? and father’s.

You started off by saying this is a story about the three students. I would imagine that, having read through the whole story, and investing some emotion in these students, I would feel decidedly miffed to discover you'd killed off all your main characters by the end. I’m sure all of this would be much less confusing in the full ms, but this synopsis doesn’t inspire me to want to read it, so I think you need to work on the structure of your synopsis. Maybe shift the emphasis to Thisgo and his manipulations of the students?

Hope this helps.

Dee



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