Basically, what a synopsis shows an agent/editor is that you’re capable of constructing a coherent narrative with a beginning, a middle and an end. It’s the blueprint for your novel(s), and as such contains no fancy stuff. Your sample chapter(s) show what kind of a writer you are, how you use words, what style/flavour you represent … not to mention if you can spell and know your grammar.

Synopsis writing focuses on lean, tight sentence construction that paints, in literary shorthand, an outline of the story’s events. It’s not the place for demonstrating your deathless prose, it’s the nuts and bolts selling tool of the What Happens. Which isn’t to say you can’t use powerful and evocative words — just keep the flights of fancy and description to a minimum. Think muscular, not embroidered.

A good way of double checking yourself is to hand your synopsis to someone who doesn’t know anything about your story. After they’ve read it, ask them if it made sense, if they could follow the story events … and if it tempted them to read the real thing. If they say no, find out why.

a. that the writer could put coherent sentences together and fit them into a coherent paragraph and then fit the paragraphs together into a coherent storyline…
b. that I had an idea of what the book was about by the end of reading the synopsis. The themes perhaps, or even that it is a romantic urban fantasy that will make readers cry (or nonstop action spy thriller for macho male readers with an interest in guns), or whatever – but something more than just its pigeonhole. (If I ask you what your book is about, right now, can you tell me in a sentence or two? That info should come across somehow.)
3. that your characters sound memorable
4. that there is something memorable about the story, something that makes it a bit different, a wow factor. If you don’t have that you should at least write brilliant literary description or great comedy!
5. That there is a feeling of some kind of progression – a beginning and an end, a change, a development, that something has altered by the end of the book.

What I wouldn’t be looking for would be details of any incidents except really really major ones. I think you have to settle more for the flow of the story rather than the details.

A synopsis is in essence a very dense piece of text that usually ends up rather dry as if each added ‘complexity’ exponentially increases its un-exciting-ness and dense-ness.

And agents and publishers are all asking for synopses…

I am very glad I didn’t have to write a synopsis to get an agent. My agent liked my query letter enough to read the first 3 chapters that accompanied it, and then asked for the full MS. And that was it. She was the first person to read that particular MS, too – none of this 100 query letters Miss Snark speaks of. Mind you I had other MSS turned down by others earlier.

Doing a pitch would probably turn me into a quivering idiot.

Patty, I have been thinking about what advice to give. I think maybe I can sum up the synopsis for a very complex book this way: you don’t try to detail the complexities. You don’t even mention most of the characters or the details of events. If you do, you get thoroughly bogged down. Instead, you emphasize what makes the story special, what makes the main character(s) special or the setting special. You try to convey the tension.

Here is a single sentence from my synopsis that covers about 60,000 words of the story of “Drouthlord”:

‘Bewildered by city life, missing Terril yet unable to persuade anyone to help him free her, clashing with the powerful preachers of the Sun and Water faith over his religious beliefs, and confused by his contact with Rithal’s sensual but childish daughter Senya, Raki has problems adapting.’

With that one sentence, I hope to convey:
complexity of story
Raki’s lack of city sophistication and street smarts
tragedy (he can’t help his friend Terril)
religious tensions in the society as well as Raki’s basic nonconformist nature
sexual tensions and adolescent confusion
story tension – he’s out of his depth.

And yet I have not described a single incident. I feel that’s the way to go. Hope this helps.

Personally, I think pitching a novel is easier than writing a synopsis. I had to write pitches for two novels last year for the Conjure pitch session and managed to do well enough to get both of them into the running. Sitting in front of an editor and then verbalising those pitches was another ordeal entirely. I figure my pitches got two novels in front of the editor (or at least her readers) but my synopses (what is pural for synopsis?) turned the reader off… (or my writing style. Eeek!)

Cheers, Lisa.

Yeehaw on getting the synopsis wrestled into submission. Huge sighs of relief all round!

Hrugaar – does that mean you are writing again? Please tell me it’s so…

And my apologies – your parcel has been sitting on my desk for a WEEK now, and I actually have to get to an honest-to-goodness post office for this because it’s going to MALAYSIA and I have no clue what the postage is and it’ll need customs forms and whatsit, and I simply haven’t GOT there this week. And on Wednesday I’m leaving for a convention across the country, so I have to apologise abjectly and promise I’ll make it a priority to send the book ASAP after I get back from New York…