Today, I’m beginning a series of blog posts on writing a synopsis for your novel. One of my readers asked why synopsis writing is hard.
I’ll tell you why it’s hard. Because you just spent years of your life writing a novel, learning the craft of writing fiction, learning about Three Act Structure and Scenes and Sequels and MRUs and how to Show it, not Tell it, getting inside each POV character’s head in third person past tense, double-spaced and now . . .
Now somebody changed the rules on you. All the rules.
A synopsis is single-spaced. A synopsis mostly Tells, rather than Shows. A synopsis is written in third-person, present tense. You do NOT get inside any POV character’s head in a synopsis, because a synopsis does not have any POV characters. There are no Acts visible in a synopis. No Scenes, no Sequels, no MRUs.
Somebody changed all the rules on you, and it’s not fair. A synopsis is a completely different genre from a novel. Forcing a novelist to write a synopsis is like making a sonnet-writer create 4-line Google ads.
That’s why writing a synopsis is hard.
By the way, just about all novelists hate writing synopses. Just about all editors hate reading them. If life were fair, synopses would be done away with.
There is only one reason why a synopsis is required for a book proposal, and that is this: It is the easiest way to see whether the story has a decent structure. If your editor doesn’t hate the story after reading the synopsis, then it may well have a good structure. If you don’t hate the story after writing the synopsis, then it might have a good structure. If either you or your editor hate it, then the structure stinks like rat pudding.
Tomorrow we’ll talk about that pesky structure and how you show it in your synopsis.
Is this the one line synopsis or longer? And what’s the difference between a synopsis and a summary? (Sorry, just got home from work and need sleep. My brain is mushing it all together.)
Thanks for the clearly defined distinction between the story and the synopsis.
I’ve read about three kinds of synopses (which would seem to make the work three times as difficult, or perhaps even exponentially harder).
1) One paragraph, 2) one page, and 3) as many as 15-20 pages. I suppose the one sentence is a form of synopsis as well.
In practicing these forms it would seem that starting with the longer, and working to the shorter would help
distill the essence of the story.
Will you touch on these forms with opinions, recommendations, preferences, et al?
Looking forward to the discussion on structure of the synopsis.
“You do NOT get inside any POV character’s head in a synopsis, because a synopsis does not have any POV characters.”
Oops! I just sent off my 24 page single spaced synopsis to Camy Tang for critique (Yes 24, she requested the longer the better!) I’m pretty sure I got inside the characters’ heads, just a bit. I’ll be sure to remember this when I cut it down.
How do you show your style in synopsis writing through telling? I’ve heard editors say they’re looking for your voice even in the synopsis. So how do you make your synopsis sing when you have to tell and stay out of characters’ heads? Can you give us some examples?
I’m so looking forward to this topic! I write reviews which means synopsi (sp?) of other people’s books. I’ve spent hours banging my head against the desk trying to shrink Brandilyn’s Crimson Eve into a few short paragraphs w/o giving anything away.
I know in a synopsis for publishing houses must disclose everything. I’ve not been able to write a good synopsis of my own novel.
And, I’ve been wondering why this is so darn hard!
I hate synopsis writing too, but they are very useful. I crank out a synopsis at the beginning, just to give myself an idea of where I’m going to go. And then as incidents come up and characters come out, those events and characters start to drive the story off-track, usually to a better place.
So about half-way through I write a revised synopsis. Same thing happens again. I don’t grieve over the old one. For me, the synopsis is a ‘launch platform’.
Besides, doing a little of what you hate is good for you. Sort of the opposite of ‘fun’. It’s the other side of the balance that make the fun part enjoyable.
I had an outline of my story that consisted of a one or two line summary for each chapter. Recently, I needed to show the overall story to someone to get help deciding if it had enough structure, events in the right place, etc. So I spent a weekend expanding that outline into a one paragraph summary of each chapter and ended up with about 15 pages. Not exactly the snowflake method, but the way my linear thinking worked at the time.
It’s not easy to say ‘he does this, then she does that, and when they finally find grannie’s truck at the bottom of the loch…’ etc. You’re tempted to put in the sparkling prose that you think makes it fun and charming and mysterious and alive. It helped me vastly to know that I wasn’t trying to impress anyone with my writing, I just needed to tell them as succinctly as possible in linear form how the story begins, unfolds, proceeds and ends. It did the job.
It is NOT what I’d use for a synop, but it was great practice for this pimply freshman to highlight and retell my story succinctly. Which is a skill I need—as you can see—and BTW another reason I think writers hate doing these things… we’re the folk that like to spin a good yarn, not drop it in a nutshell.
As afcw’ers are preparing for the big conference, I’ve heard alot of talk about preparing ‘One-sheets’, and there was some confusion about what that includes.
When talking of synops now, are we talking about something you plan to submit to agent or editor, not the one you the writer are using to write your story? Generally speaking, don’t pubbers prefer shorter?
As Randy said, they hate reading them too. I’ve heard it said that they’d rather skip the synop, pick a random spot in the writing, look for red flags in your dialogue, then if that doesn’t gag them, look at the writing, also hunting for red flags. If nothing turns their stomach, then they go back to the synop.
They say you can have a great sounding synop with writing that sucks and vice versa, so that means editors are basically expected to be omniscient.
It seems to me that snowflaking (Oh, look! A new verb!) at the beginning would be a big help, provided you keep updating it like M.L. does.
Randy, would the progressively more detailed summaries from the snowflake be adequate for a summary sent to a publisher, or would it need tweaking? If so, what needs to be included? And didn’t you say in Fiction 101 somewhere that editors love to get all the background character stuff, writing the plot summary from each POV?
Confused!
~bonne
Excellent topic, Randy. You are right, it seems like the synopsis is harder than the whole novel, and INITIALLY it’s more important. If it falls flat, the editor won’t want to read the excellent manuscript. So, how does one obey the rules and make their synopses sing and dance? Any tips on writing a dazzling synopsis would be soooooo appreciated!
I must be crazy, because I enjoy writing synopses! In fact, I’m so busy that I seldom have time to do more than a one-page synopsis of a story. I have several journals full of novel ideas, just waiting to be crafted into full-length books. I like the idea of plotting and structuring stories, and often dream of selling my ideas to someone who would craft them into amazing books. But I also enjoy writing, so I could never bring myself to do such a thing.
Another neat thing about writing a one-page synopsis is that the process helps provide the writer with a clear direction. It offers a reference, and forces the writer to address all aspects of a novel before he/she begins.
Writing a synopsis is also a process that shows the writer where any plot issues may be.
What I struggle with is finessing that synopsis so that the writing is so concise and engaging that an editor won’t get bored to tears and want to put it down. I think it’s all in the revision. Any ideas, Randy?
When I started writing my current WIP, I used your snowflake method as a jumping-off point. I loved the way it kick-started my creative processes and make me start with the big picture. I’ve edited those original exercises into a working synopsis that I really like. And it was painless to write because the words came before I got into the deep detail of the story. I’ll edit it once the novel is done to make sure it accurately reflects the new-and-improved plot, but those changes will be minimal. When I think about trying to summarize all I’ve written into one page now… I definitely feel like I dodged a bullet! Thanks.
Rat pudding. LOL.
I think that if you have the luxury of time on your side, it’s much easier to write a synopsis after you’re away from your manuscript for a while; as in weeks or even months, as in, you’ve been totally focused elsewhere on another project. Then, DO NOT LOOK BACK at it to “refresh” yourself. Just write down the skeleton as you recall it, like you would if you were giving a book report on somebody else’s book. It helps you avoid the tendency of stretching your 3-5 page synopsis into 20. Anyhow, that’s what’s worked best for me.