If there’s one step in my wildly popular Snowflake Method that hardly anyone seems to care about, it’s Step 5—Character Synopses. I find this odd, because this step has been my secret weapon for the last thirty years in writing winning book proposals. 

No kidding. Character synopses are the one thing that can turn a really good proposal into an “oh-my-gosh-I-can’t-possibly-reject-this” proposal. 

You might be thinking that synopses are boring, and you’re right if you mean plot synopses. Every novel proposal ever written contains a very boring plot synopsis. It’s typically around 2 pages, single-spaced, which adds up to about 1000 words of pure torture. I have never read a single plot synopsis that made me want to read the novel. Ever. 

But a character synopsis is not a plot synopsis. This ought to be obvious, but since so many people confuse the two, I might as well explain the difference.

Plot Synopses versus Character Synopses

A plot synopsis covers the main events in your novel. It’s supposed to sketch out the storyline of the whole 100,000 word novel, so it races along from one “exciting” event to the next. Fiery car crashes or sizzling bed-rumpling scenes or terrifying zombalypses, or whatever it is that makes your story exciting.

And the problem with all these sizzling events is that the reader doesn’t care about them. Nobody cares about a car crash until they know that driver in the car. Nobody cares about thunderbolts in the bedroom until they know that naked person in the bed. And a plot synopsis can’t give you that. So you read the synopsis and you don’t care. Because you can’t. 

A character synopsis focuses on one of the major characters in your novel. What does she want? What does he desperately need? What do they obsess about when they wake up at 3 AM and can’t get back to sleep because of __________? When you fill in that blank, you know what makes your character tick. And so does the person reading your character synopsis. 

But a great novel proposal doesn’t contain just one character synopsis. It contains several. And here’s the secret sauce that puts the fire in your editor’s pants—a great novel proposal chains together several character synopses, one for each of the major characters. One synopsis may focus on the early part of the story. The next may focus on the middle part. The next may focus on the ending. When you do that, you tell the whole story, but it now feels character-oriented, rather than plot-oriented. And editors love characters. 

One last secret, and then I’ll illustrate all this with an example. The secret is this—you’re allowed to tell stuff in your character synopses that may not actually be in the novel. It might tell what happened before the story begins. It might tell what happens after the story ends, or at least hint at it. 

But enough theory. An example is worth a thousand words. Actually, this example will probably end up being a thousand words, so maybe you’ll decide it’s worth a million words. I’m going to give you three character synopses for the novel The Hunger Games. If you’re one of the few people on the planet who hasn’t read the book, then spoiler alert—there will be a lot of spoilers here. So go read the book first. It’s brilliant. 

I’ll chain together character synopses for three of the major characters in The Hunger Games. Peeta’s synopsis will focus on the beginning of the story. Katniss’s will focus on the middle. And Haymitch’s will focus on the ending. I could have done them in any order, but this is the one I chose after thinking about it for five seconds.

Peeta Mellark

Peeta Mellark has a problem. He’s in love with a girl who barely knows he exists. Peeta lives in a grimy town in District 12. He’s the baker’s son, so he actually has almost enough to eat, unlike most people in his District. The girl he’s been in love with since the age of 5 is not so lucky. Her father’s dead, and her’s mother’s pretty useless, so her family ought to have starved to death long ago. But Katniss Everdeen is one amazing girl who illegally hunts and forages in the forest to put food on the table. 

Then the unthinkable happens. Katniss’s younger sister’s name is drawn to go as a “tribute” to the Hunger Games. Katniss volunteers to take her place, saving her sister from certain death in the Arena. Peeta knows Katniss is tough, but there will be 23 other tributes in the Hunger Games, and only one will get out alive. Peeta would willingly die to get Katniss out of the Games, but that’s just not possible. A boy can’t volunteer to replace a girl. 

Moments later, Peeta’s name is drawn as the second tribute from District 12. Now Peeta’s in shock. He’s a big, strong guy, but he has absolutely no killer instinct. When push comes to shove in the Arena, he’s going to be killed by one of the brutes from District 1, or District 2, or District 4. Those kids are trained killers who actually volunteer for the honor of competing in the Hunger Games. Peeta knows he will never live to see his 18^th birthday. 

But there’s one thing he can do to make this thing better. He can never make it good, because there isn’t any good way out of the crucible. But he can make it less horrible.

Peeta Mellark is going to be the guardian angel for Katniss in the Arena. She won’t know it. Not while she’s in the Arena. Not until it’s too late. But after he’s dead, after the Games are over, when they show the whole gory replay on TV, Katniss will know that Peeta Mellark loved her and gave his life to save hers. And that will make Peeta’s death bearable. 

Katniss Everdeen

Katniss Everdeen cannot believe she’s going to the Hunger Games. She was crazy to volunteer to save her sister, but of course, she had to. Her sister wouldn’t last ten seconds in the Arena. Whereas Katniss knows she has a tiny little chance. She knows about edible plants, enough to live off the land for a few days or weeks. And she can shoot pretty well. If she can get hold of a bow and arrows in the Arena, she could even defend herself. But that’s a long-shot, and her best bet is to run and hide and let the other tributes kill each other. 

But then, in the pre-Game interviews, the other tribute from District 12 blurts out a “secret” that makes it all a thousand times worse. Peeta Mellark claims he’s in love with Katniss. The TV people eat up that kind of thing, but Katniss knows perfectly well it’s all a sham. First chance Peeta gets in the Arena, he’ll put a knife in her belly. From here on, Peeta is her most hated enemy. 

To make things worse, the mentor for District 12 is a weird old drunk, Haymitch Abernathy. He once won a Hunger Games, decades ago, so it’s his job to coach Katniss and Peeta. But Haymitch is worse than useless. Katniss has no choice but to kiss up to him, because his job during the Games will be to find sponsors who can send in gifts. Food at the right time, or medicine from a sponsor—those could be life and death. But Katniss hates Haymitch for his surly incompetence. 

When the Games begin, Katniss fails to get a bow. She grabs a knife and a few odd supplies and then runs for her life. Within minutes, a number of tributes are dead, but by that time, Katniss is far away, running deep into the forest, looking for a safe hideout. Soon enough, she learns the awful truth. Peeta has teamed up with the killer tributes from Districts 1 and 2 and 4. Together, they’re scouring the Arena, killing off the weak. And they’ve taken Peeta onto their team specifically because “lover boy” has promised to deliver them Katniss. 

Katniss is enraged. She’ll have Peeta’s head on a platter. But first, she needs to attack the killer tributes and get the precious bow and arrows that one of them is using so poorly. Fat chance of that. Late one evening, they get her cornered high in a tree. Tomorrow morning, they’re going to take her out, and there’s not a thing she can do to save herself. 

Haymitch Abernathy

Haymitch Abernathy’s life has been hell ever since he won the Hunger Games 24 years ago. He still lives with the guilt and self-hatred that is natural for any victor with a soul. He drowns his shame in alcohol, but a bottle only lasts so long. Haymitch’s problem is that he has no killer instinct—he won the Games because he has survivor instinct, a very different thing. And Haymitch sees in Katniss a kindred spirit. She’s a survivor, that one. Peeta, not so much. Peeta’s going to be dogmeat in the Arena.

Haymitch desperately wants Katniss to win. And if he has to use Peeta to make that happen, it’s not his fault there can only be one winner. To help Katniss win, Haymitch needs to make her a TV audience favorite. That’s the surest way to loosen up the wallet of the wealthy sponsors. But Katniss is not the most likable person, whereas Peeta is. So Haymitch’s strategy is to get the audience to like Peeta, and then get Peeta to say he’s in love with Katniss. Everyone loves a lover, right? Peeta’s going to be Haymitch’s patsy to save Katniss. And the horrible thing is that Peeta’s sincere. The dumb kid really is in love with Katniss, and he’ll do anything to save her. 

And it works, sorta, kinda. Once the Games begin, Peeta pretends to team up with the killers. When they corner Katniss in a tree, she fights them all off with a crazy trick. But she escapes only because Peeta defends her from one of the bad guys, getting badly wounded in the process. Now Peeta’s no use to Katniss. So Haymitch persuades the Gamemakers that the TV ratings will go berserk if they announce a “new rule”—that two tributes from the same district will be allowed to live, if they’re the final two. Of course, it’s a lie, but it motivates Katniss to find Peeta. 

And the TV audience goes wild. Now the Hunger Games are a tale of love AND a tale of war, and what could be better? This is crucial because Haymitch needs to find sponsors willing to pay exorbitant amounts to send gifts to Katniss in the Arena—food or medicine that could keep her alive. When Katniss finds Peeta, she has the great good sense to show some human decency. She nurses him back to health. Haymitch times the arrival of his gifts so that Katniss finally figures out that a little lovey-dovey kissy-face will open up the TV audience’s wallets like there’s no tomorrow. She’s a bit slow on the uptake, but once she gets the idea, the girl can act. 

As the Games progress, more tributes die, but Katniss and Peeta hang on. 

At the end, when only Katniss and Peeta are left, the Gamemakers revoke the “new rule” allowing two survivors from the same district, as Haymitch knew all along. Because the point of the Games is to rub misery in the face of the Districts. Peeta is doomed, just like Haymitch expected. Katniss has this thing sewn up. Except that Haymitch wasn’t counting on one thing. 

Katniss Everdeen has a heart after all. Or something. She finds a way to keep both her and Peeta alive. And in the process, she makes the Gamemakers look stupid. So now Haymitch is going to have to fight the battle of his life to keep the little idiot from getting killed when she gets out of the Arena. The Games are finished, but they’ll never ever ever be over. 

Unless an old, drunk washed-up loser named Haymitch Abernathy can pull one last trick out of his threadbare sleeve.

Homework

What do you think? Do you like my character synopses? Think maybe you could do better?

Actually, I think you can. Because there’s one very important character I left out of my synopses. One guy who pulled some strings that most people didn’t even know were there. If you’re wondering why I didn’t say a word about Cinna, it’s because I’ve been saving him for you to work with.

Your homework, should you decide to accept it, is to write four character synopses—for Peeta, Katniss, Haymitch, and Cinna. But don’t write them in that order. The order of character synopses matters. If you reorder the synopses, you have to change each one so as to tell the whole story in a somewhat linear way. So scramble up my order, write your own versions, and put in Cinna wherever you think best. This exercise will teach you much more than merely reading what I’ve done above. 

And may the odds be ever in your favor when you write your next proposal.

If you’re trying to sell your novel to a traditional publisher, you must learn to write a synopsis. It’s almost impossible to sell a novel without writing a proposal, and a key element of your proposal is a synopsis of the plot. 

If you think you can avoid this by hiring an agent to sell your novel, that’s not going to work. It’s very difficult to get an agent without showing them a proposal, which must contain a synopsis. And once you’ve got an agent working for you, they’ll insist you write a proposal for every novel you write, before they submit it to a publisher. An agent will critique your proposal, but they won’t write it. That’s your job. 

So how do you write a synopsis, if you’re an unpublished novelist?

First, the bad news. If you’ve never published a novel, then you need to have a full, polished manuscript of your novel, ready to submit to an agent or editor. It’s almost impossible to get the attention of an agent or an editor without one. 

That sounds horribly unfair, but it’s understandable. Agents and editors have all seen hundreds of dreamy-eyed writers who can write three killer scenes but lack the discipline to finish a novel. So agents and editor will insist a beginner must have a full manuscript in hand. 

Now, the good news. If you’ve got a complete manuscript, it should take you no more than 4 hours to drill out a perfectly respectable synopsis of your novel. That’s fast! You could have it done in a day or two. Here’s how…

The Length of Your Synopsis

How long should your synopsis be? It should be whatever length your intended agent or publisher says. If they ask for a 2-page synopsis, they mean 2. Not 1, not 3, and definitely not 55. Synopses are single-spaced, which works out to about 500 words per page. So a 2-page synopsis will be about 1000 words, give or take about 50. 

Agents and editors love writers who follow instructions, because they are inundated with manuscripts and they’re looking for ways to thin the herd. Don’t be thinned.

But now you have a problem. If your novel is 100,000 words and you have to write a synopsis of 1000 words, you have to cut out 99 percent. How do you do that?

The answer is that you don’t cut from 100,000. You start from zero. Here’s how…

Your Scene List

If you’ve got the full manuscript, then you probably also have a list of scenes somewhere. (If you’re a fan of my Snowflake Method, then you wrote your manuscript from a Scene List, and you can just pull that out.) 

If you don’t have a Scene List, it’s easy to make one from your manuscript. Create a spreadsheet in which every row contains a sentence that summarizes one scene. If you’re determined to get this done, you can drill out a Scene List in about two hours. It doesn’t have to be fancy—the Scene List is for your eyes only. Quick and dirty is fine. 

The payoff for having a Scene List is huge, so two hours is a very small price to pay. Please do it. 

When you’ve got your Scene List in hand, note how many scenes it has. This might be as low as 50 or as high as 200. A typical number would be around 80 to 100 scenes. You need to know this number before you move on. 

Your Word and Paragraph Budget 

Now you need to work out your word budget for your synopsis. As an example, if you’ve been asked to create a 2-page, single-spaced synopsis, then that’s about 1000 words (at 500 words per page). If your novel is 100 scenes, you can only afford 10 words per scene, which is not enough. 

Almost always, you can’t summarize every scene in your novel. This is crucial to understand. A synopsis is not a scene-by-scene recounting of your story. It’s less detailed than that.

So what do you do? You’re going to cluster your scenes into Scene Groups—groups of scenes that are related to each other. Your strategy will be to write one paragraph for each Scene Group in the novel. This is gold. This is the most important point in this post. One paragraph per Scene Group. 

Figure that you can write about 10 paragraphs per page, each about 50 words. So if your page limit is 2 pages for the synopsis, you can’t have more than 20 paragraphs total. That’s your paragraph budget.

And since each paragraph summarizes one Scene Group, that’s also your budget for Scene Groups. So you need to know your budget for paragraphs before you move on. 

Creating Your Scene Groups

Once you know how many Scene Groups you can have, you know how many scenes each must have, on average. (If you have 100 scenes and your budget is 20 Scene Groups, then each Scene Group will have an average of 5 scenes.)

Knowing this is power. The power to slice your story to the bone.  

Work through your spreadsheet and mark out your Scene Groups. The easiest way is to select several rows at a time and mark them all with some particular color, so you can see which scenes are in each Scene Group. Once you decide you’re going to do this, you can do it amazingly fast. Give yourself 15 minutes to mark out your Scene Groups.

You must be ruthless here, but it’s not hard when you know your budget with certainty. The math is unforgiving. You know how many Scene Groups you’re allowed to have. Mark them out. 

Writing Your Synopsis

Now write your synopsis. For each Scene Group, summarize it as best you can in about 50 words. Write in third person, present tense. A typical paragraph might look like this: 

Sally discovers her best friend Joe dead in her driveway, and the murder weapon is her own gun. The police arrive and ask Sally to come to the station to help them figure things out. Two hours in, she gets caught in a lie and realizes she needs a lawyer.

That’s one paragraph, summarizing probably 3 to 5 scenes in 50 words. It’s not beautiful, but it skates a straight line through the heart of the story. 

I wrote that paragraph in about 2 minutes, and I don’t even have a story to go with it. I just pulled it out of thin air. If you have your Scene List in front of you with all the Scene Groups marked out, you can write a paragraph for each one in 3 minutes easily. Easily. In one hour, you could have 20 paragraphs written, and that’s a typical synopsis. It’s not fun, so do it fast, like you learned to eat your broccoli when you were a kid. 

But It’s Boring!

Your synopsis is probably boring. There’s no dialogue, no action, no interior monologue, no emotion, no description. It’s all just narrative summary, and you hate it already. You feel certain no agent or editor could possibly enjoy it.

You’re right. No agent or editor ever enjoyed reading a synopsis in the whole history of the human race. Yet they all insist on one. Why? Because they can skim it in one minute and see if you have any understanding at all of the large-scale structure of a story. Any competent agent or editor can do it. Any competent novelist can too. 

So the point of writing a synopsis is to expose the story structure of your novel for the professional eye of an agent or editor. By following the procedure I’ve sketched above, you guarantee that your synopsis exactly matches the structure of your novel. As long as your novel was well-structured to begin with, your synopsis will be too. 

If you’re not sure that your novel is well-structured, then I’ll again point you to my Snowflake Method, which is a 10-step plan of attack for getting the first draft of a perfectly-structured novel down on paper. You don’t have to use the Snowflake Method to write your novel. Some novelists prefer to just write without planning, and that’s fine. But the reason I mention the Snowflake Method is because if you understand how it works, you understand story structure. Even if you use some other method for writing your first draft. 

Good luck, and have fun!