Writing a Winning Synopsis - Fiction Feedback

11 Feb Writing a Winning Synopsis

Posted at 12:17h in featured, resources by Dea Parkin

What’s the point of a synopsis? Why do agents, publishers and competitions ask for one?

Understanding this is critical to writing a good synopsis. Essentially, a synopsis needs to tell the reader what happens in your novel.

But first, let’s look at what else accompanies the synopsis in a submission.

1. A cover or query letter. Here’s where you tell your recipient who you are, what the novel’s about, and what experience or expertise you have that makes you the ideal person to write it. Then you switch round and tell the agent or publisher why you think you and the novel will be a good match for them. You might include your elevator pitch. (See the end of this article for an explanation of elevator pitch if you’re unsure.)

2. The first section of your novel. Different agents, publishers and competitions ask for different word counts, but it’s rarely the whole manuscript (MS). This section shows your recipient you can write. You also want it to grab them so they’re keen to read on.

However, neither the letter nor the novel opening tells a recipient if you can sustain an idea and develop a plot over a full novel of 65,000 words plus. They don’t tell them whether you can structure a novel, or understand about pacing, or create a satisfying ending. They don’t show how well your characters develop from the novel’s opening and how they’ve changed by the conclusion. But in a broad sense, a synopsis does.

The synopsis needs to convince them, in whatever word count they ask for, that it will be worth asking for the full novel and making the investment of time to read it. So you need to spend as much time crafting your synopsis as you do those opening chapters. If the synopsis doesn’t convince, they won’t be getting in touch.

This is just as much the case in competitions like the Crime Writers’ Associations Emerging Author Dagger, where all the judges have to study is the very short novel opening – and the synopsis. So the synopsis really counts. Given that ‘execution of plot’ is one of the 8 criteria of that competition, and the synopsis is the only guide to that, it counts for even more than people sometimes realise. So don’t ever be tempted to regard it as an unimportant extra. Spend a lot of time perfecting it. You’ll also want to put your elevator pitch in the synopsis in such competitions, of course, as you don’t have a query letter for that purpose. (See the final section of this article.)

What is a synopsis?

A synopsis is the story of what happens in the novel from beginning to end, and why.

Bringing a reporter’s head to the task and thinking who, what, when, where, how and why is a good place to start.

Knowing what your story is and what it’s about is essential. Understanding the motivations and aims of your main characters is an underlying element.

Key quality: clarity.

What is not a synopsis?

Where the writer has confused it with a book blurb and written a teaser-style document such as might appear on the back of the book or an intro on a website.
Where the writer has confused it with an outline and writes a blow-by-blow chapter account.
Where the writer declines to reveal the ending. A synopsis without the full story; beginning, middle and end, is not a synopsis.

What else might make a poor synopsis?

Where the writer doesn’t follow the chronological order of events as they take place or are revealed in the novel.
Where the writer focuses so much on character or on detail that the story is lost or muddled.
Where the author gets right in there as a narrator, writing such things as: ‘In yet another plot twist’; ‘But it was not to be’.
Where a style is employed (even if it reflects the novel’s style) to the detriment of clarity and comprehensiveness.
‘But all concludes happily in the end’, or ‘The murderer is identified and brought to justice’ – that is, where what actually happens is omitted – has no place in a professionally written synopsis.
Vagueness again, but this time through an inability to explain every major twist and turn of the plot. That’s what is needed.
Where the synopsis doesn’t appear to match the novel opening that’s also being submitted. It might possibly gloss over that opening, but it must clearly be the same novel with an indication of what’s going on and why. This sometimes occurs with a prologue which presages a later event in the novel. In the synopsis, say briefly what that is and when it will come.

So what makes a good synopsis?

Let’s go through all that you need to consider.

Length

This varies according to agent, publisher or competition. Do make sure you stick to whatever they say.

Don’t be tempted to write one synopsis of a certain length and submit it to all; it won’t impress. Demonstrate you can do as asked.

Always write to the maximum word count. So if you’re asked for a synopsis of around 600 words, write 599. For 800, write 799 and so on.

For the CWA’s Emerging Author Dagger, which Fiction Feedback sponsors and which our editor-in-chief facilitates, there is a whopping 1,500 maximum word count. This is for a reason, so please don’t think a much shorter synopsis that you’ve already prepared for other submissions will do. It won’t.

That reason, if you’re wondering, is that a few years ago the judges decided it should be increased from 1,000 words so entrants could explain more about the novel, given the 3,000-word opening is significantly less than what agents and publishers usually ask for. They felt 1,000 words wasn’t really enough, in particular, to cover changes in narrative viewpoint or voice that the novel might contain. They agreed that expanding the opening section from 3,000 to 4,000 words wouldn’t make a difference to this, but expanding the synopsis would; and so it’s proved. It also allows entrants to include an elevator pitch, beloved of many agents and publishers today.

If the length isn’t specified, aim for no more than two pages and about 700 words.

Layout

Always check in case your recipient does have a specific requirement. Otherwise; 12pt in a popular font such as Times New Roman; double-spaced; regular paragraphs (no bullet points or lists). Usually report style with un-indented paragraphs and a line space between is acceptable; so is book style with indented paragraphs and no additional line spacing between. (Please don’t create a mixture of the two.)

The document should usually be titled, with a header/footer for the author’s name (unless for a competition). Include page numbers, unless you’re told otherwise.

Major character names when first introduced only should appear in ALL CAPS or bold.

Structure

Once they understand what a synopsis is, the next thing writers wonder is how they can possibly distil a full novel into a few hundred words. Try the advice below. Adapt for your novel, and to a degree for the word count of your synopsis.

Focus on the major characters.
Try to simplify the main plot developments to 6-7 key events.
The protagonist must be introduced early in the document, with their goal(s) and motivation(s) clearly explained.
The story must be provided from start to finish – that is, the ending should always be revealed, including the solution if it’s a crime novel.

To cover all the essential story structure, the synopsis should devote approximately one paragraph (if you have a more generous word count, you might look at more) to each of the following elements:

(1) Set-up & Inciting Incident

(2) Major Plot Point 1

(3) Midpoint

(4) Major Plot Point 2

(5) Climax & Denouement

Just a note here on the Emerging Author Dagger competition. It used to be that your synopsis could omit the events in the novel opening that you’re submitting, and start where that ends. Since the word count was extended to 1,500 words, that’s no longer what’s expected. However, if your synopsis gives only a sentence or two regarding the opening, that’s fine.

Style

Write in the present tense.
Specify (unless you’ve been able to in a cover letter) when and where the novel is set, the approximate number of words, and what genre or subgenre it is. If no obvious genre, you might write e.g. contemporary literary fiction, or historical commercial fiction.
If there is a theme, state this if you don’t have a cover letter and if you have the available word count. If you don’t, consider that the theme should emerge anyway from your story summary.
Write how the story is told; examples might be: single first person viewpoint; multiple viewpoints in third person; dual viewpoints written in first and third person (unless you’ve been able to include this in your cover letter).
Include your elevator pitch (unless you’ve been able to do this in your cover letter).
Aim above all for clarity. Agents and editors will be reading fast, so avoid excessive detail. You won’t be able to include every subplot, every location, every character and every scene – the best synopses are where you recognise this from the start and don’t even try. Instead, take an overview from the off and don’t get in too deep.
In writing your story, follow the chronological order in which events are revealed in the novel. Don’t be tempted to write your flashback scenes in a separate section at the beginning or divide the synopsis into the three time periods it deals with – unless they’re presented like that in the novel. If you dip and dive between the periods in the novel, we must in the synopsis, too, otherwise the flow of the novel can’t be appreciated. If a character finds out at a particular moment that this happened 20 years ago; say that. If they find out through the device of a discovered diary; say that too. Be clear about when things are revealed in the novel and ensure your synopsis follows the same sequence. Don’t be tempted to follow another structure.
Tone is tricky and it’s also where different agents, editors and competition judges, being human, differ in what they want. Some like a synopsis to be as bald a statement as if it were a news report. Others prefer it to have more of the style of the novel, and demonstrate the author’s narrative voice, maybe even the novel’s genre, tone and atmosphere. However, our advice is that this should always be subservient to a clear and succinct style that tells the story.
Should you include a character’s emotions and feelings? Yes, where you have the word count, and if they’re important to understanding how the novel develops. Don’t feel you have to include them as what happens should broadly inform us, and to include them in a shorter synopsis in particular will be challenging and might be to the detriment of the clarity of the story itself. On this point and (8) above, you might know that the agent to whom you’re submitting does like a synopsis to echo the style of the novel and to include a lot about the protagonists’ emotions. That’s great if you have that knowledge and of course the sensible thing is to use it. Just don’t assume another agent or publisher will be the same. As with most things, an approach that doesn’t veer to either extreme has the best chance of succeeding.
Snippets of dialogue or sensory description can sometimes be deployed in a very limited manner to add drama to the text. However, not all agents and editors will like this and might even wonder if, as it uses up valuable word count, it’s concealing a lack of meat, i.e. plot, to the story. If in doubt, don’t.
Always ensure the synopsis is technically correct in terms of grammar, punctuation, spelling and consistency of styling elements such as hyphens, capitals and treatment of numbers. The synopsis, just like your novel, is a window to your writing skills. Make sure it’s clean and sparkling.

What to avoid

Using sales language to market the novel as you might in a cover letter.
Explicitly referring to the mechanical structure of the story (e.g. ‘At the climax of the novel…’).
Introducing too many characters all at once.
Writing ‘and then this’, ‘and then that’, ‘and then the other’. You’re a writer. You can convey your meaning more skilfully.
Focusing on minor elements to the plot, or such aspects as theme or emotion, at the expense of the overall story.
Not following through to the climax and denouement. Yes, we do need to know who the killer is!

Elevator pitch

It’s advisable to include an elevator pitch or pitch line – most especially when it’s a competition entry so there’s no option to put it in a letter. The elevator pitch used to be an optional extra, but now agents and publishers actively look for it. If you have the word count in a competition entry, it’s recommended you include one. The ideal length is one or perhaps two sentences without many clauses. It can be a statement, it can be a question.

Keep your pitch succinct yet enticing. Don’t get tangled up in detail. Use your character’s name if it works as shorthand and saves you writing multi-word descriptions – unless those descriptions are key to understanding.

The term ‘elevator pitch’ came about because this description is traditionally how you’d hook a literary agent you just happened to encounter in a lift or elevator. So it must be short, as dramatic as possible, and above all, interesting.

Final words

Don’t panic. Make your synopsis readable. Include the ending – and good luck!

Photo: Thanks to writer Caroline Arnoul for sourcing the accompanying photo to this article on the Resources page.