Writing the Synopsis

One of the biggest things writers moan about, at least to me they do, is the synopsis.

They absolutely hate to write it. How am I supposed to take my 90,000-word manuscript and condense it to a few mere pages?

With a lot of rewriting and revising, that’s how.

First, let’s define. What is a synopsis? Two things are important to know here:

1. Synopsis is a summary (not an outline) of your story’s plot
2. Synopsis is used to SELL your story

In a synopsis, we tend to be asking the question, What is this story about?

In an outline, we tend to be asking the question, What’s in this story?

You might say the questions ask the same thing, but not really.

That “in” within the outline question allows you to write everything in an outline. Most of us, when we write outlines, throw everything into them. We pinpoint every scene, every move of every character, we even explain why characters do what they do and state what our characters look like. We are giving ourselves a detailed road map to making the story cohesive, coherent, and well-developed.

The “is” within the synopsis question puts focus on “this story.” It is making you focus on the central storyline of your book.

And in your response to the synopsis question, we are not looking for everything and the kitchen sink; we are looking to see who the main character is, what the overall conflict is, and what the major plot points are that get us from the point of conflict to the resolution. Giving us a physical description of character is unnecessary unless it is pivotal to the overall story. Minor sub-plots and characters are unnecessary unless they, again, are pivotal to the overall story or main character.

Now that I’ve handled #1, here’s a comment about #2 above. The synopsis is not a tool for you; it’s a tool for an agent or an editor, for someone you hope will like your story idea enough to want to read the whole manuscript and will want to BUY it. As such, the synopsis shouldn’t be a dry recount of your story. It should have some verve; it should be made with some of the same flavor as the story it comes from. For example, if you’re story is about a woman recovering from the loss of her family, your synopsis would not sound HAPPY. Whatever the tone, mood, style of your book is you will want to try to replicate that within your synopsis.

What I’d like to do in the rest of this article is present some ways in which you can begin to think about your book in smaller doses that lead to small to large-sized synopses.

Some writers will cringe, but I tend to write my synopsis before I write the story. I write up a loose idea for a story before I get into writing my detailed outline, then the book itself.

You don’t have to write your synopsis first; however, I think it’s important to think about how to develop your process for writing it.

Typically, I go through four stages of synopsis writing, each stage creating an important marketing tool for me and for the book: a one-liner, a one-pager, a three-pager, and a longer synopsis. I do this for two reasons: one, ME. I like having different versions so that I can see my story in snap shot form and in a modified panoramic form. Two, you never know what an agent or an editor will ask for. These days, neither has the time to read pages upon pages of your synopsis to decide if he/she likes the story. It’s smart to develop as many of these styles as you can so that you can be prepared for whatever an editor or agent might request. And what you’ll notice, the key to this is layering. Each larger style simply builds upon the style before it.

The One-Liner

Movie people would call this a “logline,” a one-sentence summary of your script. Yeah, I know, condensing a 90k novel into 25 words. Hard. But doable. Don’t believe me? Here’s one or two from movies:

Independence Day – Aliens try to invade earth on Independence Day.

Liar, Liar – An attorney, because of a birthday wish, can’t tell any lies for 24 hours.

Dead Calm – A married couple, trying to recover from the death of their only child, are terrorized at sea by a handsome maniac.

In writing your one-liner, you want to ask yourself three questions:

1. Who is the main character and what does he or she want?
2. Who or what is standing in the way of the main character?
3. What makes this story unique?

If you look at the above loglines, particularly the one for Dead Calm, you see all three of these questions answered:

1. Who is the main character: married couple. What does he or she want: to recover from the death of their only child.
2. Who or what is standing in the way of the main character: a handsome maniac that terrorizes them.
3. What makes this story unique: they are AT SEA.

The “unique” aspect is important here. We all know that every premise that can be written about HAS been written about…it’s the unique twist we add to that story that makes it our own.

The One-Pager

This, for me, is the back copy, something I talked about in one of the very-first TWL4U articles in September 2008.

Picture going to Borders – you’re rifling through books, reading back covers.  Pretend your book is on the shelf.  Pick it up.  Flip it over.  What does the back copy read?

Back copy runs between 100 to 225 words. It contains the same information you’ll place in your query when it’s time to submit the work to agents and publishers:  your main character, his or her want, the major conflict that prevents the main character from achieving the want, and a “twist” that arises and seems to forever keep the main character away from the want.

In the move from the one-liner to the one-pager, we are allowed to flesh the components of the one-liner out a bit more and then develop the “twist” further.

Here's a sample of the one-pager (which is really a paragraph, sometimes less); it's from Kami Garcia's book Beautiful Creatures. 




There were no surprises in Gatlin County.
We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere.
At least, that's what I thought.
Turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong.
There was a curse.
There was a girl.
And in the end, there was a grave.
Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever. Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.

The Three-Pager

In the three-pager, we move from the succinct development of character->conflict->twist to actually developing information regarding plot points. Here, it is important to think of the HIGH POINTS of your story, those major plot points that keep your story from sagging and that move the overall story arc from point of conflict to point of resolution. Many talk about (and this will be even more important in the longer synopsis) the idea of ACTION->REACTION->DECISION when developing scenes for your synopsis. And this doesn’t need to be told in several paragraphs. In fact, in your synopsis, you want your paragraphs to be lean, tight, and fluid. You could easily write these three points in three great sentences. Remember, synopses should be lean and concise.

Longer Synopsis

These days, it’s hard for me to see anyone that asks for a synopsis over five pages. Having said that, some publishing industry insiders make note of the following formula (and ones pretty similar to it):

1 page of synopsis = 10,000 words of manuscript

Which simply means that for every 10,000 words you have of your story, develop one page of your synopsis around those words. So, if you have 90,000-word manuscript, then, conceivably, you could have a longer synopsis of nine pages.

A longer synopsis simply provides you with more room to develop scenes, to highlight your main character(s), to rev up the plot points, etc.

In closing, here are two things important things, for you to make note of:

1. In the three-page synopsis and longer synopsis, it is DEFINITELY ok – and necessary – to show your main character’s reactions to the things that are going on around him or her. The agent/editor wants to know about your character’s story, so knowing how that character reacts to the plot twists is integral. This doesn’t mean we want paragraphs of the character’s thoughts; we want his or her reaction, which I talked about above.
2. Synopses are written in present tense.

Here’s a [link] to some great synopsis samples – books were actually sold to major publishing houses.