The Art of the Dreaded Synopsis

Recently I conducted an interview with the truly incomparable Clare Allan-Kamil on the subject of synopsis writing. As the synopsis is the first example of your writing an agent, editor or publisher sees, it’s vital to get it right – if they don’t like your synopsis they might not even bother to read your sample chapters. As daunting as it seems, there are tricks and tools you can use to make your synopsis stand out. 

This interview is also available on the Writers Victoria website.

Why do publishers/agents need to see a synopsis? Can’t they just read the submitted novel?

You are asked to submit a synopsis because the commissioning editor (or equivalent) will assign the reading of your manuscript according to the genre. They’re matchmakers who like to ensure that the right person reads your work. So, they will give a literary manuscript to an editor who specialises in the literary genre and a crime manuscript to an editor who specialises in crime (do you really want someone who specialises in cookbooks assessing your historical fiction?). Commissioning editors do not have time to read your entire manuscript in order to decide who best to assess it. A synopsis allows them to sort manuscripts quickly and effectively.

Secondly, publishing houses receive countless manuscripts on a weekly basis; sadly, they do not have time to read every manuscript. A synopsis is a quick and effective way for them to sort through which manuscripts are worth their limited time.

Lastly, if you as the author can’t explicate what it is that you’re writing about in one to one-and-a-half pages then the book is likely to be just as rambling and unstructured. In a way, publishers are forming an understanding of you from the very first paragraph of the synopsis – do you know what you’re writing about, can you succinctly explain your work to others, do you know about structure? 

Why do you think the synopsis is so important to get right?

The synopsis is your novel’s flagship. It provides the assessor with a profound first impression of your work and you as a writer. So, your synopsis must be clear, it must show that you understand what it is that you’ve written, and must demonstrate a solid understanding of your readership and the market.

As editors have less and less time to spend trawling through the slush pile they need the synopsis to help them determine: where your book sits in the market, who the readership is, what genre of book it is and what it’s about. And they need it done five minutes ago!

Also, a publisher needs to know that the person they are considering giving a publishing contract to is cogent and clear about their writing. A publisher can’t afford to have an author incapable of speaking about their book at book launches, in interviews and at festivals.

Importantly for the author, a synopsis can help focus your work – it’s a great way to check if your structure is sound, if there are any lulls in the action, or if your characters have a weak emotional arc. In this way, the synopsis is a blueprint – an architectural plan – for your novel. It’s not just for your pitch; it provides a structure for you as you’re writing. It’s a good idea, therefore, to write a synopsis at the beginning, the middle and the end of your writing process. 

It’s important to realise that you can have a fantastic book that will languish in the slush pile simply because the synopsis didn’t sell the quality of the book well enough.

What are your top tips for writing a good synopsis?

Engage immediately

You absolutely have to engage the reader in the first two lines as well as capture who you’re writing for. You can, for some kinds of books, start with a question derived from the thesis of the book. For instance, for a non-fiction submission about starting up a small business you wouldn’t say ‘this is a book about small businesses’ (because that would be dull). However, you might start with a question: have you ever considered opening your own business? Are you tired of working for other people? This kind of opening is already informing the assessor that you know who your audience is and you know how to engage their interest quickly. Also, bring to the fore a sizzling quote and place it straight after the introduction. This will also help with immediate engagement.

Your tagline needs to be perfect

The tagline for your book needs to come at the very beginning – a succinct and captivating sentence that sums up your book’s thesis, audience and uniqueness to the market. It’s worth spending a lot of time crafting this one sentence. You need to find the sentence that makes the reader go: oh, that’s interesting, I’ll read on. Revise your tagline until it’s perfect; this will take time.

Choose your comparison titles carefully

At the end of the synopsis, it’s a great idea to link your writing to comparable titles. When doing this think carefully about who to compare yourself and your work to. If you compare your work to Margaret Atwood but you actually write spy fiction in the vein of John Le Carré, this does not reflect well on your understanding of the industry, of genres and your own writing. If you are lucky enough to have a publisher contact you, they are going to want you to talk about why you liken your work to Margaret Atwood. If you listed her because you thought it would look good but you’ve never actually read her, this will not go down well. Be honest and do your research.

What are the key mistakes authors make when writing a synopsis?

Telling the ENTIRE story

The synopsis, while it does need to cover the basic storyline, should focus on the themes or thesis at the heart of the story. This is why it’s a great idea to have your five second pitch well-practiced; if you’re fortunate enough to bump into an editor at a party, instead of panicking and then launching into a rambling retelling of the entire story, you know what the key narrative arc of your story is and can express it in a way that reveals the novel’s broader themes (and you can do it in one or two captivating sentences). You can apply this thinking to your synopsis – it isn’t a retelling of every event in the novel. A synopsis covers the broad brushstrokes, the pivotal turning points and the character’s emotional arc.

Poor spelling and grammar, and other errors

The minute an editor spots that you’ve misspelt the name of the author you’re comparing your writing to, that one of your main characters appears to have an unexplained name change half-way through and that your use of punctuation is random at best, they will not look at your work favourably. The synopsis is a professional document and you are approaching a publisher with the desire to do business with them – so treat it like a business document. Have a trusted friend (who is good at spelling and grammar) look over your work. In fact, have several trusted friends look over it. Errors make your work look amateurish and indicate that you don’t care enough about your work to get it right. Lots of errors also signal long hours for a copyeditor and a drain on the publisher’s limited finances.

Not telling the opening and closing of your story

Publishers are not going to steal your work. They’re just not. So you don’t have to worry about holding back on the good bits. In fact, you must tell the publisher the good bits – you’re trying to sell your work to them so why would you leave out what makes your writing special? It’s like trying to sell a new medical treatment without revealing that it cures cancer. You must reveal how your novel opens, what the central plot is, what the biggest twists are and how it all ends. The publisher wants to know if your book is any good and where it’s going to fit in the market so they can’t be ill-informed by a patchy synopsis.

Is there a perfect structure for a synopsis?

A perfect structure involves getting to the point quickly, giving an indication of the audience early on and keeping it brief. No matter what, your synopsis should never exceed the publisher’s requirements on length: if a publisher asks for a one page synopsis then they mean one page. In particular, the character arc should be made very clear in the synopsis – how does the main character/s change over the course of the novel? What do they learn?

How long should a synopsis be?

Ideally a synopsis should be kept to a minimum but different publishers have different requirements. Some publishers want a three page synopsis while others only want half a page. Stick to what the publisher asks for. It’s a good idea to have more than one synopsis prepared, from a single paragraph to six pages. 

Is there anything you think should not go in a synopsis?

The belt, buckle and braces

Avoid overloading your synopsis with unnecessary details, especially biographical. Some people make the mistake of providing their full name, place of birth, where they went to school, what their fifth grade teacher wrote in their school report, the time their bike was stolen from out the front of the supermarket and they had to walk home in the rain … you get the picture. Even the fact that you’ve always been interested in writing, ever since you wrote that poem in primary school, is just not relevant to the publisher. You’ve only got a small window of opportunity where the publisher is focused on your proposal – sometimes as little as five seconds. The information you include has to be relevant and instantly engaging.

Excessive boasting

While you do want to sell yourself, there’s a fine line between promotion and arrogance. Be careful with boasts such as: ‘my work is better than anything Shakespeare ever wrote’, or ‘this will win the Man Booker so you better think seriously about publishing me’. Excessive boasting will not endear you to publishers.

Not including comparison titles

Be careful about saying you don’t read books, or you can’t find any books out there that are anything like your work because you’ve ‘broken the mould’. This is very, very rarely the case (even the most genre-bending books can be compared to aspects of other works) and being unable to list comparable titles makes you appear lazy, ignorant or arrogant. Some people are loathe to compare their work to others in case it makes it look like their writing isn’t unique – this isn’t why a publisher wants you to compare your work. Publishers like to know that a prospective writer is well-read, understands the market and understands themselves as a writer.

What’s the difference between a synopsis and a blurb?

The blurb needs to reveal the highlights of the plotting, or the key themes. The blurb teases the reader and gives them a broad sense of the story, leaving it tantalisingly unfinished – the reader should have no choice but to open the book and begin reading, desperate to find out what it’s all about. The blurb is often derived from the synopsis but it is purely a selling tool. By comparison, the synopsis is a selling tool but it’s also all the other things we’ve been talking about: a time-saver, an indication of intended audience and your book’s position in the market, your quality as a writer, the key plot points succinctly explained, etc.  The most important difference is that a synopsis must give away all significant plot details including how it ends while a blurb should never give away the ending.  

Any tips for making a synopsis stand out? I.e.: should it be funny? Should it be written like it’s from the main character of the book?

Publishers don’t want to see quirky fonts, a kaleidoscope of colours, pictures (unless you’re an illustrator and you’re submitting a picture book – in that case, draw away!), designs for the front cover, or glowing quotes from your best friend, hairdresser, niece or grandma (unless your grandma is a Miles Franklin winning author – in that case, quote away!). Your synopsis doesn’t need to have gimmicks – it just needs to be succinct and immediately engaging. Find the human element in your story that readers will identify with, the thing that touches the central nerve, and put it right up the top of your synopsis. 

Does the genre of a book affect the synopsis? I.e.: is there a certain way to write a synopsis for a crime novel that might not suit a literary novel?

It’s all much the same. Some genres lend themselves to opening with the character (versus the themes). A synopsis is more about the mechanics of the book – revealing what makes the book tick – so in that sense the genre is evident in the structure itself. For example, crime novels often use the discovery of the first dead body as the inciting incident and have plenty of twists and turns. Of course, the genre will also be evident in any quotes you use and your sample material (so choose sample chapters carefully).