Writing a novel synopsis doesn’t have to be a miserable chore.
by Anne R. Allen.
I have yet to meet a writer who enjoys writing a novel synopsis. Unfortunately, we all need to write them.
Yes, even self-publishers.
I sometimes see people in writing groups and forums who gloat when there’s a discussion of how to write a synopsis. They say “Haha! I don’t have to learn to write a novel synopsis because I plan to self-publish!”
Think again, indies. It’s not just agents and publishers who will ask for a synopsis of your novel. Reviewers, bloggers, and bookstore owners usually want to see a short synopsis, too.
And that “product description” you need to write for online retailers? That one that will make or break your book sales?
That’s essentially a novel synopsis without the ending.
Yeah, I know you didn’t want to hear that.
I’ve been writing synopses for decades and still dread them. But not as much as I used to, since I learned a couple of keys to simplifying the process.
First: Always Check Individual Website Guidelines.
The basics of a novel synopsis are standard: Write in the third person, present tense, and give the bare bones of your story including the ending.
Format it like a manuscript: 1″ margins, use TNR or other standard font, and indent the first line of each paragraph.
Generally, if it’s a one-pager, you can single space. if it’s any longer, double space.
But whether you’re querying agents, publishers, or reviewers, you want to be sure to check the individual websites to see exactly what kind of synopsis each one requires. The specifics may vary even between different agents in the same agency.
Two decades ago, the typical novel synopsis for a literary agent or publisher was a 400-500 word, single spaced one-pager.
But these days, many agents prefer a shorter one of about 250 words (one page, double-spaced.)
A few old-school small publishers still ask for hefty multi-page tomes. Sometimes they’ll ask for a multi-page outline, which is not the same as a synopsis. An outline is a chapter-by-chapter summary of events. Bo-ring. Luckily not many publishers ask for outlines of novels these days.
I’ve heard a number of agents say they don’t even pay much attention to a novel synopsis. They mostly read it to make sure that highlander zombie vampires from a galaxy far, far away don’t suddenly appear in chapter 25 of your cozy mystery.
And they want to know if there’s an actual, satisfying ending.
But some agents and editors read a synopsis carefully. I know reviewers do. And as a reader, I always read the product description of a book before buying. So you do want that synopsis to be polished and enticing.
I know. Yikes. It’s like taking your baby and squashing it into a horrible little box that hides all its beauty and uniqueness and sparkle. But…
Hack #1: Start by Writing Your Pitch
You’ll find it much easier to write a synopsis if you start with an “elevator pitch” first.
That’s right: work on a short version first. Imagine you’re pitching your book to a film producer. Get all the sizzle you can into those few words.
Then expand from there. But write the good part first. What makes your book unique and exciting?
Write that down.
Now write your pitch. So what’s a pitch? It’s a sentence or two that sums up the core of your story. I’ve got some suggestions on how to write it below.
Once you’ve got that pitch down, you can expand it to a 250 word synopsis.
This is a hack I learned from my friend Catherine Ryan Hyde, who has sold 3 million books on Amazon in the past five years, and is the author of the iconic novel Pay It Forward. Here’s what she says in our book, How to Be a Writer in the E-Age: A Self-Help Guide
“You were worried about boiling 104,000 words down to 250. Weren’t you? Now you’re not boiling down…you get to expand it! You’ve got some elbow room, now! Boy howdy! You get to fill up a whole damn page!”
Try it. I’m not pretending it’s going to be easy, but Catherine’s method makes it less painful.
3 Formulas to Help You Write That Pitch
1) Try a simple fill-in-the-blanks with this template
When______happens to_____, he/she must_____or face_____.
“When the adopted son of Kansas farmer discovers he’s a strange visitor from a another planet who can leap tall buildings at a single bound, he must save the world, one clueless girl reporter at a time. He’s thwarted by an assortment of megalomaniacs armed with green rocks. But he must use his freakish powers to fight for truth, justice and the American way, or see his adopted planet destroyed like his native planet Krypton.”
2) Or try Kathy Carmichael’s clever “pitch generator”.
It’s been around for a long time, but it’s still fun, and amazingly useful.
Here’s her generator’s pitch for The Wizard of Oz.
The Wizard of Oz is a 54,000-word fantasy novel set in the magical land of Oz. Dorothy Gale is a Kansas farm girl (what is it about Kansas?) who believes a legendary wizard can help her get home. She wants to return to Kansas to be with her Auntie Em, but can’t because her transportation vehicle is sitting on a dead witch, she’s being attacked by nasty flying monkeys, and her companions are cowardly, heartless, and brainless.
3) Or you can use the late Miss Snark’s famous “Hook me up” formula
X is the main guy; he wants to do_____.
Y is the bad guy; he wants to do_____.
They meet at Z and all L breaks loose.
If they don’t resolve Q, then R starts and if they do it’s L squared.
What a Novel Synopsis Needs
Now you’re ready to expand that pitch into a synopsis. So you get to add stuff. But not too much.
Here’s what you want to get in there:
- Sizzle. What makes your story unique
- Setting
- Main conflict of the primary story arc
- Protagonist’s goal
- Antagonist
- The stakes
- Tone: the synopsis should echo the tone of the book. (For tips on tone, see below.)
What a Novel Synopsis Doesn’t Need
- A list of events. “This happens and then this and then this and then this” will snoozify any reader.
- Statement of theme. I know you’re tempted to explain that this is all a metaphor showing man’s inhumanity to man and the evils of a consumerist culture, but resist. You’re just telling the story here.
- Advertising copy. Self-praise is really tacky in a synopsis.
- Subplots: keep to the main storyline.
- Secondary characters. Only mention the essential characters.
How to convey the tone of your book.
1) You can make it funny:
“When the romantic adventures of a southern belle are interrupted by an icky war PLUS her goody-two-shoes-BFF steals her boyfriend, Scarlett whips up a fabulous outfit in order to seduce Mr. Wrong, who in the end, doesn’t give a damn.”
2) Or punch it up by emphasizing high-stakes conflict:
“With his life in constant danger from the monstrous carnivore Snowbell, young Stuart must fight for his life, and prove once and for all whether he is a man or a mouse.”
3) Or go for the thrills by emphasizing the most dangerous scene:
“Marked for death along with his companions, a toy rabbit must learn to cry real tears in order to save himself from being thrown into a burning pit by the boy loves.”
Hack #2: Don’t Wait Until You’ve Finished the Book.
That’s right. I’m telling you to write a synopsis while you’re still working on your rough draft. Write one after the first third. Try another when you hit two-thirds. And another after you’ve written “the end.”
If you’re a pantser, these three documents will probably be wildly different.
THEN: after your editor or beta readers have had their way with the manuscript and you’ve suffered through bunch of rewrites, try writing that final synopsis.
It may bear absolutely no resemblance to your initial effort, but it will be easier to write because you started early.
I promise.
Yes, we all hate writing the dreaded novel synopsis, but these few words are as important as any you’ll ever write. So sit down and write a pitch, build on it and see what happens.
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) July 1, 2018
What about you, scriveners? Do you dread writing a synopsis? I’d love for readers to try the pitch generator and put your pitches in the comments.
And Anne also has a new post on her book blog. As part of her poison series, she talks about the serial poisoner who was just arrested in Germany for the poisoning of 23 of his co-workers. Why do you think he might have done it?
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I used to do critiques of synopses on Absolute Write. One of the reasons they’re so hard is that if the book doesn’t work, the synopsis isn’t going to work. On the first book I submitted to agents, cowriter and I struggled with keeping the synopsis short. We had four main characters with equal weight, and yet by the time we got them in, added our bad guys, it was a struggle to make the synopsis coherent and stay within one page. We actually had to go back and redraft the story to write the synopsis. When I did critiques, I could see in the synopsis that they writer didn’t actually know what their overall story was. It was a lot of of either world building (SF or fantasy), or “And this happened, and then this happened.” In some cases, it was really obvious that the writer didn’t have a story in the first place. But everyone was in a hurry and didn’t want to hear that the book was the problem …
Also, as a side note, one of my books landed in the 2018 Military Science Fiction StoryBundle. Twelve books for a really good price, and three by veterans. https://storybundle.com/military
Linda–There’s a lot of wisdom in this comment. Writing the synopsis reveals flaws in the story, which is why it can be so painful. That’s why I recommend writing several during the process of getting the first draft on paper. You can see where you might be going wrong. Sounds as if that’s what you and your co-writer ran into.
I can imagine that the people at AW may have wanted to “shoot the messenger” rather than accept the fact their novel needed a major rewrite.
Congrats on being included in the StoryBundle. On July 4th weekend, that might be the perfect read!
Hey Anne,
I’m with you about the dreadful nature of synopsis writing. One of my biggest struggles is editing out all those supporting characters I’ve grown to love, but I have learned most of them simply need to vanish when it comes to the synopsis. I am very intrigued by the varied formula you offer here — could make my next synopsis-writing struggle a bit less of a struggle. Gracias.
CS–I’m with you! My supporting characters provide much of the fun in my books, so taking them out seems to erase the humor. But it must be done. Sigh.
Pitches, hacks, tips, and no-no’s—this post is on every writer’s must-bookmark list! Thanks, Anne.
Thanks, Ruth!
No many of us enjoy it.
I like the idea of starting short and expanding. I can usually do a logline, so expanding on that would be easier than paring down a whole story.
Alex–Do try the trick of writing your logline first. It’s amazing how much easier it is to write it that way!
Ugggh.
I would write blog posts about my inability to write either a synopsis (longish if I was querying, shortish if I was self-publishing) or a blurb.
Case in point: with my latest novel, I actually waited until I got the manuscript back from my editor (February)before I got to work on it…one month later (March). On the 11th try, three weeks later (early April), I finally had a synopsis that clicked in at 245 words.
Definitely not one of my favorite things to do. I would rather do a detailed outline that write a synopsis.
G. B.–I agree that a detailed outline is easier, but it’s also more tedious–for the writer and the reader. Putting off the synopsis and blurb writing to the last minute is what most of us do, but that’s also what makes it so hard. Write it when you’re drafting the book and it will be much easier.
Great ideas, Anne! I especially like the writing in thirds. Seems like not only would that process help in writing a final synopsis, but would also force me to take a hard look at where the story went in that third.
I have urged some of my edit clients to write their first synopsis in ‘extreme-o-mondo’ style using absurd/extreme words (boffo, whammarama, thrill-ride, etc.). I find that even the most effusive author will clam up when faced with writing a synopsis and the demand to write in the extreme seems to shake off some of the cement.
I’ve had clients who felt a synopsis was disrespectful to their story — that stripping it down to 300-500 words wasn’t ‘fair’ or diluted the story. Like this post mentions, I try to help them see that if the ‘guts’ of the synopsis doesn’t jump out at them, then the story may still need some work.
We also do pitch practices on Skype — I get the fun role of being the target agent stuck in the elevator. :o)
Thanks for another wonderful post!
Maria D’Marco
Maria–I love the idea of writing your synopsis with silly hyperbole. Also Skyping pitches. Doing pitches out loud is way harder than writing them. Trial by fire there.
Oh I have met those “artistes” who think their work is so brilliant it can’t be described. That almost always means they don’t have a strong story arc. Must be hard to keep a straight face.
I had a unique dilemma of writing the pitch, blurb, and synopsis for my parallel story (The Girl in the Jitterbug Dress). I followed these guidelines to a tee with EACH protagonist and then figured out how to connect the narratives in very few words. I also submitted to Query Shark. She was brutal and really shot down my first attempts. In contrast, my time-travel murder-mystery paranormal romance was a touch easier. Although, I feel like I’m still learning.
Oh, and then I worked on twitter pitches. Talks about getting a hook and essence of your book in those few words. That’s when tweets were only 140 characters.
Here’s some fun example. The hashtags were some of the agents that use twitter pitches:
A skirt wraps around a warm thigh. 2 woman struggle w/ love, loss, & redemption. United across generations by a 1940s swing dress #PitMad
WWII, Dance Halls, New Love. Two Women 50 years apart, struggle with love, loss & redemption. United by a Jitterbug dress #PitMad #NA
Vintage Cocktails & Clothing. A Jitterbug Sailor. WWII Lovers lost in time. United 50 years later through a dress & a dance #PitMad #NA
The past doesn’t always stay in the past. Sometimes it comes to life on the dancefloor. 2 Women united by a 1940s swing dress #PitMad #NA
WWII, Dance Halls, New Love. Lovers torn apart by WWII united through a jitterbug dress by their lost granddaughter #PitMad #NA
If you don’t know the book, it many of the pitches sound like an LGBTQ romance. Ultimately after querying and getting a couple offers for ebook first rights, I self-published.
It was a great exercise though and I think helped with honing a tagline, logline, blurb and synopsis.
I tried the generator. What fun. Thank you!
Tam–Those are great Twitter pitches! You should hire yourself out! Great stuff.
Yeah, Query Shark is the brutalist! But she sure lets you find out why you’re getting those rejections in the return mail. I submitted a query to her a long time ago. Still have the scars. 🙂
I was one of those writers who said, “Synopsis, I don’t need no stinking synopsis.”
Then a interested potential reader asked a simple question, “What’s your novel about?”
Huh?
Of course, I knew but I just couldn’t put it into a nice little package with a bow on top.
That was then.
Now
Now I write a synopsis. In fact, I usually write several–before I start writing, when I’m (more or less) half finished and when I’m finished.
Leanne–I used to have that happen at parties all the time. “What’s your book about?” “Um, it’s about a woman who, then she, then her best friend…” and eyes have glazed over.
I’m impressed that you can write a synopsis before you start. I’ve never been able to do that (well, not yet) but I’m sure it would help me focus on what’s important.
Oooo, coolness, Leanne. I’m gonna try doing it first, too. I’m thinking of doing NaNoWriMo again this year and this would be a good time to try it out! Thanks for inspiring me!
I teach how to do this in class, Anne. And the easiest way? Write a very simple outline of inciting moment, three crisis points, and finale. In fact, three acts and a finale. If you have that very simple paradigm roughed out, then you probably have good bones for the synopsis. If you *can’t* come up with at least three crisis points (and a finale) then you probably don’t have enough plot for a novel, anyway. I use my own examples in class, and annotate them, so students can see the crisis – setback, next crisis – setback, crisis-black moment-climax, finale.
Melodie–That certainly is the standard formula. Some people may find that dry and daunting, in which case, the logline approach may make it easier.
Really fun and useful challenge this week Anne. I love it all the way over here on vacation!
The tough part of the synopsis and blurb for me is when you rightly point out that it needs to show the sizzle and uniqueness, that makes me veer directly into tell-not-show. Like very bad overblown ad copy.
And I’ve had little use for the synopsis in my own career (my publisher is on board and we’ve mapped out my immediate future for titles), but as you said in the comments, knowing your own tagline is crucial for meeting folks in person (the party, the book fair, even the signing). It’s like a match to the fire, folks carry their own interest forward if you give them just a little.
This summer I’m tasked with recording, not writing. But with my WiP in the fall, I think I’ll create a pitch-line and then lob it into the header of the Word doc. Why not? Then I’ll see it again and again and always think about whether the tale is keeping true to the theme.
Will–Recording your words sure makes you look at your work in a new way, doesn’t it? I love the idea of keeping a logline in your header as you pound out that first draft. It might help keep me on the straight and narrow. Of course, sometimes a better story (and logline) come along, but then you can just change that header. Happy vacationing!
Thank you for this. I have to write one right now and I am dreading it. What I hate most are the one-line pitches. AACK! But I’ve gotten better at it over the years and realize, by “cutting down” on the words, I really do get to the nitty-gritty of the story.
Patricia–If you hate writing the pitch, then the idea of expanding from a pitch to write a synopsis may seem counterintuitive, but once you’ve got that logline down, the rest is easy-peasy.
Are you psychic?? Today I decided enough procrastinating, get the synopsis over and done with. So I procrastinated, which turned out to be a good thing because of this! I’ve written synopsis before, could have done with these succint tips. Tried the ‘pitch generator’ – so fun! But also useful, given me a starting point. I’ve finished the book (I think, I hope) but shall remember for the next one, to start writing the synopsis while still on the first draft.
Thank you so much, Anne, I’m feeling fired up enough to actually start working on it now 🙂
Joy–I’m so glad I wrote this at such an auspicious time for you. Best of luck with your synopsis. I do that that pitch generator helps get the ideas flowing!
Synopses are the absolute worst. I can do either a logline or a half-hour ramble about my books, but a single page seems impossible. Thanks for the help!
Irvin–Try expanding that logline, and you might just find the ramble doesn’t go on as long as usual. Best of luck!
Thank you for a timely and absolutely brilliant post! Using all three of your techniques finally produced a passable blurb or at least one my editor accepted. You always have the best advice! Thank you, thank you and wow, thanks!
Blythe–How great to know I helped you write your blurb! It’s great to hear when our posts help fellow authors. Good luck with the book!
I have that pitch formula sitting on my desk. I write it first and then expand it for my back cover blurb. It really is helpful.
Susan–I admit that I have written about the pitch formula and expanding it before. Or you may have heard it from the same place Catherine did. I’m so glad it’s working for you!
I have a question. 🙂 If you MCs goal changes or if she/he thinks it’s one thing but it’s really something else, so you write the first or original goal or the final goal?
H.R.–I think you’ll want to include both goals, since that’s probably part of the “sizzle” of your story. Something like “She thinks her goal is X, but after she experiences Y, she realizes what she really wants is Z”.
Perfect. Thank you!
Anne this is fantastic. My contract asks for an outline for any as-yet-unwritten book and I DREAD writing it. Not only are your tips perfect for honing in on the most important aspects of a story, I’m coming back to this when I’m stuck. And by when I mean right now, Book three, chapter three…
I consider myself a “plantzer” because I write without an outline but I do go back and outline what I’ve written to see if it makes sense and follows a natural arc. Sharing this with my debut tribe!