CHAPTER 51
PRODUCING A KNOCKOUT NOVEL SYNOPSIS
BY EVAN MARSHALL
Your novel is finished and ready to be mailed to an agent or editor. You shoot off a query letter. The agent or editor asks to see your manuscript, or she asks to see a proposal: three chapters and a synopsis, or one chapter and a synopsis, or just a synopsis.
A what? A synopsis—a brief narrative summary of your novel. It’s a vital marketing tool for a novelist, because it often has to do the entire job of enticing an agent or editor enough to want to read your novel. Think of the synopsis as a sales pitch for your book.
A synopsis has other uses, too. Later, when you sell your novel, your editor may ask you for a synopsis to be used as the basis for jacket or cover copy for your book. Other departments in the publishing house, such as art or sales or publicity, may want to read your synopsis to get a quick idea of your story.
Even later, when it’s time to sell your next novel, you may be able to secure a contract solely on the basis of a synopsis and a few chapters, or just a synopsis. As you can see, the synopsis performs a number of important functions. It therefore deserves as careful attention as you’ve given the novel itself.
SYNOPSIS MECHANICS
The synopsis is formatted much like your manuscript. Use courier type; double-space all text; set your left, right, and bottom margins at 1¼″ (3.2cm), your top margin at ½″ (1.3cm). Justify the left margin only.
On every page except the first, type against the top and left margins a slugline consisting of your last name, a slash, your novel’s title in capital letters, another slash, and the word Synopsis, like this: Price/UNDERSUSPICION/Synopsis. Number the pages consecutively in the upper right-hand corner of the page, against the top and right margins. The first line of text on each page should be about ¾″ (1.9cm) below the slugline and page number.
On the first page of your synopsis, against the top and left margins, type single-spaced your name, address, and telephone number. Against the top and right margins, type single-spaced your novel’s genre, its word count, and the word Synopsis. (The first page of the synopsis is not numbered, though it is page 1.)
Double-space twice, center your novel’s title in capital letters, double-space twice again, and begin the text of your synopsis.
SYNOPSIS BASICS
Before we get to the subtleties of writing the synopsis, be aware of a few basic rules.
1. The synopsis is always written in the present tense (called the historical present tense).
2. The synopsis tells your novel’s entire story. It doesn’t leave out what’s covered by the sample chapters submitted with it. Nor does it withhold the end of the story—for example, “who done it” in a murder mystery—in order to entice an agent or editor to want to see more. The synopsis is a miniature representation of your novel; to leave anything out is to defeat the purpose of the synopsis.
3. The synopsis should not run too long. An overlong synopsis also defeats in purpose. My rule is to aim for one page of synopsis for every twenty-five pages of manuscript. Thus, a four hundred-page manuscript calls for a sixteen-page synopsis. If you run a page or two over or under, don’t worry.
4. To achieve this conciseness, write as clean and tight as you can. Cut extra adverbs and adjectives. Focus on your story’s essential details. Let’s say, for example, you have a section in which your lead meets another character for dinner at a chic French bistro to try to convince her to lend him some money. We don’t need to know where they had dinner or what they ate or even exactly what was said. We need something on the order of “Ray meets Lenore for dinner and tries to convince her to lend him the money. Lenore refuses.” Actual dialogue is rarely, if ever, needed in the synopsis.
5. Don’t divide your synopsis by chapters; write one unified account of your story. You can use paragraphing to indicate a chapter or section break.
HOW TO MAKE YOUR SYNOPSIS SIZZLE
Now, keeping all of the above in mind, translate your manuscript into synopsis. Begin with your lead and her crisis as the hook of your synopsis. Then tell how your lead intends to solve the crisis (what is her story goal?). For example:
BARBARA DANFORTH has never been especially fond of her brother-in-law, GRAHAM, but she would never have murdered him. Yet all the clues point to her as Graham’s killer. She’ll have to prove her innocence if she doesn’t want to end up as dead as Graham.
PATRICK WARMAN, founder and director of Philadelphia’s Friendship Street Shelter for runaway children, has always been careful to maintain a professional distance from the young people he helps. That’s why he is especially horrified to realize he has fallen in love with PEARL, a teenage girl in his care. If he can’t come to terms with these forbidden feelings, he’ll lose everything he’s worked for. Yet he can’t bear to lose sixteen-year-old Pearl.
RITA RAYMOND is delighted when an employment agency sends her to work as a companion to a man recovering from an accident. She would never have accepted the job if she had known the man was her ex-husband, AARON. And damn if she isn’t falling in love with him again. Yet Aaron was the cause of everything wrong in her life.
Soon after your problem hook, give the vital details about your lead: age, occupation, marital status (if you haven’t already), as well as details of time (the present? the past?) and place.
Barbara, single at thirty-eight, has lived quietly in Rosemont, Texas, working as a stenographer and generally minding her own business. When her sister TRISH invited her to a party to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Trish’s marriage to Graham, Barbara balked. She’d never liked Graham. But she accepted—her first mistake. Agreeing to let Graham take her for a moonlit walk around the couple’s lavish estate was her second….
Patrick, twenty-eight, has been married to MARIANNE for nine years, but although she helps at the shelter, their marriage is in name only….
At twenty-nine, Rita has made peace with her life as a divorcée. She earns enough money as a high-school teacher to support herself and her seven-year-old daughter, ALLEGRA, though Allegra’s severe asthma has been an emotional and financial strain. Even so, life these past five years without Aaron has been better than life was with him….
Now continue telling your story, keeping to the main story points. Remember that the synopsis is not necessarily meant to convey the circumstances of how something happens; the happenings themselves are the concern here.
Most important, remember that motivation and emotion are things that happen; they are plot points, as important as any physical action a character might perform. Some of the worst synopses I’ve seen from would-be clients are dry and lifeless because these aspects have been left out.
Don’t just tell us that Brandon tells Carla he’s accepted the job in Sydney and that the next morning Carla has coffee at her friend Tanya’s house and tells her the news. Tell us that when Brandon tells Carla he’s accepted the job in Sydney, Carla sees her happy life collapsing around her. Devastated, the next morning over coffee she pours her heart out to Tanya.
Don’t just tell us that Jake Hammond stomps into the bank and dumps a sack of money on the president’s desk, announcing he’s repaying his loan. Tell us that Jake, full of angry self-righteousness at how the bank has treated his sister, stomps into the bank and dumps the money on the president’s desk.
The agents and editors who will read and evaluate your synopsis are looking for the same things as your eventual readers: emotion and human drama. Bear down on these life-breathing aspects of your story and you can’t go wrong.
Indicate other characters’ story lines in your synopsis by beginning a new paragraph and describing the character’s actions. Sometimes transitions such as “Meanwhile” or “Simultaneously” or “At the hotel” can help ground the reader in time and place.
As you write the synopsis, think of it as your novel in condensed form, and present events in the same order that they occur in the novel itself. Also, reveal information at the same points you do so in your novel.
Stay “invisible” in your synopsis; by this I mean several things. First, don’t use devices that emphasize the mechanics of storytelling. One of these is the use of such headings as “Background,” “Setting,” and “Time” at the beginning of your synopsis. All of these elements should be smoothly woven into the narrative. Another such device is the use of character sketches or descriptions at the beginning or end of the synopsis. All of these elements should be smoothly woven into the narrative. Second, they make it difficult for the agent or editor to follow your story: If he reads the synopsis first, it’s meaningless because he has no information about the characters. If he reads the character sketches first, they are equally meaningless because the characters are not presented in the context of the story. Characters and story do not exist independently of each other. Give any important facts or background when you introduce a character.
In the text, type a character’s name in capital letters the first time you use it—a technique borrowed from film treatments. Also, to avoid confusion, always refer to a character the same way through the synopsis (not “Dr. Martin” in one place, “the doctor” somewhere else, and “Martin” somewhere else).
Another way to stay invisible is to avoid referring to the structural underpinnings of your story. When I was a kid, we used to go to an amusement park with a scary jungle ride that went through a dark tunnel where a native jumped out and scared us silly. One day as we floated through the tunnel and the native jumped out, I noticed that the figure of the native had come loose from its metal support. I could see ugly gray metal and a tangle of electrical wires. The ride was never the same after that.
That’s how I feel when I can see the scaffolding of a synopsis, for example, “In a flashback, Myron ….” Better to simply say “Myron remembers ….” Avoid “As the story begins …” or “As the story ends …”; just tell the story.
As you near the end of the synopsis and your story’s resolution, quicken the pace by using shorter paragraphs and shorter sentences. A staccato effect increases the suspense.
Above all, never review your story in your synopsis, such as “In a nerve-jangling confrontation …” or “In a heart-wrenching confession….” This kind of self-praise is amateurish and inappropriate in a synopsis, which presents “just the (story) facts, ma’am.” Let your story’s attributes speak for themselves.
Once your synopsis is finished, polish, polish, polish! In many cases, your synopsis will be your foot in the door, and many agents and editors will judge your storytelling and writing style from this selling piece alone. When I receive a synopsis containing misspellings, poor grammar, and sloppy presentation, I do not ask to see the manuscript. I assume it will contain the same kinds of errors.
Writing the synopsis is an art you should become proficient in. A masterful synopsis starts telling your novel to an agent or editor before she even looks at your manuscript. In fact, a few times during my career, I have read a synopsis so well-crafted that later I felt I had read the book! That’s real magic.
EVAN MARSHALL is the president of The Evan Marshall Agency. He is the author of The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing, from which this article was adapted. His latest book, Dark Alley, is part of a mystery series called Hidden Manhattan Mysteries.