The synopsis is, for me, the toughest part of the preparation process during the search for an agent or publisher. It’s difficult enough to summarize 100,000+ words in a few pages, capturing the major events, noting character development points, and giving away all the surprises and twists along the way; but what adds to the challenge is that fact that there seems to be very little agreement as to the actual format of the thing, both in terms of size and of layout.
Web site A says to double-space it. Web Site B says single spacing. One person says “no more than one page or about 500 words”, another says “3 to 5 pages”, and a third mentions synopses of up to about 10 pages (are those single- or double-spaced pages?), etc. Many recommendations are to write one that is “as long as it needs to be”, but it seems to me that this will vary widely depending on the specific audience. Some agents might want a short summary and will throw away anything too long; others will likely have the opposite reaction.
My online searches for synopsis examples have resulted almost entirely in samples of romance novel synopses. Since I don’t want to post my synopsis (what there is of it so far) and give away my book’s whole story, here are some links to others’ successful attempts.
(Note: These being “romance” novel synopses, some of them might be offensive to people who think sexual situations are icky and several of them are ones that I, for one, wouldn’t read out loud to the kids. Unless by “kids” we’re talking “goats”, who I wouldn’t hesitate to read to but who probably find human sexual situations icky.)
A Few Winning Synopses
More Examples
Still More, with Penguins
Lots of Links to Synopsis Info
I’m struggling to strike the right balance between detail and generalization in my synopsis. It’s currently at about three single-spaced pages, which may be an acceptable size, but to get it there I’ve had to sacrifice descriptions of a lot of secondary characters and subplots which I feel add depth to the story and help to define and grow the main characters. By leaving those out, will the main characters and primary plot come across as too simplistic? There are a number of such items I had to leave in, though, because they effect the main characters’ actions in ways that have to be explained in sufficient detail to keep the reader from presuming a plot hole where there really isn’t one.
Well, back to the synopsofyin’.