Synopsis How-To

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A literary agent recently asked me to send a synopsis of my new novel.  Since agents generally respond to my queries once every twenty-five years or so, I brushed up on my technique and figured out a structure to make this a good one. 

I’ve always had trouble writing synopses.  I’m never sure about the proper length. Some agents and editors want one page, some want at least two, and some want more. I was lucky, mine asked for ‘less than five pages.’ I shot for four.

With almost no exceptions plot synopses must be in present tense. I hate using the present tense. To me, it always borders on the artificial and the stilted.  With a heavy-handed narrative voice such as mine, the present tense tends to give the reader the impression that, “Oh, this guy is trying to sound artsy now.”

Those are just the requirements I have to fight through. My biggest problem is making my plot seem free-flowing and captivating in the synopsis form. Years ago I got the advice that a good novel needs to be nothing more than, ‘A captivating story told with words that sing.’ The synopsis should reflect that. But how?

When you’re writing an 80,000+ word novel, there is almost always a main plot and at least one subplot.  The novelist hops back and forth between the two and eventually ties them together in an “Ah-ha” moment for the reader.  This works fine when you have 200 pages to work with— the reader can follow along effortlessly— but when you try to compress these parallel stories into a few pages, hopping back and forth, you end up with what my mom would call “a big giumvotta.”  Giumvotta is an Italian garden vegetable soup, but its slang meaning is a messy and confusing jumble of thoughts.  That’s how my synopses always seemed to turn out.

We writers have been taught to think of stories as being told in three parts: Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action. Most articles on writing synopses will tell you to open with the pitch then organize your synopsis linearly following these categories.  This overview simply didn’t work for my book-length story being smushed into a shorter-than-short-story. 

With all of these concerns in mind, here’s what I came up with two key technique to create a synopsis that really captured the novel:  

First, I used the required present tense style, but chose key phrases and sentences hand-plucked from the manuscript (I thought of them as “catchphrases”), and I quoted them verbatim as often as possible. This gave some of the flavor of the novel to the dry synopsis form.

Second, and more crucially, I rearranged the typical synopsis form. 

Instead of dividing the plot line of my novel into the three-part “Rising-Climax-Falling,” I used a four-part organization which I labeled (even using titles and line breaks, to make them stand out):  Set-up, Plot, Subplot, Conclusion.

In the Set-up Section, I introduced the main characters, using a single sentence with one or two “catchphrases” for each.  I then explained the conflict.  In your novel, it might be a quest, or a crime to be solved, or a personal issue/problem to be dealt with.

In the Plot Section, I listed the main steps of the main story.  This should correlate with your chapters since each of your chapters should carry the plot significantly forward.  I again tried to stuff in a few “catchphrases” with each step along the way.

In the Subplot section, I did the same for the secondary thread, which was not mentioned at all in the previous section.

In the Conclusion, I showed how the two stories join and intertwine, and how the book comes together and nests in peace and closure.

This format felt more natural, allowed me to capture the writing in words that sing. It also simplified the complicated explanations that sometimes arise in a linear synopsis. It’s a tool that can be used for a synopsis of any length. I had four pages, but it could be applied to a one-page synopsis as effectively, you will just have to trim every line to its most essential information.  

Did this “giumvotta-free” approach work? I’ll let you know in ten or fifteen years, as soon as the agent gets back to me.