How to write a good synopsis

A few handy tips and tricks from someone who's written loads

As an editor, I was often handed the (hated) task of writing synopses for books I worked on - as an author, I’ve written plenty for my own books. So take it from me: to understand how to write a good synopsis, the key is to understand its purpose.

The purpose of a synopsis is to give whoever’s reading it a succinct, digestible summary of the plot of your story, from beginning to end.

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Synopses are part of a standard query package (which is probably why you’re reading this!) but they’re also used at every stage of the publishing process. Editors may share your synopsis among the wider team ahead of an acquisition meeting; few at the meeting are likely to read the entire manuscript but it’s helpful for them to know what happens in the book.

After you get a publishing contract, synopses continue to be a valuable tool and are often kept updated by the editor through the editorial process. Everyone from marketing and publicity to sales and (especially) international rights can use this document as part of a package to help sell/promote your story.

What a synopsis is not, strictly speaking, is a blurb or a pitch. A synopsis is not designed to sell your book, per se - even though it can be part of that sales package. It’s a supporting document that offers important information. As such, it’s not supposed to be fancy, it’s supposed to be clear and succinct.

Do I reject queries on the basis of a synopsis? Yes. One of my form rejections is about ‘story’. If I quite like the pitch but can’t adequately judge where the story is heading from the synopsis, or if it’s unclear/difficult to follow, this indicates to me (a) that there’s simply not enough information in the query package for me to judge whether to request the full or (b) that there might be a lot of structural editorial work required - something I likely won’t have time to take on. So, it’s important to get this right. The good news is, it’s probably not as hard as you think!

With all of this in mind, I’m going to address the three most common mistakes I see in synopses and offer some advice on how to tackle them…

The Length
I see a lot of synopses that are very long - 3-4 pages, even - and some that are very short at just a paragraph or two, or that simply copy-and-paste the blurb. Both of these approaches fall down against the purpose of a synopsis for different reasons - the first because 3-4 pages isn’t succinct enough to be truly helpful to the reader and the second because it doesn’t provide enough detail on the story. So how long should a synopsis ideally be?

When I was an editor in UK children’s publishing (middle grade and YA), the rule was one single page of A4 on Word, single spaced. In the US (and for adult fiction), I’ve often heard of a two-page maximum rule. Overall, I’d say certainly no more than two pages, ideally less. However, you also don’t want it to be much shorter than a page as I feel that’s probably the minimum space for adequately covering a whole plot. Tricky balance!

In my experience, the first draft of most synopses comes up long - that’s the case for ones I write, too. So here are a few top tips for cutting a synopsis (aside from all the usual tricks for how to cut word count).

1. Summarize, summarize, summarize. Instead of ‘Agatha finds a bloody hammer in the bedroom which leads her to the workshop, where she interviews the groundskeeper, and ultimately to the identity of the killer’, write ‘Agatha follows a trail of clues that leads her to the killer’. Yes, we need the plot - but we don’t need all the details on how everything happens.

2. For a stubbornly long synopsis, note down the main plot points of the book in bullet points and then highlight these in your document. What’s in between and could you cut it or condense it without losing sense?

3. Looking at your main plot points, have you overexplained anything for the purposes of the synopsis? Although it’s helpful to understand why things are happening, as synopsis readers we can be a little flexible. E.g. Phrases like ‘An unexpected discovery/coincidence leads x to happen’ are acceptable!

The Tone/Style
I see a fair number of synopses that try hard to incorporate a sense of the voice of the novel in a bid to make it feel more interesting and more of a ‘selling’ document. I sympathize, but feel this is generally a mistake. Being engaging in this way is very difficult to pull off while remaining clear and succinct. For instance, say you have chosen to narrate your synopsis in first person - remaining in character and offering those little details that would make a piece of writing shine are going to distract from the purpose of the synopsis and make it difficult to keep the word count down. I would advise against it.

Not Including Spoilers
Some writers treat the synopsis as a longer blurb, enticing you to read the manuscript but not giving the game away completely. As above, this is absolutely not the purpose of the synopsis. This is a big one for me so let me write it in big flashy letters:

WE NEED ALLLLL THE SPOILERS!

There is little more frustrating than liking the pitch, reading 90% of the synopsis, then getting to the end to find a cliffhanger. In order to make a decent judgement on whether to move forward with a query, I have to know if the story works - big twists, pay-offs and how the story ends are perhaps THE most important part of that, especially for a more commercially-minded agent like me. Please include your spoilers, folks.

As always, please let me know if there is any subject in particular you would like me to tackle in the future. Tough questions welcome.

In other news, I’m heading to London on Thursday for the London Festival of Writing and I couldn’t be more excited. I’ll be meeting a bunch of my UK authors for the very first time - and I’ll even squeeze in a quick visit to family and friends, despite the fact I’m only in the UK for 5 days. Bring on the caffeine!

I’m also planning to attend the Atlanta Writers Conference on 1-2 November. I believe my 1-2-1 slots might be booked up already (wow?) but apparently there’s a waiting list and there are lots of other cool things happening at the festival, so do check it out if you’re local.

Until next time!

Kesia