How to write a good synopsis
with a real-life example by yours truly!
Nobody likes writing synopses - not authors, not agents, not editors. Trust me, I’ve been all three and dealt with them in every capacity! But they are a necessary evil, and I’ve gotten pretty good at them over the years. One of the things that helped me go from synopsis-kill-me-now to synopsis-I-got-this is understanding what they’re for. This changes at different points in the journey of a manuscript so let me take you through it.
Firstly, most agents require a synopsis as part of the query process. I personally don’t always read them, but once I’ve read the query letter - if I am drawn to the idea - AND I like the writing in the extract, it’s the final part of the query package I’ll take a look at to help me decide whether to proceed. That’s because I need to see if you have written a whole, cohesive story with a beginning, middle and end, and if these parts of the story are likely to be satisfying. Sure, I could find that out from reading the full but if you look at the quantity of queries agents receive (at one point I had 4,000 queries in my inbox) we simply don’t have time. We also need to know if there’s a big twist, or a shocking reveal, that blows our socks off and gives us a whole new perspective on your writing. By the way: that’s why the synopsis as as much an opportunity as it is a chore. If you’re a great plotter, here’s your chance to shine!
Agents sometimes include the synopsis as part of their submission to editors. Even if they don’t, it’s a document that I, as an in-house editor, often requested further down the line. If the author didn’t have one already, I would write it myself (after faceplanting on the desk, of course)! The synopsis is absolutely essential when your English-language publisher (or agency, depending on who holds your rights) is submitting to international publishers to try to solicit translation deals. Equally, a synopsis is extremely helpful approaching film/TV co-agents. Like agents, international publishers and film/TV folks have a lot of projects to consider and need to make quick, informed decisions about projects on their desks.
What a synopsis ISN’T is a pitch. It’s workmanlike - informational. To put a positive spin on it: you probably need to try less hard than you think!
With all of this in mind, you really can pull out just a few crucial qualities that a synopsis should have.
Clarity. We need to understand what’s happening in the book. Confusion in the synopsis may ring alarm bells - could this confusion be reflected in the manuscript itself? Perhaps there are structural/plot issues to content with.
Brevity. A synopsis should ideally fit on one single-spaced page or just over (500-700 words). For longer or more complex plots, you may have to go up to 1,000. But personally I breathe a sigh of relief and satisfaction at a pithy synopsis which won’t take me too long to digest.
Focus. You want to really home in on the main plot points of your story. You may cover a B plot if you have the word count - but overall we are talking broad strokes. This isn’t a chapter outline!
ALL THE SPOILERS. I cannot emphasise this enough. We all need to know what happens at the end!
To help show you what a good synopsis looks like, I’m including my own synopsis for Let’s Play Murder, my YA horror/thriller published in 2023. Full disclosure, this book is around 70k words - but it is PACKED full of plot. The synopsis is around 660 words. This synopsis obviously contains all the spoilers, but please try and forget them if you haven’t read the book, and then maybe go buy or borrow it, if it sounds like your jam! Here it is:
VERONICA (17) has a secret: two years ago, her sister – EM – died in a virtual reality game after a blow-out argument between the girls. Em suffered from an undiagnosed heart condition that caused her not only to drown in the game, where she stumbled and fell into a lake, but in real life too. Veronica’s life was upended – new school, no friends, traumatised family… and definitely no VR. Never again.
But when her little half-brother MAX (9) is diagnosed with the same condition – one that leaves him months to live – Veronica breaks her cardinal rule. Max longs to escape into VR and she agrees to play a game. Just once.
Once turns out to be one time too many. When Veronica steps through a mysterious door, she finds herself not in the game she was playing with Max but in a hyper-realistic, legendary VR world known only as the Game, in which players must compete to solve a murder mystery for a life-changing cash prize. A prize, Veronica realises, which might just get Max treatment that could save his life.
Veronica’s fellow players are all around her age. CHARLIE is stunningly beautiful with a potty mouth, outrageously rich parents and a hyper-competitive attitude. She’s in love with YASMIN, who is kind, funny and ridiculously excitable. They’re joined by NATE, a self-described nerd who is calm and logical – but appears to have his own mysterious agenda. Only AARON is capable of ruffling Nate’s feathers – he’s an entitled rich kid who hates all tech and really, really doesn’t want to be here… though he does have movie-star good looks.
Together, the players embark on the 1989-set murder mystery, aided by a mysterious character named ANGEL – they’ve entered the Game from the real world, too, to answer questions and guide them through the rules. The victim is a media mogul named ORSON COLEMAN (38) and pretty much NPC in his post-modernist fever-dream of a house is a suspect.
But as the Game progresses, Veronica starts to notice disturbing signs that something is wrong. She swears she glimpses Em on the stairs within the first five minutes of entering the house – which is impossible, since Em died two years ago. Things come to a head when Yasmin is killed and the players realise whoever the killer is, they are still on the loose. Angel, their only guide, disappears. What’s more, the Game is breaking apart. Ivy starts to creep through the windows, the rooms on the upper floors are trashed, and mice scuttle over the rubble. Lake water seeps senselessly through the floorboards and Em appears in all the mirrors. Veronica realises the Game is melding with the VR world of her nightmares – the game she last played, the one in which Em died.
Is Veronica being haunted by the vengeful digital ghost of her sister, killing off the players one by one? Or is there something else going on? When Angel temporarily reappears and tells them the killer must be one of the players, the plot thickens. Could the killer be Aaron, a spoilt brat with a shocking temper? Or Charlie, who is beyond competitive? Or Nate, who has his own shadowy agenda: to find whoever is running the Game and bring them down?
In a shocking twist, Veronica is revealed to be the killer – she hasn’t been telling the whole truth about Em. Her sister didn’t simply die in the game after an argument: Veronica held her under her water. Em’s ghost has only been trying to stop Veronica, warn the others, and reveal the truth about her own death.
Veronica wins the game regardless, killing the remaining players, and starts her new life – Max receives treatment, her Dad and step-mother forgive her for what happened to Em. She’s on a hike in a forest when the scenery starts to change – the sky clouds over. Snowflakes fall. And a hand lands on her shoulder – it’s Em. Perhaps Veronica never left the Game after all…
Here are a few top tips pulled from this example…
Summarize, summarize, summarize. Notice how paragraph 6 (‘But as the Game progresses…’) is incredibly ‘zoomed out’. This is really the meat of the story and there are lots of individual incidents that throw each character under suspicion. But instead of describing each one I’ve skimmed them in a few lines.
Tell don’t show. Linked to the above, I then make clear that each character is under suspicion in the next paragraph by literally saying so - with minimal detail. We may need to know, broadly, WHY they are under suspicion, but we don’t need to know HOW this is communicated on the page.
Capitalize the first instance of each name. This will help hugely with scanning the synopsis - if you get to a name further down you don’t recognize, you can quickly glance up to see the first introduction of that character and remind yourself who they are.
Focus on the main plot points. Most synopses run too long. If you’re struggling to keep yours under control, I suggest writing a short list of the most consequential turning points on the book and using this as your framework, filling in the gaps between as sparsely as possible.
Remember, this isn’t a pitch. You’re not trying to sell the book, you’re just informing the reader of the story. This is also helpful to note if you’re one of those rare writers whose synopses run short - we do need more detail than a couple of paragraphs!
I hope you find this helpful - as always, please feel free to ask questions!
In other news, I got back from the extraordinary San Francisco Writer’s Conference last Sunday. If you’d like to catch me in-person at another conference this year, check out Writing Day Workshops! I’m appearing at Las Vegas next weekend, Oklahoma City in March, Sacramento/San Francisco in April and Cincinnati in May.
Until next time,
Kesia
As you know, Kesia, I'm that rare breed of author who enjoys synopsisising – and maybe even rarer in that I often start with it! I think it has some strong advantages as a planning tool in that it helps you cultivate a sense of direction without being as restrictive as a chapter plan – then you later have a foundation for the 'manuscript summary' that a synopsis is usually seen to be, making it easier to hone.
Is this really individual to me, though? I'd love to know if any other authors work this way – or from authors who haven't worked this way before, but are now gonna give it a try...
I was always hung up on the idea that a synopsis had to be brutally chronological and follow the events of the book.. and I love how yours isn't. That's revelatory.