Summary - Writing the Synopsis in 10 Steps

Writing the Synopsis:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Here's a quick recap of what we've covered over the series. 

A synopsis is a a tool used to tell someone about a story in a few pages. It's written in third person, present tense. 

Clarity rules. 

Include main characters, character goals, motivations and conflicts, the spiritual journey, and major plot points / turning points. Leave out subplots, minor characters, and most scenes that aren't major turning points in your story.

Write a quick one-sentence summary of the book using: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

Parts of a Synopsis:

1. Hook
2. Main Character (Once upon a time there was ___), Setting, Set Up (Every day, ___), Goal, Motivation
3. Character #2, Set up, Goal, Motivation
4. Conflict between the goals established in #2 & #3.
5. Inciting Incident (One day___). 
6. Obstacles that are keeping the character from his or her goal and moving the story forward. (Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___.)
7. Black moment
8. How the characters have changed
9. Wrap up of spiritual, mystery, and/or romantic elements.
10. Satisfying resolution.


Clarity is the key, but we also want our synopsis to represent the mood and tone of the story. A simple way to do this is through word choice. Read back through your synopsis looking for places you could use phrases or words that fit whatever genre you're writing in (sweet romance, suspense, comedic, etc.) A little goes a long way. A few well placed word choices can make all the difference. Don't go overboard on this.  

Finally, ask a critique partner or fellow writer to read over the synopsis before sending it to an editor or agent. This will help you polish the synopsis and makes sure it's clear and easy to read. 

Congratulations! You now have a completed synopsis. Any questions? 

Writing the Synopsis: Part 5

So we've made it to the last few paragraphs of our synopsis. Like the beginning, the end of the synopsis has to accomplish a lot of different things. It needs to:

Give us the black moment.

Show how the characters changed.

Include how all elements wrap up, including spiritual, mystery, and/or romantic.

Give a satisfying resolution.

So first let's establish the black moment. The editor or agent shouldn't have to search for this in the synopsis. They should instantly recognize the black moment or the point where all seems lost, which might be the big break-up, the scene where it looks like the bad guy gets away, or the point where the hero throws down his gun. 

The point right after the black moment is equally important. When we're reading your synopsis, we need to know what action the main character takes that turns everything around. And it must be an action by that character. You can't cheat by using a coincidence or letting another character do the dirty work. How does the character who just lost everything begin to change things? 

This is also a good way to demonstrate how the character has changed. The way the character reacts to the black moment at the end of the book is going to be very different than how he or she would have reacted to the black moment if it had taken place at the beginning of the story. Show us that difference.

Make sure you wrap up any threads that you've included in your synopsis. This is one of the reasons you should keep the subplots and minor characters out of your synopsis. Anything that you mention needs to be wrapped up at the end. You can't tell us about the sister's custody battle and then not give us the resolution to that storyline. The more you stick with the main story the tighter your synopsis becomes.

That leads us to the Satisfying Resolution. Always tell the ending. Don't leave it a surprise as a way to entice editors and agents to request the full manuscript. They don’t like that. ;) If you're writing romance, you usually need a happily-ever-after. That's not true for all genres, but you do need the ending to be satisfying in some way. 

Next week, we'll do a quick summary of each step we've discussed in this series, discuss how to set the mood or tone of your synopsis, and talk about the final thing you must do before sending your synopsis to an editor or agent.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
The Ten Step Synopsis

Writing the Synopsis: Part 3

Before you start writing your synopsis, you should write a quick one-sentence summary of your book. This will make sure that you know your main character and that character's goal, motivation and conflict. It can be something as simple as:

(Main Character) wants (Goal) because (Motivation) but (Conflict).

Just fill in the blanks and you have a quick one-sentence summary.  

The beginning of your synopsis has to accomplish a lot, and the first few paragraphs are so important because they're setting up the entire story. In the beginning of your synopsis, you need to convey the:

1. Hook

2. Main Character, Setting, Set Up, Goal, Motivation

3. Character #2, Set up, Goal, Motivation

4. Conflict

I'm going to talk about this in terms of writing a romance because that's what I write and because romances usually establish these things in a pretty clear cut way. 

Let's start with the hook. Don’t over think this. The hook doesn’t necessarily have to be high concept. Think of it this way: What genre are you writing in? What sells well in that genre? What do editors of that genre say they’re looking for? Does your book have that?  

For example, a multi-published Love Inspired author emailed me her synopsis as an example. Her hooks were a cop, a widow, and a small town because she knows those things all work well for the Love Inspired line. Study your genre and the line you're targeting and make sure your hooks make it into the first few lines of the synopsis. 

In your first paragraph you need to establish the main character (which is the character who has the most to lose), the setting (this can also be part of the hook), the set up (it's okay to include a line or two of backstory here), the main character's goal (what she wants), and the main character's motivation (why she wants it and what is at stake). 

In the second paragraph, you're going to want to establish the same things (character, set up, goal, and motivation) for a second character. In a romance, this will probably be your hero. In some other genres, this could be your antagonist.  

Right after you establish the goals and motivations in these two paragraphs, you want to show how those two characters' goals are directly in conflict. If something established in paragraph one is directly in opposition to something established in paragraph two, the editor and agent are going to want to read more. 

Next time we'll talk about the inciting incident and the middle of the synopsis. 

I'd love for you to share your simple one-sentence summary with us in the comments. 

Part 1
Part 2
Part 4
Part 5 
The Ten Step Synopsis

Writing the Synopsis: Part 2

On Monday we talked about why writing the synopsis is hard. We also defined the synopsis as simply telling someone about your story in a few pages. Today we're going cover the basics and a few of the rules of writing a synopsis.

For a novel, your synopsis is going to be written in third person, present tense. 

Think about sitting across from an old friend at a coffee shop, and they say, "So, I hear you're writing a novel. What's it about?" 

You're probably going to say something like, "It's about this really cool character who wants to do this really cool thing but this really bad thing gets in her way." Third person, present tense.

And guess what - telling is okay. Hooray! All those rules about not naming the emotion and about showing and not telling, you don't have to worry about any of those. It's okay to write that your character is heartbroken or frustrated or elated...but you must tell us why, which we'll talk about more in future posts. 

One of the biggest problems writers have with writing the synopsis is knowing what to include and what to leave out. Here are some basics:

What to Include

Main Characters

Character Goals, Motivations, and Conflicts

Spiritual Journey

Major Plot Points / Turning Points

What to Leave Out

Subplots

Minor Characters

Most scenes that aren't major turning points in your story.

We often think that stripping our novel down to this level will make it look too simplistic to editors or agents. We're afraid that if they don't see all those layers that we've slaved over that they won't read our sample pages. But here's the simple truth when it comes to writing a synopsis:

Clarity rules.

If your synopsis isn't clear, none of those other things matter. Agents and editors want to clearly see the story structure and the character journey in the synopsis. Most of them don't want a list of scenes.

One trick to help you from being overwhelmed with everything you could include in your synopsis is to make this a closed book test. If you open up your manuscript and start scrolling through chapters, it will be difficult not to get confused and overwhelmed by the amount of information you could include. In Part 4, we'll cover some ways to identify those turning points in your novel that your entire synopsis should revolve around.

How have you written synopses in the past? Have you made it a closed book or an open book test? How did it help or hurt the process?

Part 1
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5 
The Ten Step Synopsis

Writing the Synopsis: Part 1

In the writing world, writing the synopsis definitely gets a bad rap. Last month I asked you what you thought of when I mentioned writing a synopsis. Here's what you said: 

A roadmap

Challenging

Work

Shudder

Chills

Dread

No words, just a drawn out groan, Ugh

Stuffing my head under the pillow and crying

Death

The Black Plague

So over the next few weeks, I want to demystify the process so that you're less afraid of it. Is the bunny picture helping? 

So why is writing a synopsis tough? On his blog, Randy Ingermanson gave this explanation:

I’ll tell you why it’s hard. Because you just spent years of your life writing a novel, learning the craft of writing fiction, learning about Three Act Structure and Scenes and Sequels and MRUs and how to Show it, not Tell it, getting inside each POV character’s head in third person past tense, double-spaced and now . . . 

Now somebody changed the rules on you. All the rules.

Randy's right. The rules are different, but they're actually pretty clear cut. We don't have to be afraid of writing the synopsis, we just have to learn the new rules.

So that's what we're going to look at in the next few posts. 

So what is a synopsis? It's simply a tool we use to tell someone about our story in a few pages. As simple as that. 

So what's the toughest part about writing a synopsis for you?

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5 
The Ten Step Synopsis

Synopsis

Next month I'm teaching a workshop on writing the synopsis.

Writers - I need your help.

What's the first thing you think of when I mention writing a synopsis? 

I love writing synopses!

Okay, maybe I don't love writing synopses, but that's what I've been telling myself for the past few weeks as I've been trying to get through one. I'm happy to announce that I finally finished and submitted the synopsis for a possible sequel to Canyon Walls!

Synopses are tough for me. Here are some things I learned this go around.

1. There's no formula, article, example, etc. that will make writing a synopsis easy. Trust me; I looked. There are plenty of great things you can learn, but the toughest part is sitting down and doing it. It usually takes me more time than I think it should to write a synopsis, and that's okay.

2. Writing a synopsis is a great way to pinpoint plot problems in your story. When I couldn't figure out a simple way to explain something in my synopsis, it was probably because it didn't belong in the story or needed to be reworked.

3. It's all about motivation. Nothing matters if your character motivations don't add up and if they're not clearly laid out in the synopsis. We have to ask "why" about everything on the page. Which leads me to critique partners, who were a huge help with this.

4. It's important to have several people critique your synopsis for two reasons. First, you go over it so many times, it's difficult to see the small mistakes you've made. Secondly, as writers we're so engrossed in our stories that it's easy to forget the reader doesn't know everything we know about our story. A good critique partner can let you know what's missing. Thank you Sue, Terri and Lacy for your help! And thank you to my husband for doing a final read through and for reminding me that...

5. At some point you just have to gather your courage and hit the send button.

Now, I have to get busy on the synopsis for book three!