Welcome to this week’s Master Your Craft post! Each Wednesday we’ll discuss writing a new book from the BIG IDEA to QUERYING. Last year, we walked you through every step from getting the big idea through polishing your finished novel. Last time, we posted some tips for drafting a query. This week, we’re tackling the dreaded synopsis.

Numerous resources exist for how to write a synopsis. Any writer who has done a google search knows how, in theory. Yet from new to experienced and multi-published writers, the synopsis is frequently treated like Davy Jones come to dinner.

(Something smells fishy.)

I find the problem often is not the synopsis but that the writer is in the weeds. (True pirates mix metaphors.)

Many of us don’t write a synopsis until after we’ve written at least a draft and frequently not until we’re ready to query a manuscript. At that point, we know our stories so well—all the characters, all the subplots, all the thematic elements, all the cool settings we chose or designed for particular and clever reasons, all the world building, all the neat writing devices we employed, all the…

(We should have asked for directions.)

The challenge is not figuring out how to distill all of that into the one-page synopsis many agents and contests request, the challenge is forgetting most of those things. A synopsis is:

1. A great hook
2. The book’s beginning
3. The conflicts the characters face
4. How they resolve and survive the conflicts
5. How the book ends

That’s it.*

(No six-fingered man here.)

At the end of this post, I’ll include a few How To Synopsis links, but my main goal is to help you swim out of the deep end into the shallows. (Or, as the old saw says, “See the forest for the trees,” which frankly is quite insensitive for a saw to say.)

Personally, I think of one of the best-ever story songs, “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” by George Jones (clearly a pirate name).

I also think about nearly every song on the Styx Greatest Hits album (obviously) and many by Taylor Swift. Why? Because I wonder:

If I have only four verses (major plot elements) and one chorus (heart line), then what would I include?

I don’t try to write book-related lyrics to the song because that tends to make me focus on the most superficial elements of my story. But, for me, this mental game is useful and fun, which relaxes my brain. Then I can go back to Blake Snyder’s trusty Beat Sheet, fill in each beat with only one sentence, note the main character’s primary emotion for that beat, finesse the language, et voila!

(I am a French bulldog, and I need to oui, oui.)

Another trick I use is to work backward. I think about how the MC changes at the end, what their big aha moment is. Then I list the elements that are most crucial to that change taking place. It can be a person, a place, an event, a thing, etc. I rank them in order of most importance and use the top three-ish. Now I go back and note how those elements were introduced to or became meaningful to the MC (at least one should have had some part in the Inciting Incident). While this doesn’t necessarily help me write the synopsis, it does help me swim back to the shallows. (If this looks familiar, it’s because you read MYC: Query Tips, Tricks and Tidbits. Thank you!)

How do other Pennies swim out of the deep end?

Julie Artz: Cheryl Klein’s Action Plot & Emotion Plot have really helped me get that big picture view. I use those two “loglines” plus the major plot points from my beat sheet as a starting point for synopsis-writing.

Olivia Kiernan: My next novel is VERY complex and weaves together some heavy backstory which eventually becomes active in the present, so it was tricky, but this helped me get a few sentences down that captures the essence: https://www.how-to-write-a-book-now.com/how-to-write-a-synopsis.html

Gita Trelease: I love all these suggestions—that’s pretty much what I do as well: plot points and the emotional arc. The synopsis should have the feel of a very short story.

Mark Holtzen: I usually try to revisit my short, medium, and long summaries whenever I feel I don’t know where I am. I also take to my character descriptions from early on to remind myself of what they want. Since I’m using Story Genius by Lisa Cron Scene Cards for this next book, I’m writing my long synopsis directly from those. Just verbalizing with a critique partner is super helpful to get me out of my own head, too.

Write a synopsis before writing the novel?!

Walk the plank, you effective planner, you!

Here are a few links for how to write a synopsis, and any google search will pull dozens more excellent posts on the topic:

PUB CRAWL: How to Write a 1-Page Synopsis

PITCH WARS: The Synopsis…Simplified

JANE FRIEDMAN: How to Write a Novel Synopsis

One last tip for getting perspective on a manuscript is to put it in a drawer for a month or longer, but the only ones with less patience than pirates or toddlers are

I was going to say toddler pirates, but sure, let’s go with penguins.

What are your tricks for seeing the big picture of your manuscript?

Signed,

Polly “Tall Tide” Consumptive,” The Serpent of Red Rum Reef!
http://pirate.namegeneratorfun.com/
AKA: This name takes up too much space in my synopsis
AKA, Rebecca P

*Sourced from a blog of which I have since lost track. I apologize, unnamed source! I’ve loved you from afar for years! Your words of wisdom are forever safely tucked into my Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus.

Ready for more craft advice on writing middle grade or young adult fiction? Head back to our Master Your Craft page where you’ll find dozens of more topics to choose from!