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Pastimes : Authors & Books & Comments -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SmoothSail who wrote (2047)	10/17/2009 3:22:44 AM
From: SmoothSail	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9625

How do you write the synopsis that you're supposed to include with the chapters you send to an agent or editor? A synopsis is a typed single-spaced single page (two at _absolute_ most) that tells the bare bones of your story in present-tense. Example: David Wagner has a problem. He comes home to find his house broken into, his wife and children gone, and three dead black mice dangling from their tails on his front door. No note, no signs of violence, nothing else but his family taken. The police cannot find any fingerprints in the house -- _any_ fingerprints, not even David's or his wife's or children's. There's no sign of forced entry. He is, of course, their primary suspect, and he discovers that he's being framed when . . . Anyway -- like that. I was starting to get interested in the idea, and I have to get back to my book. I don't need David Wagner running around in my head looking for his wife and little Tyler and Griffin and the killer of the three black mice. Go all the way to the end of your story, and write the ending. Don't be coy and leave a cliffhanger, just tell the editor what happens. Leave out dialogue, description, and minor secondary characters. I'll tell you now, good synopses are hard to write. Plan to spend a week or two getting it down and refining it and clearing out the deadwood. Focus on the action, and on the main characters and the main storyline. And remember that one page is better that two where a synopsis is concerned.