The Importance of Synopses

Quote of the Day: "I'm a lucky man, with fire in my hands..."
--The Verve, Lucky Man

This post kicks off what I think will wind up being a few posts about synopses, as I've had all summer to read them and write them as part of my job, and I've learned quite a bit.

Lesson #1: Focus on who and what the story is really about.

Your synopsis needs to be about the same character and plot your book is about. If it's not, the person reading your submission will quickly become confused and frustrated by one or the other. If they take the route of reading the synopsis first, they will wonder why the first pages of your book are dedicated to a character or characters who aren't really its main focus. If they read the book first, they will be confused about why your synopsis has nothing to do with the characters that they have become interested in (hopefully) while reading your sample pages.

This is one of those "Can't help you but can hurt you" kind of things. Your synopsis and your book are supposed to be about the same thing. Doing this right merely satisfies the requirements of a synopsis, it doesn't earn you any extra points with the person reading your submission, but doing it wrong can really hurt you. And as an incidental, your book should kick off with the main character and main plot. It may be tempting to kick it off with a subplot or secondary character, but trust me, it's more confusing than cool or unique. I've tried it, I've seen it tried, and it just doesn't work. If you want to make that experiment, feel free, but don't expect much success.

I understand that it can be hard to get down who your story is really about. I mean, part of what makes it good is all the different stories inside it, right? All the different character arcs and interesting subplots? Shouldn't those go in the synopsis too?

And what I've learned over the course of the summer is that the answer is no.

Get the reader interested in one story, one plot, because that's what you have time to do. The others will come out when they read the manuscript. Trust me. Don't feel like you have to cram everything that's good about your novel into your synopsis. When the person evaluating it finds extra good stuff in the manuscript it works in your favor. When they get confused by your synopsis it doesn't.