Your Novel: The Short Version

Which is the synopsis.

Those of you that write books for a living probably already have your own opinion on the synopsis. Myself, I just don’t like it very much. Those of you that don’t write books for a living, the quick and short explanation is that a synopsis is… the quick and short explanation of your novel. It comes in a couple of flavors, but the one I’ve been writing for the last couple of years is the slightly more comprehensive flavor, the one that tastes like 10 pages or less, and is double spaced.

The whole point of the exercise is to prove to an editor that you have a good idea, and at least some idea of structure. By giving a quick summary of every chapter, in present tense, a potential editor can decide whether or not you actually have something worth writing about in their eyes. It is, in the simplest terms, your novel’s first impression, a try out where it nervously steps up in front of the camera after submitting it’s resume and says, “Hi, I’m Kandee, I’m 24, I’m a student at UCLA, I love in-line skating on the beach, I love Thai food, and I’ve always wanted to be on TV! *Giggle*!”

If they’re sufficiently intrigued enough by that, then they open up your book to see if, now that they know you have a good idea, you actually know what to do with it.

The reason I’m not overly fond of the synopsis is because… well, it feels like a rehash, which it is. The story has been told, and it took however many pages to do that. When I sit down to write a synopsis, I have a little voice in my head that is spewing it out to me. As a result of childhood exposure to Micromachines commercials and Blur from Transformers: The Movie, that voice sounds like John Moschitta Jr., a former Guinness record holder for fastest talker on the planet:

Andthenthebigmonsterjumpsoutofthebushesandtheheroscreams”Ah!”buthe’sonlysurprisedforamoment, becausehehasamagicswordstuckinhispantsthathepullsoutandstabsthemonsterwith, butthemonsterisimpervioustosteel, butnottohamsandwichesonrye, whichtheherohasonhim, sohethrowsthatatthemonsteranditgetsareallybadrashanddies!

Of course, once you actually make it, then it’s really a matter of preference as to whether you need a synopsis quite as comprehensive. Often, once you’re known as a safe bet, all it takes is summing up the story in a paragraph, and editors will trust in the fact that since you’ve sold X number of books anyway, they’re probably safe enough just leaving it in your hands and seeing what you can cook up.

I’m really looking forward to that.

Oh well, someday…