Synopsis Writing

Engaged in a little synopsis writing today for my upcoming new novel, I got to thinking about the process of constructing synopses and their importance in the creative evolution of a novel.

First and foremost, synopsis writing is a skill and a tough one at that. Not everyone has a flair for it and most would be advised to train themselves how to write a good synopsis. Books like The Writer's Little Helper, Plot and Structure and Characters and Viewpoint (all excellent Writer's Digest books) are all exceptionally useful in this regard and come highly recommended.

Writing a synopsis is all about balance; you want to say enough to make your story sound exciting but not so much that the editor/publisher reading it feels like they're trudging through the entirety of the novel. Be succinct and explain events and characters simply. Use detail where it's particularly relevant for some big reveal or key aspect of the plot or piece of character development. Keep control of it. Synopses (like blog posts, coincidentally) have a habit of getting out of control if you let them. A good piece of advice is to try and think about your plot in three acts. Act One is the set up where the characters and situation are introduced; Act Two is when you introduce the complication that your characters must overcome in the novel (there could be several but generally this is when the conflict happens); and Act Three is the resolution of the conflict created by the complication and the characters overcoming it. Add in subplots pertaining to character and the story, and you've pretty much got yourself a synopsis.

If you tackle it simply at first, applying a 'skeleton' approach to writing (just go for bullet points with what happens in each chapter that's of particular note and moves the plot along) then add the flesh to the bones later on once you've got your frame work. This way you'll be disciplined not to go off on tangents, adding lots of unnecessary material that is best explored whilst writing. Remember, writing is an organic process. The synopsis is your map so you don't get lost, but by the same token it isn't your rulebook (more like a guide).

When considering your synopsis and, indeed, your plot in detail, ask yourself two things: 1, Does what I'm writing develop the characters? and 2, Does it develop the plot? If it doesn't do either of these things it's padding - excise it with all haste!

Sticking to these rough and ready rules should assist any would-be plotter with writing a coherent and working synopsis that accurately and adequately represents their novel in its best possible light.

Something else to bear in mind, too, is what kind of book are your writing. There are many theories on this, but I favour the MICE method of quantifying, with M representing Milieu, I Idea, C Character and E Event. A more thorough examination of these story 'types' can be found in Characters and Viewpoints by Orson Scott Card, but I'll be brief here. Milieu is a story where the environment is the most important fact (i.e. world-building fiction such as The Lord of the Rings); the Idea story is one that concerns itself with the situation and will usually be riddled with cunning twists. Murder mysteries and caper stories tend to follow this structure (Lee Child does this particularly well in his books); Character stories are obviously narratives in which the character is paramount and Event stories are those in which there's some kind of imbalance in the world that the central characters are striving to put right. Okay, so the explanations are cursory at best (I'd recommend researching these) but the point is, know what type of story you're telling and fashion your synopsis appropriately so that it comes across.

I find synopsis writing particularly useful from a creative standpoint. Whilst engaged in the action of effectively piecemealing my narrative, I get into the writing 'zone' and start to imagine lines of dialogue, cute little tricks that I can pull and, sometimes, entire scenes. I write all of these down in the relevant chapter precis and save this 'director's cut' in a separate file, excising this extraneous material for the editor. Then, when I have synopsis approval, I go back to my extended cut and use it to inspire and inform me whilst writing. So, I actually get two versions of every synopsis I write; a writer's and an editor's.