One-page synopses are an often requested element of the fiction query package, and it’s not just agents who ask for them!

With 2020’s Pitch Wars mentee applications requesting them as well, and with the applications closing on Thursday at 10 p.m. EDT, I wanted to publish this blog post in case anyone needed last-ditch assistance.

Why would a literary agent or other publishing gatekeeper need a one-page synopsis of my book?

I can think of at least two reasons a literary agent would request a one-page synopsis from you.

First, the synopsis offers a quick overview of your novel. This helps the agent see if there’s something they don’t vibe with right away. This is not necessarily a comment on the quality of your writing, but if an agent has vowed to only take on romance novels with happily ever afters and yours has a body count higher than West Side Story, that might be a problem. In this regard, the synopsis serves a similar hoop-jumping purpose to the query letter.

Second, from a craft perspective, it helps the agent see how well your long-form writing skills line up with what your synopsis has promised. If there’s some gap, or the novel doesn’t clearly share what you seem to think it does, it might mean you as the writer need more hand-holding in revision. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but based on an agent’s workload—their existing client base and responsibilities—they may or may not have the time to perform a thorough review before shopping your manuscript around to editors.

There could be plenty of other reasons, including secret ones related to the cult they’re all in together. Who knows? We don’t have time to waste speculating. Let’s move on to…

How to Develop Your One-Page Novel Synopsis

Step One: Know the difference between a summary and a synopsis.

A synopsis is not a summary. It isn’t.

When you hear “summary,” think of the teasers you hear in a movie trailer, the teasers you write in a query letter or read on a book jacket. The summary tells the audience about the emotional and engaging highlights of the project, but it doesn’t give away everything. (Though some movie trailers seem to these days.)

Meanwhile, a synopsis is like the Cliff’s notes version of your book. If you’re writing a synopsis correctly, there should be spoilers! Your synopsis is not the time to leave the reader hanging. Remember, the agent or gatekeeper wants a brief recap of all that happens in your manuscript. Divulge, divulge, divulge.

Step Two: Begin by thoroughly writing out your plot.

Rather than economizing your language from the start, tell the story of your novel from beginning to end as clearly as you can recall it. You will be shortening this later, but it’s better to be thorough now.

You could always recount your plot from memory, but I find it’s best to skim through your book, taking notes on the happenings in each chapter as you go.

If you’re working with a copyeditor, you might request a style sheet with chapter synopses from them, which basically takes the step-two work out of your hands. 

Step Three: Take a break.

This break helps your brain shift from the process of generating your synopsis to the process of editing it.

Brew a pot of coffee or tea, then tune your violin, ‘cause this is where it gets fiddly.

…I’ll show myself out.

Step Four: Trimming your synopsis.

Now, you’ve got to scale back your synopsis, which is probably somewhat lengthy, to one teeny, tiny single-spaced page.

If you’re thinking, “Yikes,” please don’t worry. Just like The Home Edit team (with whom I am now obsessed) knows how to organize a junk drawer, I have some tips for paring back your synopsis.

Try doing a pass for each of the following in your synopsis:

1. Read through and ask yourself if each sentence is relevant to the plot. For books with a lot of subplots, you may need to stick to the primary story arc here. Now’s not the time to be precious. If a sentence or phrase isn’t relevant or if it’s a maybe, cut it out.

2. Cut adjectives and adverbs.

3. Use Freytag’s pyramid or the three-act structure as a metric for how well you’re doing. Using Freytag as an example, we all know that many novels fall into the following five segments: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement. Since there are five segments, look at the synopsis page in approximate fifths. Are you taking up three-fifths of the page to get to the end of the exposition? Then you need to trim back the exposition and move on to the rising action and climax.

4. When you’re really close, with maybe just a few lines hanging over onto a second page, look for paragraphs in your one-page summary that end toward the start of a new line. See where you can pare back sentences within it. These paragraphs are more likely to make a difference than ones where you do a lot of work and are still on the same line.

5. If you find yourself at an impasse, share your synopsis with a writing friend who has read your full manuscript. They might find phrases that the synopsis can live without.

In my experience, it’s not writing the synopsis but trimming the synopsis down to just one page that’s the hard part. You already know your story inside and out. Now you need to get good at telling it in a succinct manner, which is a soft skill akin to elevator pitching that will benefit you in all manner of publishing scenarios to come.

Don’t be disheartened; keep going until you get there. It may take more than one sitting to get things done, which is probably not heartening to people rushing to submit to Pitch Wars, but in general, this is your best bet. You will get it done! Godspeed.