Tips for writing the perfect synopsis.

If you look at any synopsis of a famous opera or ballet online, or on a CD sleeve, you will see a step-by-step guide of the plot and storyline. It will tell the story from beginning to end in a series of acts. The synopsis will inform you of the important landmark events/twists that affect the protagonist and the other characters in each act that they appear in.

You need to do a much shorter synopsis for a novel. Use short sentences of the key points in your novel.

Your synopsis should ONLY be about the plot and storyline of your novel, and NOTHING ELSE.

Save other information for your covering letter.

For my synopsis I made a long list of key points in my novel. I wrote a sentence from each page of my novel. Some pages required more than one sentence. This left me with an 8 page synopsis. I cut the less important events and was left with a 4 page synopsis. I reduced the 4 pages by a further process of elimination. I settled on a 2 page synopsis.

Try not to write prose or paragraphs if you can help it. I kept my sentences as short as possible. I was left with short, sharp, crisp, bullet points of the key events in my novel.

I hope that helps.

Good luck.

I found mine really hard to write at first.

But when you get past the fact that you're not really trying to make it beautiful, it gets easier. You have to be comfortable with laying the plot bare.

When I wrote my synopsis for book 2, I kept this in mind and it flowed much better.

Tips: Go through each chapter and write down the main things that happen. Not beautifully; just regular sentences. When you have everything down - even those twists and turns - condense and condense until it fits on one page.

There are many examples online. I used this when I first started researching as an example: http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/Synopsis.html

Debbie x