The Problem With The Synopsis

Ever had that feeling that you know too much about the book you’ve written to condense it down to a page and a half for an agent or publisher’s edification?  Yeah, me too.

I mean, what is it with these guys?  They’re supposed to be in the business.  Do they really read that slowly?  Do they have to have someone explain what they’re publishing?  I could understand it if they were publishing theories on quantum physics or the philosophy of Aristotle, but mine’s a children’s book about guitars.

Seriously, the only time I’ve ever written a synopsis that I was happy with was when I produced one for a ‘synopsis writing competition’ (odd concept, but there you are).  The joke was that I got a prize; I’d entered three different synopses: two of books that I’d written and one of a book that was completely made up as I typed the required 500 words.  Guess which one got on the rostrum?

All of which proves only one thing.  It’s much easier to write a 500 word story that it is to write a gripping synopsis about a 75,000 word novel you’ve been living with for several years.  Hence, I have come up with a new marketing strategy for my latest novel:  1) Write the novel; 2) Write the synopsis but don’t worry if it’s the synopsis to the same novel, or even my novel (why not borrow someone else’s plot if it’s easier to make it into a quirky short story?); finally 3) Send out the required ‘three chapters and synopsis’.

Assuming the ‘three chapters and a synopsis’ gets the agent/ publisher hooked on reading the whole MS, that’s job done.  The MS can either stand or fall on its own merits, but at least I won’t be sitting here with that aching feeling in my stomach that says, ‘If only I could write a decent synopsis, the right person would read my book and then I’d get published and then I’d be terribly rich and famous’. (It’s not surprising that makes my stomach ache, there’s a lot of words in that sentence to digest!)

…Wait a minute, are there agents/publishers out there that might be reading this?  Hey, guys, come back, when I said, “A boy goes off to a school for wizards,” what I actually meant was…