Writers Tricks of the Trade ISSUE 1, VOLUME 9 | Page 41

Don’t make the mistake of thinking the
synopsis just details the plot. That will end
up reading like a mechanical account of
your story (or the dreaded “synopsis
speak”), without depth or texture. Think of
what it would sound like if you summarized
a football game by saying. “Well, the Patri-
ots scored. And then the Giants scored.
Then the Patriots scored twice in a row.”
That’s sterile and doesn’t give us the mean-
ing behind how events are unfolding. In-
stead, you would say something like, “The
Patriots scored a touchdown after more
than one hour of a no-score game, and the
underdog of the team led the play. The
crowd went wild.”
T HE SECRET TO A GREAT NOVEL SYNOPSIS
A synopsis includes the charac-
ters’ emotions. That will help you avoid the
mechanic’s manual situation. Instead, in-
clude both story advancement (plot stuff)
and color (character stuff).
Incident (Story Advancement) + Reaction
(Color) = Decision (Story Advancement)
C OMMON NOVEL SYNOPSIS PITFALLS
 Don’t get weighed down with the
specifics of character names, places, and
other proper names or terms. Stick to
the basics. Use the name of your main
characters, but if a waitress enters the
story only briefly, call her “the waitress.”
Don’t say “Bonnie, the boisterous wait-
ress who calls everyone hon and works
seven days a week.” That’s an unneces-
sary tangent. (When you do mention
specific names, it’s common to put the
name in caps in the first instance, so it’s
W RITERS ’ T RICKS OF THE T RADE
P AGE 36
easy for agents or editors to see at a
glance who the key figures are.)
 Don’t spend time explicitly explain-
ing or deconstructing your story’s
themes. A synopsis tells the story,
but it doesn’t try to offer an interpre-
tation. Similarly, avoid showing the
“stitches” of your story; this is where
you add things that describe the
book’s structure, such as “in the cli-
max of the novel,” or “in a series of
tense scenes.”
 Avoid character backstory unless
it’s tied to the character’s motiva-
tions and desires throughout the
book. A phrase or two is plenty to
indicate a character’s background;
ideally, you should reference it when
it affects how events unfold. If you’ve
written a story with flashbacks, you
probably won’t include much, if any,
of that in the synopsis.
 Avoid including dialogue, and if you
do, be sparing. Make sure the dia-
logue you include is absolutely iconic
of the character or represents a
linchpin moment in the book.
 Don’t ask rhetorical or unanswered
questions. Remember, your goal here
isn’t to entice a reader.
 Generally you should avoid splitting
the synopsis into sections. In rare
cases, there might be a reason to
have subheads in the synopsis, due
to a unique narrative structure, but
try to avoid sectioning out the story
in any way, or listing a cast of charac-
ters upfront, as if you were writing a
play.
S PRING 2019