Synopses - the Pain Never Ends

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is "Queries & Synopses: Bane, Benefit, or Both?"

Besides all of us immediately screeching BANE – because all sane human beings hate writing synopses – I’m here to tell you to learn to, if not love, then at least bear with them. Being able to write a decent synopsis is a critical skill for a writer, even indies. Same with queries.

Also, the need for them never goes away. If you want to be a career author, you’ll be pitching/querying your books and writing synopses for the rest of your life.

Did I scare you? It IS October, after all!

I totally sympathize, by the way. When I was a newbie writer, I was fond of saying that if I could synopsize my novel, either in an elevator pitch or a couple of pages, then I wouldn’t have had to write the whole book. Which is true in a way, but also precious.

People rightfully rolled their eyes at me.

I sucked it up and took a class on writing synopses.

The main thing I learned from the class was not necessarily how to write a synopsis, though I kind of did, but that condensing a story concept to 10 pages, 5 pages, 2 pages, 1 paragraph, 288 or 144 characters, or 1 line helped crystallize the essentials of the tale. And I had to face the very uncomfortable truth that, despite my newbie arrogance about having written this entire novel to tell the story, the main reason I couldn’t write a synopsis or come up with an effective short pitch was that I didn’t have a clear focus on that story. I didn’t KNOW what the essentials were.

That’s why I say that even indies – who may never need to write a synopsis, but will certainly need to write a blurb – will benefit from developing this skill, too.

And if you’re going for trad at all… Well, let’s just say that a synopsis is hovering in my near future. I’m not looking forward to the painful process of writing it, but I know that, in the end, I’ll understand much more about the story.

Which is always a positive.

Blurbs, back cover copy, and pitches

So, um, I don't have anything coming out anytime soon.

Which doesn't mean I'm not writing, just that I'm not selling anything. Worse yet, I can't really share any of the pitches or proposals that are in the works because there is an outside chance that a decision-maker somewhere will like one of them and whee I will have a project (maybe even a contract) again.

So instead of sharing all this top-secret silliness, I'll pass along advice I've received about preparing hooks, pitches, blurbs, and back cover copy. Cuz guess what? All those marketing-copy bits are very similar.

1. Focus on the conflict. Distill it as succinctly as possible. Sherry Thomas "pitched" Twilight to my writing group once as something along the lines of "She loves him even though he could kill her. He loves her back, except he also thinks she's tasty." The thing that sells that story isn't the wish fulfillment or the sparkles. It's the "how are they ever gonna figure that one out?" question. Whether the author answers the initial question in a compelling way is fodder for another conversation. At pitch/blurb/back-cover-copy stage, you just need to raise the question.

2. However, don't use rhetorical questions. "Will they overcome their many and various compelling hurdles and find true love (or save the galaxy, or what-have-you)?" Well, yeah. Most likely they will. Asking me a question I already know the answer to isn't gonna make me buy a book.

3. If you're writing spec fic, put the deep world building front and center. This is tricky because you don't want to dump a bunch of author notes and back story in a pitch/blurb/back-cover-copy. But also, you don't want a reader to figure they're looking at just another epic fantasy or vampire romance or cozy mystery with cats and robots. Highlight the worldbuilding piece that makes your world unique.

4. Keep it brief.

5. If you're writing a romance, give the goal and conflict for each central-romance character, as well as the major conflict that's keeping them apart. (See tip 1.)

6. Match the tone/voice of the book. So, if you're writing a sarky, irreverent book, the marketing copy should match. If you're writing a thriller, sell it with that same choppy, chilling, rat-tat language. If you're writing an epic fantasy, the world is changed. You feel it in the water. You feel it in the earth. And so on.

Guess, before I head out, I should put a giant asterisk on this list of tips: I have never successfully done this kind of writing. My queries all received form responses. I would never have sold if my agent weren't a genius for this sort of thing. However! I have collected the above wisdom from a number of more accomplished writers, and I trust them.

Crossing fingers some of this sage advice will work for me. And for you.