In the second part of my “Nanowrimo Now What?” posts, I’m going to talk about writing a synopsis. This might seem like jumping the gun; after all, you’re not going to be querying agents for this monstrosity you’ve written just yet. But a synopsis can be used for more than just getting an agent interested in your story. It’s a key editing tool for figuring out what the heck your story is even trying to say.
When the rough draft of your novel has been spewed out onto the page, it might not look like what you first planned, if you planned at all. For people who write organically, you probably didn’t know where the story was going to end up until you got there, and that’s fine! For people who outline, you probably discovered along the way that the story needed to take a different direction at a certain point, or some key plot elements that seemed obvious in the pre-writing stages turned out to be unfeasible when you actually got to them in the story. When that happens, you need a synopsis.
If you really want to learn about writing a synopsis, go to Miss Snark’s blog and check out her critiques of various synopses. Actually, read everything she has to say about everything, because she’s got a lot of good advice.
A few things I learned from her:
The synopsis does not need to talk about every plot point in the story. It’s not really possible to fit your whole novel plot into the two to three pages (or less!) that a lot of agents ask for. So instead, look for the main character arc, and summarize that. Where did the main character start? What did she work to accomplish? How was she changed along the way? How does that fit with the theme of the story? What is the point to the whole thing? Forget all the side characters and details. This isn’t your story bible. This is just a broad summary of the main theme of the book.
On the other hand, you don’t want a character study. We need to see the specific events that changed your character, not just how they changed. You don’t need to follow the chronology of the book. Write the events as they logically lead into each other.
Make sure you put the stakes front and center. What does the main character stand to lose? What is her motivation? What does she want, specifically, at the beginning of the novel, and how does she get it?
Forcing yourself to whittle down your novel into a svelte synopsis makes you focus purely on the bones of the novel. If you can’t answer the questions I asked above, then there are some big things missing from your novel. This is why you want to do the synopsis now, when you’re beginning editing, and not wait until after you’ve polished the fifth draft to a high shine and are ready to send it out. If you have any major plot holes, you’ll find that out now. If your main character doesn’t really have any strong desires and just lets herself be wafted about on the winds of fate, that’ll show up too.
Once you finish your synopsis and find all the incoherent plot points and unmotivated characters, put that synopsis aside and write a new one. This time, make sure it makes sense. Keep it broad. You don’t need to go into the details now. What you want is to make sure your story has strong bones before you start putting the meat on it. And yes, I know you’ve already written this thing, but the first draft is really just a method of piling up a heap of words so you can pick through it later to find the good stuff. You’re going to need to do another draft or two (or three or four) before this story is really done. So take this time to fix the mistakes you found in your first draft.
There. You’ve finished the synopsis. Now you have your blueprint for how the second draft is going to go. Time to get to work.
Bennett North 