A while back, I had to write a synopsis for a book I was working on. Ugggg.

I’d written synopses for that story before and most of them sounded as if they should be narrated by this guy.

Which is dramatic and all, but maybe not exactly what I was going for. I mean my synopses certainly got your attention, they didn’t necessarily describe my book very well.

It took me a while to realize what the problem was. Turns out, in the early drafts, I didn’t really know what my book was about. Sometimes our stories are so big in our minds, that we wander through the world, entertaining ourselves and our readers, but forgetting where we are going. And it’s not until you try to write the synopsis that you realize you’ve lost your way.

Because a synopsis forces you to cut through all the action and mystery and distill it down to exactly what your book is about. Not what happens, but what it’s about.

For example, what happens in Winnie the Pooh is that a bear and his friends survive a flood, throw a birthday party, and search for things (heffalumps, tails, friends, homes.) But what the book is about is learning how to be brave. How to be a friend. How to grow up.

Turns out that a synopsis is just another tool in the writer’s toolbox. It can not only show us if our story has stayed on point, it can direct us if we lose our way. By forcing us to distill our story down, we can look at exactly what our characters are struggling with and if we’ve stayed true to that struggle. We can see if all the pieces of the book are exploring the same questions and leading us towards the same conclusions. Most importantly, we can remember why we wrote the story in the first place.

A synopsis is like a recipe for a delicate, rich, chocolate souffle. Everything in it should be essential and with it you should be able to build something greater and more delicious that the sum of its parts. It should give enough details that you can already taste the cocoa, imagine the texture, and almost smell it baking in the oven. In other words, a good synopsis should make your mouth water.

Bon Appetit!

Posted in Synopsis, Writing

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