The HEA Cafe

Good morning, everyone.

This week, we’re trying something new at the HEA Cafe - an online workshop taught through the blog. I’ve volunteered to do the first one, so bear with me/us if there’s tweaking to be done to the format.

This entire workshop is, of course, ©Claire Delacroix, Inc. and cannot be reproduced elswhere without explicit written permission.

I. INTRODUCTION

One of the necessary ingredients in any fiction submission is the synopsis. It also tends to be the hardest part of the submission package for a new author to tame. I believe this is because new authors don’t understand the purpose of the synopsis - no one talks about that, after all.

More than that, many new authors don’t realize that a synopsis can be a useful tool, in and of itself.

First, a tiny digression. A typical submission package from a new author to a publisher includes a cover letter, three sample chapters and a synopsis. (It may include a complete manuscript from the outset, or you may need to be asked to submit the complete. A sale for a new author is usually contingent upon a complete manuscript being done, and being marketable.)

The good news is that of all the elements in this package, the synopsis does NOT have the power to act alone. A synopsis is neither going to condemn your work or make the sale all by its lonesome: the chapters are the only part of the package that have the power to do that. If you must choose where to invest your time, ALWAYS, invest it in the chapters. This is the “product” that you are trying to sell, and the same product that the publisher ultimately will be selling. As a result, the chapters are the most critical part of your submission. Publishers routinely overlook any weaknesses in an author’s synopsis, because it is not nearly as important as the work itself.

Now, we’ve all heard of authors selling “on synopsis” and some of you might protest that those synopses must not only be important but possess that power to make the sale alone. Pause for a moment to think about this. You never hear about new authors selling on synopsis. It just doesn’t happen and that’s not because new authors are necessarily less talented at writing a synopsis. Established authors may appear to sell on synopsis, but what they’re really selling on is their track record. Their publisher knows that this author can tell a story, can deliver a full manuscript and that his or her work sells at a certain volume in the marketplace. The synopsis is just a tool used to generate the contract paperwork - an indicator of the truth of this is the fact that most authors who do “sell on synopsis” will readily admit that the finished manuscript rarely resembles the synopsis that made the sale. And it seldom matters - the finished product is saleable and that’s all the publisher cares about, not whether the order of events or people’s names changed.

So, although the synopsis isn’t critical, it’s still important. At the very least, it’s better to have a strong synopsis than a weak one. We’ll talk about what a synopsis does, what elements it includes, then how you can use the synopsis to troubleshoot a plot (there’s a great image) before you begin to write.

Many new authors think that the synopsis is exactly the same as the book, just much much shorter. This is not true. A synopsis is an entirely different kind of document - although it tells the story that is in the book, it tells that story at a higher level. It’s more like an executive summary or an overview.

If the sample chapters show that you are a writer, the synopsis shows that you are a storyteller. There is no dialogue in the synopsis and little atmosphere. There is no foreshadowing and there are no surprises. The synopsis lays out the bones of the story and shows that the author knows how to arrange story elements in a coherent fashion.

Clear as mud?

Here’s another one of my analogies for this difference: Houses and Blueprints

Tomorrow, we’ll look at exactly what elements should be included in a synopsis, as well as a few more that shouldn’t be there at all.