Submitting: The Covering Letter & Synopsis

[The Curious Orange]

I'm approaching the end of what I hope is the last "major" draft of my WIP and am taking a break to polish my submission, covering letter, sample chapters and synopsis.

I know when I submit this to agents/publishers I will need a covering letter, synopsis and 2 or 3 sample chapters. I know each publisher may want something slightly different and I should check their submission guidelines, but I was just looking for more general advise.

So the question is - How do I take my synopsis and make it sparkle? How long should it be? I've heard no longer than 2 pages double-spaced, but I'm struggling to condense a long and twisting plot down that far while still providing a flavour of the finished work. How detailed should it be? Should I outline projected future books in the series?

What about the covering letter? Any advice / comments / examples / discussion welcome.

[RcGrant]

As far as I can tell, it's best to be prepared with a synopsis written in one, two, and five pages. They seem to be the most commonly requested.

Other basic advice: concentrate on writing the main plot, but make sure you do conclude it. Don't think that by leaving the ending off it will make the publisher/agent want to read. It won't. You can mention books that may tie in, if this is a series, but do so in the covering letter, not the synopsis.

I'd suggest keeping the covering letter short and sweet. Include information that you think is relevant, such as other publishing credentials (or, say it's a book that has highly detailed scenes of surgery, that you are a surgery nurse, etc), but don't include a load of useless information. Just thank whoever it is, and say you are looking forward to their reply.

There's a brilliant book called 'The First Five Pages' by Noah Lukeman, and it discusses basically everything you asked. Well worth the money.

[Leisha]

Sign up to agents' blogs. You'll find them full of informative hints and tips. One I regularly LOVE hearing from is this one, because the agent has a great sense of humour: Nathan Bransford - Literary Agent: writing advice

He's mentioned query letters and synopses in the past.


Another agent blog: Lit Agent X

There are loads out there if you look.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Here is something I wrote up a while ago on the subject of the synopsis:

Rumblings (and Ramblings) at Madeline's -- JANUARY 2008

I don't claim that this method is infallible, but it's always worked very well for me.

[Leisha]

Good advice, Teresa!

Can I add one thing, though (I hope you don't mind)?

This line:

You have to pack as much meaning and emotion and power into as few words as possible, so go for colorful, dramatic phrasing. The general rule about “showing” versus “telling” does not apply here.

From the agent blogs I read, they say the still prefer the author to show rather than tell. At first I didn't understand how you'd apply that in a synopsis, but then Nathan Bransford gave an example. He said that if you have a character who'd had a terrible childhood, which then led to he/she being a criminal or such, rather than say something like, "After a terrible childhood, Nathan turns to a life of crime...", you'd say, "Throughout his childhood Nathan endured countless punches and kicks from his father, and he grew up accepting violence..."

Agents want to know why and how events happen, not just read a list of adjectives and nouns that state what your character is.


I hope you don't mind me adding that!

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by Leisha

He said that if you have a character who'd had a terrible childhood, which then led to he/she being a criminal or such, rather than say something like, "After a terrible childhood, Nathan turns to a life of crime...", you'd say, "Throughout his childhood Nathan endured countless punches and kicks from his father, and he grew up accepting violence..."

Agents want to know why and how events happen, not just read a list of adjectives and nouns that state what your character is.

No, I don't mind. I think Bransford and I are saying the same thing; it's just a matter of definitions. The second sentence he gives as an example doesn't show Nathan's father coming home, drunk and belligerent, and kicking the two-year-old crawling on the floor out of his way; it doesn't show Nathan at sixteen in the emergency room getting his jaw wired after being punched in the face by his father. There isn't space to describe all these things in the synopsis, so he sums them up by telling us that Nathan endured punches and kicks throughout his childhood. And this is exactly what I meant by powerful and dramatic phrasing.

[Leisha]

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. So really he's after telling in a covering letter/synopsis, but a different type of telling. More a showing-tell one, if that doesn't sound confusing.

I wondered how he could say his way was showing, when it was clearly not, not to the degree of a novel.

Thank you!

[Teresa Edgerton]

Yes. If you look at his first sentence, it's just a bald statement of facts. The second sentence gives much more information, and in a more striking way, but it's still the sort of sentence that, in a novel, would be considered telling not showing. In some ways, writing your synopsis takes a different set of skills than you use in writing the novel. You have to condense into single sentences things that you might spend hundreds of words on in the book, and still they have to carry the same sort of emotional weight.

Meanwhile, if you are writing Science Fiction or Fantasy, you may have to give glimpses into a whole new world, introduce entirely new concepts, evoke a sense of wonder, and do all this using the same number of words -- which calls for more descriptive language than if you were writing a synopsis for a mainstream contemporary novel, where so much can be taken for granted.

[Leisha]

Teresa, I can't remember if I've said this in the past, but I think I speak for everyone here when I say your constant insight into the world of publishing helps so many of us. You're always posting advice, and I know it must eat into your writing time. So... thank you. You're inspiring.

And that quote was one I made up, since I couldn't remember Nathan's exact phrasing. But it was something similar...

Back on topic. Another thing I've learnt is something that most fantasy/sf authors tend to do in their covering letter/synopsis, according to Nathan/other agents: list too many fancy terms and names and races that don't need to be mentioned at that point. Agents say a lot of writers try hard to summarise everything, especially most main characters and their missions; whereas agents want only the bare information that shows them you have a compelling plot, a background to your main character ("Throughout his childhood Nathan endured..."), and can handle the ending without resorting to deux-ex-machina.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Thanks, Leisha. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just spouting off and telling people things they don't even want to hear.

Originally Posted by Leisha

Another thing I've learnt is something that most fantasy/sf authors tend to do in their covering letter/synopsis, according to Nathan/other agents: list too many fancy terms and names and races that don't need to be mentioned at that point.

Well, that's the challenge. You have to give the flavor of the setting while still keeping the focus on the action. It may be that your worldbuilding is original and excellent -- one of the main things that makes your book stand out from the rest -- but you can't spend whole paragraphs describing the world you have created, no matter how unique and fascinating it may be. You have to distill it all into a few sentences. (And even at that, those are sentences you wouldn't even have to write for a book set in our world.)

[Leisha]

I've just remembered - and this may help you, The Curious Orange - I recall one agent saying you have to decide what the selling point of your book is, what makes it stand out from everyone else's, and make every line in your synopsis reflect that, to show you have something unique.

Thanks, Leisha. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just spouting off and telling people things they don't even want to hear.

Too many people are eager to state what they don't like in life, yet few ever say what they do.

[Teresa Edgerton]

I've just remembered - and this may help you, The Curious Orange - I recall one agent saying you have to decide what the selling point of your book is, what makes it stand out from everyone else's, and make every line in your synopsis reflect that, to show you have something unique.

That's a very good point, Leisha. Learning to sort out what is essential to your story from a welter of (no doubt fascinating) details is the most important step in writing a killer synopsis.

Years ago, I attended a class on writing the Fantasy novel, taught by Tad Williams. One of the points he made was that sometimes the setting is one of the main characters.

Now it seems to me that where this is indeed the case, when you write your synopsis you have to characterize your world as vividly as you do the other characters -- but just as with the other characters you can't do this at the expense of the plot and action.

The basic structure of a good synopsis is easily learned. Balancing all of the different parts in due proportion can be a very delicate process.