Try to keep the synopsis below 1000 words. (Different publishers or agents will have different requirements make sure you check their requirements BEFORE sending it off)
Make sure it is concise
Ensure it is a narrative summary of your book but with feeling and hook to keep people reading.
It has to be written in present tense.
It must also be written in third person.
Try to write in the same style your book is written in. If your book is chatty, then your synopsis should be. If your book is serious, literary, or any other style, your synopsis must be the same.
The synopsis should introduce your main characters and their main conflicts, brought together in the narrative.
One paragraph should flow logically to the next. If you have to switch ideas, you need to make sure you build in a transition to connect your paragraphs.
The synopsis should give a clear idea as to what your book is about, what is at stake for your main characters, what they stand to lose, and how it all turns out.
Most importantly you must put the conclusion to your novel in the synopsis. No cliffhangers or teasers. Agents and editors want to know that the story has been successfully concluded.
I found it very difficult to compress a story that needed over 76000 words to tell into 1000 words and still retain the essence of the book. So you are not alone if you are having trouble with it.
If you are really stuck there are many editing services on the web that will write a synopsis for a fee. It is worth considering this option if you are in any way unsure.
As an example below is the synopsis for my book Guardian (Beware the following is a spoiler if you want to read the book)
Full
Synopsis
Name
Address 1
Address 2
Address 3
Word
Count: 76,431
Genre: Science Fiction
Synopsis: Page 1 of x
Phone:
Email:
GUARDIAN
Tristan is a Naval officer who volunteers for a brain implant as
part of an experimental weapons program. The experiment goes wrong
and leaves him with minor brain damage. He is discharged from the
Navy, and becomes a recluse in an isolated cottage on the edge of
Exmoor.
Aurelia is a fighter pilot from the planet Dacia who is running for
her life from a superior enemy force. In her desperation, she finds
an inhabited planet in an uncharted solar system. She crashes on
Earth, just behind Tristan’s cottage.
Tristan pulls her unconscious body from her damaged craft and
discovers she is not quite human. He has a further surprise when he
finds that he can control her ship’s systems with his
thoughts.
Aurelia awakens to find she has been rescued by one of Earth’s
primitive beings. Aurelia’s people, the Dacians, believe that they
are superior to all other races. They make it their mission to
search throughout space for new races to conquer and enslave. She
attempts to trick Tristan into becoming her slave.
A small enemy scout ship of rebel slaves lands on Earth to find and
kill Aurelia. Tristan rescues her and they take off into space to
avoid capture and find her people.
During the flight, she teaches Tristan her language and explains
that her enemies are a slave race that rebelled against their
Dacian masters. Their spacecraft suffers from engine and partial
system failure, so Tristan and Aurelia make an emergency landing on
an uninhabited planet that has a Dacian navigation beacon.
They crash land several hundred miles from the beacon and have no
option but to walk to it to change its broadcast to a distress
signal. During the long walk facing many dangers together, Aurelia
and Tristan develop a relationship, which overpowers Aurelia’s
belief that Tristan is of a lesser, potential slave race.
They reach the beacon after many days of struggle and Aurelia
reconfigures it to send a distress signal. A passing Dacian fleet
rescues them, but unfortunately for Aurelia, it is quickly
discovered that she has consorted with an inferior being. She is
dishonourably discharged from the Dacian military and sent home in
disgrace. Tristan is taken to a cell and scheduled for
interrogation and termination.
Tristan finds he is sharing his cell with several Mylians, rebels
who have been fighting a losing battle with the Dacians. Tristan is
shocked to learn the brutal and tyrannical nature of the Dacians;
their advanced interfacing abilities and technology have given them
an edge over the races they enslave. Tristan uses his ability to
interface with the Dacian computers on the ship to escape and free
the slaves.
Tristan and the rebels steal a small ship and travel to a Mylian
colony. When they arrive, they find a small Dacian force about to
destroy the colony. With Tristan’s help, the Mylians manage to
defeat the Dacians. A larger Dacian force approaches the scene of
the battle, and Tristan organises a rear guard action with a
captured Dacian ship. His success over the Dacian fleet allows the
colonists to flee to safety.
They escape to the Mylian home world where Tristan is hailed as a
hero. He turns the war around and frees other races from the Dacian
yoke. Tristan starts to wonder why all of the races he has
encountered in space look similar to humans. None of them are truly
alien. Over the following four years, the freed races form the
Alliance of Free Worlds, and, with Tristan as their military
leader, they bring the Dacian tyranny to a halt.
Meanwhile on Dacia, Aurelia reveals to her parents she is pregnant.
As all the known races are genetically incompatible, it should not
be possible. Against all the odds, she gives birth to a half-human,
half-Dacian daughter. Unbeknown to everyone, the child’s birth
triggers sensors within a powerful artificial intelligence (AI),
which had been shut down for Aeons.
As the war for galactic freedom gains momentum against the Dacians,
Tristan holds a meeting with representatives from all sides of the
battle. Aurelia thinks Tristan was killed four years ago, and she
and her father who is a leading politician attend the meeting as
delegates from Dacia. A pro-war Dacian suicide bomber attempts to
kill Tristan. At the moment the bomb is detonated, Tristan and
Aurelia recognize each other. Tristan throws her out of harm’s way,
but her father dies in the explosion.
Tristan an Aurelia reunite and Tristan travels to Dacia undercover
as her slave to investigate the pro-war movement at its core.
Tristan meets his daughter, and the artificial intelligence reveals
its purpose and the reasons behind its long slumber. The AI
identifies Tristan and his daughter as “Guardians”—people who have
a duty and an ability to keep the galaxy free from war and
disharmony.
Tristan receives a virtual training session with the AI that gives
him 5 years worth of training in a single night. During his
training, he discovers the history of the Guardians, and the secret
behind the similarities between the aliens. While he is away,
Aurelia is captured by the pro-war Dacians. Tristan discovers his
daughter, Tristain, hidden and afraid.
With the help of the AI, Tristan rescues Aurelia and gives the
pro-war Dacians an ultimatum: cease their offensives or be
destroyed. Some of the pro-war Dacians hatch a plot to continue
with the war at all costs. Tristan, Aurelia and the AIs figure out
a way to stop the final Dacian fleet. The solution involves a
secret weapon that requires two Guardians to create a triangle
between two spacecraft and the AI. Anything that passes through the
triangle is obliterated.
Since young Tristain and Tristan are the only two Guardians alive,
they must each be aboard separate ships to make the doomsday weapon
work. Aurelia agrees to pilot the ship with Tristain. After
destroying the Dacian fleet, they find that it was a ruse to
distract them from the Dacian’s real plan, which is to use an
asteroid as a missile to destroy Mylia. Aurelia is captured, and
the AI is only able to return Tristain to safety.
Tristan goes forth and rescues Aurelia, and they struggle against
the remaining rebel Dacians to defeat their desperate last-ditch
attempt at galactic domination. The last rebel Dacians are defeated
and with Tristan’s guidance and the assistance of the AIs, peace is
slowly restored throughout the galaxy.
