More in the way of victorious things

[megwrites]

I have now managed to wrangle my synopsis down to one page, which was an accomplishment that I will be forever proud of, because it was kind of like climbing Mt. Everest in my shorts on a windy day, except not that easy and with more pain and angst and gnashing of teeth. Sherpas were lost, people left to die on the icy heights. It wasn't pretty.

So after I have fought and struggled and have narrowed down 82,000 words into a one page summary, there is the problem of formatting. There is, apparently, no consolidated format for a synopsis. Some have things hanging out on the right margins, some in the left. Double and single spacing are both valid, and some have full headers, some just put the genre (but apparently not the title) in one of the upper corners.

The format that is suggested in Give 'Em What They Want: The Right Way to Pitch your Novel to Editors and Agents is much simpler than some of the ones I've seen online, but that book only touches on mainstream and mystery genres. Maybe there's some sort of SF/F genre type format that agents who see SF/F queries and synopses prefer. ID-fucking-K.

But there are folks out there who have done this dance before, so any help you could give would mean that I owe you big time. I'm broke, but I can move furniture and bury bodies like a champ, so if you ever need me.

Also, it would be good for my hair because it will help me to stop pulling them out and also keep me from using the ALL CAPS ITALICS OF RAGE.

Comments

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

There's no standard format that I know of--either double space, or single space with in-between para spacing. No one seems to care, really.

Have you read Donald Maass's The Career Novelist? (Free download here (http://www.maassagency.com/books.html).) I'm about halfway through, it does address synopses and says "Whatever's reasonable is okay." It also addresses quite a bit of stuff that would have been of interest to me in starting the agent search, though I was convinced the book was beyond me at that point, and put off reading it.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

It eases my mind that it's not something that agents are sticklers about, because I've researched the agents I have on my list and none of them have specified anything I can find, either in their blogs, sites, or interviews they've given, that they have a preference for any format. So, *whew*.

I haven't read the book by Donald Maass, but I just downloaded it and am going to. I am definitely not above any reference material or advice, especially from someone who runs a very successful literary agency.

Thanks for the recommendation!

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I've fallen massively behind on reading blogs, so I'm just catching up on everyone's posts and saw where you are with the book. If you ever want to ask me any specific questions, you have my e-mail address.


First, congrats on all the progress with the editing and query letter!

Also, as said above, I don't think you need to stress over the synopsis formatting. Mine was double-spaced in Times Roman font, with normal paragraph indentation. Just make sure you have your name, the novel title, and page number at the top--though I suppose yours is just one page, which amazes the hell out of me. These things are hard to write, and I wrote many many many drafts of it before I was happy with the result.

Also, FYI, one agent asked for an outline with the full manuscript, which was a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the novel. I don't think this is standard though, so I wouldn't work on it until/unless someone requests it. It was well worth the extra work, because I ended up signing with him :)

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I've fallen massively behind on reading blogs, so I'm just catching up on everyone's posts and saw where you are with the book.

That's all right :) I kind of figured you might have had a life besides, you know, helping me out. Besides, you've already done so much to help me. I owe you big time.

I suppose yours is just one page, which amazes the hell out of me.

Well, a couple of the agents specified that they like their synopses to be one page only, and a couple said 1 to 3 pages, so I saved a slightly longer version that has a bit more of the flavor of the story to it, but yeah, the one page version? Was hell to right. I had to make some hard choices about what counts as an "important" plot point.

So now all that remains it to go over it again and then send the queries and synopses out and...wait. I think that part's going to be harder than all the other parts put together.