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Sadly, Mr. Fisher is correct. Different agents and publishers have different requirements. I have a couple of different ones ranging from a single paragraph (ick) to twelve pages. The one I've used most is three pages.
The synopses was much, much harder to write than the novel.
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Depends entirely on the publisher's requirements.
genre seems to inluence this a lot. In kids books there seems to be lot of emphasis on 1 sentence synopsis where as adult fantasy I have seen 5 page synopsis. So check with the publisher.
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The one I just sent to Wizards of the Coast was one-page single-spaced, per their guidelines. I understand that two-three pages is also common, but double and single spacing goes back and forth. Heck, a two-page double-spaced is really the same thing I already wrote.
I liked the one-page length, at least for my novel. It's not a very long novel and the one page pretty much took care of the overview. I've heard ranges going up to ten pages and I wonder if they were looking for a synopsis or an abridged version of the novel.
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Kathleen was talking about this very subject at a 13 line workshop at LTUE. Maybe she'll chime in on this.
Kathleen?
(She was also telling me she often gets over 400 emails a day, including the posts here at Hatrack. With that much backlog, it would be no surprise if she didn't see this one. But maybe...)
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