posted
I've written a hard-science fiction novel which I (of course) believe is brilliant and well-written.
I'm about to submit it to Tor Books for publication. They have specific guidelines for what they want submitted.
Part of what they want is a 4-10 page, double-spaced summary of the entire novel including character descriptions and the ending. See the attached link if you wish.
My problem is my top-notch, never-better, 425-page novel sounds horridly plain when "summarized". The summary reads more like a newspaper article or a legal document than a snapshot of the next national best-seller.
Tor Books does not want a sales pitch or flair in the summary, but "just the facts, ma'am."
QUESTION: Do all 4-10-page book summaries come across very bland? Believe me, the summary is written clearly, intelligently, and completely. It does offer Tor Books requires.
Does this happen to everyone?
What makes my novel exciting is the characters must face the unknown. The entire story offers many questions to the readers, which are ultimately answered. Thus, it doesn't have many explosions, or people being vaporized, or mother dying, or people floating into the next realm. It's hard-science fiction, so it comes across very real. Etc, etc.
Anyway, what are your thoughts?
Posts: 92 | Registered: Dec 2013
| IP: Logged |
posted
Synopses, unlike pitches, queries, and narratives, do not have to be especially compelling so much as their primary function is to demonstrate craft and structure proficiency regarding plot, event, character, and setting development. One feature that a synopsis must illustrate is that the narrative has solid beginning, middle, and ending acts. The plot's organizing structure and events, in other words. Also, that the characters and settings suit the plot. Plus, to a lesser degree, demonstrated proficiency with mechanical style.
A synopsis's voice and audience appeal should be clear and strong as well; however, voice in terms of the narrative may vary. A first-person narrative should have a third-person voice for a synopsis in most circumstances. Audience appeal is partly a subjective matter. To begin with, though, a science fiction and fantasy publisher has a built in desire for appealing science fiction or fantasy but not for westerns or thrillers that don't have a strong degree of the fantastical characteristics of science fiction and fantasy. Note: hard science fiction has core fantastical physical (hard) sciences and technologies that inform the plot.
A subtler but no less crucial function of a synopsis is expressing a degree of orginality. If the synopsis suggests the narrative is a somewhat too close copycat of a similar, already published and popular work's dramatic circumstances, and doesn't markedly exceed the prior work's caliber, anticipate the submission will be rejected.
A solid and strong and clear synopsis will focus clearly and concisely on what the narrative is about. That what-the-narrative-is-about is primarily about the central dramatic complication's context and texture: who, when, where; what, why, and how a want or problem, or both, wanting satisfaction complicate a protagonist's existence.
Whether a three-act structure or a five-act structure, a synopsis should mirror that structure in terms of the tangible meaning of each act's dramatic divisions (chapters, for example), dramatic circumstances, word count proportion, and functions. Expressions of intangible qualities like theme and subtext should not be included in a synopsis, nor pitch or query. They can and should be implied clearly, though, so readers may easily infer.
I.e., for a three-act structure, opening act introductions of the dramatic complication's contexts and textures, middle acts' efforts to address the dramatic complication, ending act--denouement--final outcome of the dramatic complication; roughly one-fourth word count for introduction act synopsis, half for middle acts, one-fourth for denouement--ending act.
An introduction act's function is it upsets emotional equilibrium, for protagonist and reader alike, compelling a protagonsist to act proactively to satisfy a central dramatic complication. Middle acts are those complication satisfaction efforts oscillating between setbacks and progress, leaving the outcome in doubt all the while. An ending act is an unequivocal, irrevocable, final outcome of the dramatic complication that restores emotional equilbrium to a new-normal routine.
If a synopsis doesn't more or less accomplish expressing those essential features, then the narrative itself probably doesn't either. Rejection is imminent.
posted
Personally, I am surprised you have been allowed 4-10 page synopsis. My experience has been requirements of only a 2 page synopsis. Posts: 1475 | Registered: Aug 2010
| IP: Logged |
quote: What makes my novel exciting is the characters must face the unknown. The entire story offers many questions to the readers, which are ultimately answered. Thus, it doesn't have many explosions, or people being vaporized, or mother dying, or people floating into the next realm.
Well, yeah. But you can say this about every novel. These characteristics are what's necessary to write any story. Characters facing an unknown, questions being presented to the readers through the narrative, and ultimately (hopefully), said questions being revealed.
We're told that there's only a handful of plots, and to editors/agents/publishers who read often, they've probably seen it all. But that adverb is key. 'Probably'. It's nice and vague and means that there's some wiggle room where you can show them the "same old thing" in a new and unexpected light.
I do think if your summary carries a similar tone to the very short description you just gave us, you might face some difficulties in getting a positive response. I just read a Tor book that I gave one or two stars to on Amazon, but you know what caught my attention about that book, why I bought it, and what I bet sold it for Tor publishers? It's catchy premise.
Here you have the same old story, a crew on a star ship boldly going where no man has gone before. They're faced with the unknown, the reader is presented with questions.
And now the plot trick: these characters are red shirts, those guys on the old Star Trek episodes that always died. This is not a new idea, it's been talked about before. Everyone knows that in the old Star Treks, the guy in the red shirt on the away team dies, while the main actors/characters live. But this author took this not especially new idea and wrote a novel on it, and I think it won the Hugo or Nebula.
Personally, I think the novel reeked, a one line joke told for two hundred pages. But the premise does stand out. I would think there's an aspect in your *own* novel that you feel shows something new of the old. And maybe, like all roads leading to Rome, your summary should always go back to that newish thing.
I would also keep it to the minimum page count. I read 3 to 10 pages in the link you posted, and I'd definitely keep it to three.
quote: A synopsis of the entire book. The synopsis should include all important plot elements, especially the end of the story, as well as aspects of character development for your main characters. The synopsis should run between three and ten pages in standard manuscript format.
Yuck, and they also want the end of the story? How droll of them.
Posts: 1216 | Registered: Nov 2011
| IP: Logged |
posted
Thanks, everyone. I'm going to submit my synopsis to the "Fragments and Feedback" area because Kathleen said I could. And what she says goes.
I suspect it is going to be difficult reading, so anyone who gets through it deserves something really special.
Posts: 92 | Registered: Dec 2013
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
