Hi,
I'm a newcomer here and have no idea whether this will end up in the right forum so apologies in advance if I'm completely wrong....
I'm sending my manuscript for a critique and the agency has asked for a 2 page single spaced synopsis. Now I have a one page and an eight page and a blurb, but am having the devil's own job with a two page! It's not flowing smoothly as the intertwined story lines only come together at the end and therefore one paragraph of the synopsis doesn't lead on to the next.Further, large sections go backwards while the rest is set on one particular day (no, nothing like McEwan's) Apart from adding 'meanwhile' etc, does anyone have any suggestions?
I need to keep it in chronological order, right?
I also seem to have put a character's name in bold the first time they appear on the eight page one. Is this right?!
I'd be really grateful for any ideas!!

Antarctic, synopses are bloody, aren't they. It does needs to be in the order that it appears in the book, so you may just need loads of 'Meanwhile' but there are other kinds of signpost: 'Z has no idea that...' and 'In London, X has...' and 'For Y it's lunchtime...' or even, 'At this point, the story switches to...'

I do see the problem with the form of your narrative. You could experiment with heading the new paragraph/switch of strand with the date or time or whatever (which would also stretch your one page a bit more towards two...)

Is this one that you'd be expecting to send out to agencies and editors in due course, or is it just for the person who's doing the critique to get a really good idea of how the plot develops? I'd hesitate to suggest it for sending to an agent, because it's not conventional, but if it's for the critiquer, you could do what I used to do to keep a workshop up-to-date with my novel, and simply write it in parallel, so that after a heading of Chapter Two you have two columns, one for each strand of the novel. But you might want to ring and check this would be okay, as it's not the usual practice.

And having the characters in caps is a hangover from scriptwriting: you don't need to do in a fiction synopsis.

Emma

Many thanks Emma.Yes, apart from signposts, I can't think of any other ways of aiding the flow.
It's actually even more complicated as while the daughter's story moves forwards, the mother's moves backwards and the main strand takes place in the present tense on one day. (No wonder I can't find an agent!)
For some strange reason the synopsis actually seemed less jolty as a one page version (which is the one the few agents to whom I've applied had requested), but HJ wants two pages. She says this is the most usual?? Unfortunately I really need it to be the same as the one I send to agents as at this stage I'm just going for a first three chapters and a synopsis crit., otherwise I love your idea of two separate strands.
Thanks again Emma.

It still reads quite badly when it jumps from the present line to a strand that takes place much earlier and that seemingly- though hopefully not-is at odds with the present narrative....
I don't suppose it's possible to use a different print eg italics for one strand? I know this would be highly irregular.
Any other suggestions warmly welcome!

Having just read this thread, I was going to suggest italics for the mother's story. As you say, highly unusual, but then it is for the benefit of the critquer, not an agent, so it's not as though she's going to refuse to read it because she objects to the layout.

Good luck with it. And if you would like more help feel free to post it in the Synopsis and Outline forum for review.


- NaomiM

Many thanks Naomi.
I may end up using italics, but ideally my aim is to produce the same synopsis that I would use in agent submissions. Is it therefore out of the question?
My only other idea, rather feebly, is to preface each of my early storylines with a certain word by way of intro. I can't put a specific year as it spans a number of years and would look even more confusing with all manner of years dotted around interwoven with the two present tense lines...
I don't know which is worse?

Synopsises are so closely tailored to the story, that it is difficult to give general advice about them.
Can you pop a section on the Synopsis forum? Then you can get an answer to the perenial question, "does this work, or is it too confusing?"

- NaomiM

I would say 2 pages is too long for a synopsis for agent submissions I'm afraid. I'd go with italics for this, probably, and leave a line between each 'time jump'.

Hi Jess and Naomi and thanks for your quick responses. Naomi,thanks for the invitation, but I know already that it's too confusing.Jess, I'll WW you.

Yes, Jess is right - one side max for agents. Sounds like your critiquer wants more of a chapter by chapter account.

Yes, I think if it's just for the critiquer you can be a bit more radical in laying out however seems most sensible. And I'd agree - one page max.

There's a whole different kind of synopsis which published authors sometimes use to tell their existing editor what the next book's all about, or for their agent to do a deal on the new novel. I wonder if that's the kind this critiquer's thinking of, if s/he wants a complete overview of all the plot. It seems those are much longer and more thorough, as you can imagine, but then, they're not having to convey the essence of the story snappily to a harassed slushpile reader, so to my mind it's a completely different thing.

Emma

Yes, I was going to suggest the Synopsis group too. Without seeing your one-page version this might be a stupid suggestion – but couldn’t you just add more detail to that?

Dee

Thanks everyone. I think I'm just going to preface one of the strands with phrases along the lines of: 'returning to Evie's childhood' etc in the hope that this clarifies it?

I'm sure signposts like that are the key to keeping the reader straight.

Emma

I was just going to post a thread on almost EXACTLY the same problem. My novel has two narrators, and their sections alternate through the novel. The second narrator appears in the first narrator's story (confused yet?!) - his own narrative sections take place some twenty years earlier.

I was thinking of just heading each paragraph with "Louise(2007)" or "Nicholas(1989)", but they have six narrative sections each, how is that going to fit on to a page?! Plus it will clearly look crap.

It's very difficult...I was considering doing two entirely separate synopses, one for each narrator, and then just putting an explanatory line at the top to explain that they alternate, but from everything posted on here I'm guessing that's not such a good idea.