This isn't to do with word count, but general synopsis-writing- Emma Darwin, who used to be on this site a lot, wrote this v helpful advice about the tricky art:
· Don't let it be longer than a page (single spaced)
· Take the story right to the end: this isn't a teasing blurb.
· Write plainly and directly in third person and present tense ...
· ... but also try to convey the emotional drivers and structure of the story, not just the factual structure of the plot. How the characters are put through the emotional mill and how they change is
vital, and needs all the vivid verbs you can manage. So ...
· ...
"Show don't tell" applies: not,
A romantic interlude takes place, but,
She kisses him. Not
Quickly, they hire a car to take them to the site of the contamination but,
They race against time and their own terror to discover where the poison is coming from.
· Tell the story, don't talk about the book. Not,
At this point, as the pace picks up, we are introduced to Simon, who is a.... but,
Simon is a... Not
The theme of deliverance is emphasised when Alice rescues John... but
Alice digs John out of the landslide ...
· Tell the story in the order it happens in the book. Ignore any backstory which isn't essential to the main plot, and the same goes for subplots: only give what's crucial to the main arc of the main plot. If the novel is non-chronological use brief signposts such as,
In 1976, Simon rides... or
Meanwhile, in Borneo... to keep things clear. Better to be a bit plodding if you have to be, than confusing.
· If the voice of your novel is particularly important, give a flavour of it by integrating a line which also conveys an important piece of plot information. For example, "
He writes of his soldiering life, but, as he tells her, the images of the past that I carry with me are eaten away by the bitterness of that day on St Peter’s Field." This moment matters because it's that change in how he feels about his past which powers him as a character-in-action, and it also matters that it's her he tells about it; otherwise it wouldn't get mentioned.
· Do it in stages; each time you'll think you've cut it to the bone, but when you return to it the next day you'll see another few words you can winkle out. Leave it for a week, then go back and polish.