THE STORY SYNOPSIS

The story synopsis is also called as the outline of the story. It has no fixed format except for important specifications. Thy synopsis should be double – spaced and highly comprehensible. Ideas should be sorted out into several paragraphs.

The synopses could comprise the whole story itself or an addition to a segment of the completed manuscript and a presupposition of the reader’s acquaintance with that segment. Your synopsis can also be divided into chapters. It is possible that what you thought would fit in one chapter will need to extend to more chapters.

The narrative is the key element of the synopsis. Here are some essentials that your narrative should contain.

  • The present tense of all the verbs
  • The names of the main characters and their descriptions
  • A summary of the important events in the story
  • An indication of the story’s point of view
  • No dialogues, just narrations

A list of the names of the main characters should be written at the opening of the synopsis. The list should also contain the corresponding descriptions of the characters. This is beneficial in guiding the direction of the story.

Some of the story’s context might necessitate an explanation especially science fiction, fantasy and historical novels. This can be written in the background section which goes before the synopsis. On other cases, the explanations are incorporated in the synopsis.

Make your synopsis as brief as it can be. Do not turn off your editor by showing him a synopsis that it will take too much of his time. A synopsis comprised of four to ten pages, with double spaced lines should be sufficient.

The synopsis serves only as a guide to you and your editor, but it does not necessarily have to control the direction of the story. You can still add ideas and thoughts that may come to your mind even late after the synopsis is done.

THE STORY SYNOPSIS