A Book for Sale: Chapter Five

Is there an actual place called “synopsis hell”?  If there is (and I think there is), I’ve been festering there for the past week.

A synopsis, in case you weren’t aware, is an overview of your book, with all its plot developments and spoilers included.  You send this with your first three chapters, so agents/publishers/whoever might be interested get a combined sense of your writing style and how you’ve crafted the story.

The first agent on my ‘pitch list’ requests a synopsis no longer than a page, which is a challenge.

I think they intended for it to be a challenge, though.  A lot of the advice I’ve seen talks about two pages, or around 800 words, for the novel to breathe.  Worryingly, a lot of that same advice says things like: “Don’t worry; if you can write a novel the synopsis is easy!” and, “You can craft a synopsis in an hour, so don’t fret!”

Not for the first time, I’m wondering why this is taking so much longer than other people think it should.  But I think this pitch is just very, very important to me, and that makes it daunting.  I have to get my synopsis done, but I also have to get it done right.

In his sort-of memoir, Good Pop, Bad Pop, Jarvis Cocker talks about how he’s “a tortoise rather than a hare” when it comes to his creative efforts and getting them right.

He cites a 1973 newspaper article he was featured in as a schoolboy – back when Pulp started! – in which he’s pictured holding a plastic tortoise.  “(It’s) crazy,” says Jarvis, “…how could I have known at the time I was destined for life in the slow lane?”

(That photo, and Jarvis’s words about it years later, made me well up.  They also solidified my existing opinion that every creative person should read Good Pop, Bad Pop).

I’m not saying people who paint their pictures, make their music, or write their synopses quickly do them badly.  Just that it’s not my way.  I am not a hare, so if I did bang out my Something Else overview in an hour, it wouldn’t be right.  I wouldn’t feel it in my soul.

So, on I’ll go, until I do.

My synopsis is a page long at the moment, but it’s not a good enough page.  There are parts where I’ve over-explained, and parts where I haven’t explained enough, to the point where it’s easy to question whether the story I’m telling is the right one.

(It is.  At least, it’s the story I wanted to tell, and that will have to do).

I’ve set myself a deadline to help things along.  So, by hook or by crook, my first pitch package will be sent by Tuesday 31^st March.

(“That should give me plenty of time”, she murmured optimistically!).