HOW TO WRITE A CAPTIVATING SYNOPSIS

After doing a perfect plot, the most important thing for selling a book is drafting it's synopsis in a way that makes it irresistible to readers. There are a number of needs for a synopsis, from adding it to your back cover to capture the interest of a potential reader to convincing a publisher to give your book a shot. Whatever the reason, your book's journey isn't going to get started without a synopsis. In my experience as a publisher and writing consultant, I find that writing a synopsis is often a headache to many writers. This makes me wonder how they wrote the book or fear for what I will find if I attempt to read the book. I say this because if you have done the hard job of writing a book for months or even years, talking about it in a few words shouldn’t be such a big problem. This makes me want to believe the reason behind some author's difficulty with their synopsis isn't a question of not knowing their book well enough but not knowing what a synopsis should be.

For me, I think of the synopsis of my book way before I start writing the book. At the point of plotting the story is when I try to craft a synopsis and see if it makes sense. If you take this approach, you will find that the system of writing a synopsis might as well be applied in plotting the story.

So what's a synopsis? It's a brief description of the story that tells what the book is about in a nutshell. A nutshell being a hundred words or 300. Whatever length it is, your synopsis is supposed to make whoever is reading it to know pretty well what likely happened in the book, who the book is about and whether they want to read it or not. This means it should answer the questions of WHO, WHAT, WHY, WHERE AND WHEN.

Who, being your main character and brief information about him enough to make the reader identify with him. You can choose to say their name or just how they are identified. For instance your character is a single father, or a repentant fraudster, or an aspiring lawyer. Give them a tag that allows your reader catch a glimpse of their personality.

What, is the issue encountered in your book. A divorce, abduction, relationship, etc. So it goes,

Jude, a single father navigating a messy divorce...

This way, the reader finds a point of relatability. They know it's about a single father dealing with an unpleasant divorce. The second What point is what they intend to achieve  and then the antagonist person or circumstance standing in their way. So,

Jude, a single father navigating a messy divorce fights to focus on his job and keep his side gig going but his new parenting responsibilities and a difficult boss is threatening his ability to keep his job.

At this point we know what Jude is up against.

Why, are the stakes. Why must he keep his job and side gig? What will happen if he loses them? The stakes help your reader understand what the big deal is about. You might as well call it Why you bothered writing the book. It's stating what the fuss is about. So here's why Jude must find a balance quick.

Jude, a single father navigating a messy divorce fights to focus on his job and keep his side gig going but his new parenting responsibilities and a difficult boss is threatening his ability to keep his job. He must work out a plan to adjust to his new life or risk losing custody of his son to his estranged wife and her new boyfriend who's a notorious internet fraudster.

Ahh ah, now we see why Jude must be desperate to keep his job. The reader already understands at this point that Jude is choosing between getting his shit together or have a fraudster raise his son. Who wouldn't want to read on to see how Jude does?.

You don't have to say how the story is resolved within a synopsis, in fact you shouldn't, except it's a pitch to a publisher or a literary agent. What we have done here is a short synopsis. For a long or detailed synopsis, it's still the same pattern but you will have to go further on each element. So instead of just saying, Jude, a single father, we mention his son's name and a brief detail about how the separation with his wife happened, what job he does, the issues he's having at work, what is the nature of his side gig, why it need so much attention, give a glimpse of his social class and the rest. This can take an entire paragraph such that the whole synopsis is up to 3 or 4 paragraphs.

Below is an example of a long synopsis for my book Ujasiri.

In 2010, Joseph Dahr, a middle aged ex-soldier attempts to rescue his wife and son who are abducted from his eastern DR Congo village by Joseph Kony’s LRA, all he has is a rusty rifle he can use and an old friend he can trust.

Dahr believes Rosa and Joe Junior would not have been abducted had he taken them to Kinshasa as Rosa had begged him to. He would hence, not forgive himself unless he brings them home by any means. He summarizes his mission in a dialogue with Hussein thus, “I am not an idiot. I know the dangers in what I am about to do, but it is the only way I can live with myself.”

He relies upon Hussein, a US spy, to arm him with intels on the LRA. Hussein on his own has what he believes is a perfect plan to finish Kony but believes his superiors in Langley would not buy it or didn't care enough about his mission. He decides teaming up with Dahr is the only way he could conclude his task and go home.

Along the road of gathering intelligence and weapons for his big showdown with the LRA, Dahr meets and inspires other men who equally have personal reasons to take a fight to the LRA. Consequently, the burden of leading an army of distraught men while keeping his eyes on the goal now has to be added to his many troubles.