Synopsis
Quick answer: A synopsis is a one to two page summary of your novel's full plot, ending included, written for agents and editors. Learn the conventions that make one readable.
A synopsis is a short prose summary of your novel's entire plot, ending included, written in present tense for agents and editors. In other words, it is the map of the whole journey, spoilers and all, on one or two pages. Where the query letter seduces, the synopsis discloses: its reader wants to know whether the story hangs together, whether the middle sags, and whether the ending lands.
The document belongs to the submission stage of a novelist's life. Agents commonly request a synopsis with sample chapters, and editors use it later in acquisitions. Writers dread it more than any other document, which is worth saying out loud, because knowing everyone finds it miserable makes the conventions easier to accept.
The conventions that govern it
Present tense throughout: Elizabeth refuses the proposal, not refused. Third person regardless of the novel's narration. Character names in capitals on first appearance, a convention borrowed from screen coverage that helps a skimming reader track the cast. One to two pages single spaced unless the agent specifies otherwise, and some do ask for three or five, so read guidelines. No dialogue quotes, no chapter numbers, no teasing.
Above all, the ending goes in. A synopsis that stops at the climax with a coy flourish fails its only job. The agent is checking that you can resolve what you set up; concealing the resolution reads as either amateurism or a confession.
What to include and what to drop
Follow the protagonist's causal spine: the situation, the disruption, the choices, the reversals, the climax, the resolution. Include only the characters whose decisions bend that spine, usually three to five names, and fold everyone else into their function, a rival colleague, a dying father. Subplots survive only if the main plot cannot be explained without them.
Give emotional cause along with event. The most common synopsis failure is a colourless chain of and-then, technically accurate and unreadable. The fix is to include why each turn matters to the protagonist: she takes the job because the debt is her fault; he burns the letters because forgiveness feels like betrayal. Cause is what makes a summary feel like a story, and it is the same connective tissue contest judges look for when they score Storytelling and Structure on Writory's short story rubric.
How to draft one without despair
Work from the manuscript, not from memory. Write one sentence per chapter, then delete every sentence that describes texture rather than turn. Stitch what remains into paragraphs, adding causal glue, then read it aloud hunting for the and-then drone. Expect the first attempt to be twice too long; cutting a synopsis is far easier than composing a perfect one cold.
The trap is trying to preserve your voice at full strength. A synopsis should be clean and competent, with perhaps one flash of the book's personality in the opening line, but it is a working document, not a performance. Agents forgive a plain synopsis attached to brilliant pages; they do not forgive an incoherent one.
The lengths you will be asked for
Different desks want different depths, so novelists keep a small wardrobe of synopses. The one-page version is the workhorse most agents request. A two-to-three page version suits agencies that ask for detail, and a longer chapter-by-chapter outline occasionally appears in requirements, especially for series fiction sold on proposal.
Write the longest version first, while the book is fresh in your head, and cut downward; compressing an existing document is mechanical, while expanding a starved one means re-solving the whole plot. Keep all versions updated after major revisions, because nothing reads worse than a synopsis describing a draft that no longer exists.
Label each file clearly, Title Synopsis One Page, Title Synopsis Three Pages, because sending the wrong depth to an agent who specified a length undoes the care the document took. A tidy set of synopses, ready before querying begins, also removes the temptation to write one in a panic the night a request arrives, which is where most bad synopses are born.
Neighbours and opposites
A synopsis differs from a query letter, which is shorter, voicier and ends before the spoilers. It differs from an outline, which is a private planning document written before or during drafting, not a sales document written after. And it differs from a blurb, the back-cover teaser written to lure readers, which hides exactly what the synopsis must reveal. Novelists need all four documents eventually; confusing their audiences is the root of most bad versions of each.
What poets can take from this
- Write in present tense, third person, with names in capitals on first mention.
- Always include the ending; a synopsis that teases has failed.
- Limit named characters to those whose choices turn the plot.
- Pair every event with its emotional cause to avoid the and-then drone.
- Draft long from a chapter list, then cut to one or two pages.
- Prepare one-page and three-page versions before you query, clearly labelled.
Try it yourself
Write a one-page, present-tense synopsis of a novel you have read many times, ending included. Then compare your page against the book's back cover and list three things the blurb hides that your synopsis had to reveal.
Questions
Should a synopsis reveal the ending?
Yes, always. Agents and editors read the synopsis specifically to see whether you can resolve your plot. Withholding the ending is the single most damaging synopsis mistake.
How long should a novel synopsis be?
One to two single-spaced pages is the safe default, though some agents request specific lengths in their guidelines. Prepare a tight one-page version and a fuller two-page version so you can supply either.
Is a synopsis written before or after the novel?
After, in its submission form. A summary written beforehand is an outline, a planning tool that will drift as the book evolves. The synopsis you send must describe the manuscript that actually exists.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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