Why is it harder to write a synopsis than the book?

[mariusthered]

I do it every time. I sit down to write a synopsis about something I have worked on for a long time ( in this case years) and my mind goes blank
I never know how to get people interested in the story without giving all the best parts of the story away. Or is it just because i always dread writing theses things that makes it so hard, ( the old nothing to fear but fear it's self! )

do you find it hard to write a synopsis?
do you find them easy?

either way I thought this would be a good topic as most of us need to write them from time to time to promote books and comic books.

Aron.

[AnnaLandin]

I find writing a synopsis - or a summary, or a blurb for the back cover when I put things in print - really kind of tricky, and I have a few theories about why.

On the one hand, a synopsis - or an elevator pitch or whatever it happens to be - can be difficult to put together, because I know all of the story. I know every itty bitty detail, every character motivation, every plot-twist and every theme I'm trying to communicate (at least as far as what I've already written/drawn is concerned). Trying to pick out the raisins from that giant cake to show other people who don't have all of that in their heads can be really tricky! I'm always scared that I'm leaving something out, or not telling enough - or telling too much and giving away stuff that potential readers want to find out for themselves.

On the other hand, I might be off the mark when I try to figure out what people WANT to hear. Should I hook them by telling them my comic is action-packed and kind of violent? Should I hook them on the relationship between my main characters? Maybe I should hook them with the impending-doom aspect? Like, what I consider interesting about my story might not be what they consider the most interesting.

I think the best way to get it right is, as with most things, practise.

Write a few versions, and test them on willing volunteers. Ask for advice on clarity, which parts to keep and which parts to cut, which bits to expand on, etc., etc.

[hecdora]

When you write a book, your world has a history with its own set of rules, wonders and characters. Then each character has his own little world that could be a new book in itself. His/her entire life has moulded the person that they are in that snapshot of a moment and you have the freedom to convey that as you wish. Then, at some point, all these worlds collide and produce your complete story with unexpected, or expected, twists and turns.
So, how on earth do you pull all of these plot threads together, condense them into a synopsis, while keeping it interesting and spoiler free? I always leak gallons of blood, sweat and tears when attempting to write a good synopsis.
As you said though, it's probably our own minds that produce the mental block. It's a simple concept, after all. Distil our story elements down to the core basics and use that to hook the reader's interest. The problem is, as creators we know what lies ahead in the story and we are our own harshest critics. In distilling the elements down, we are forced to judge our own work and the doubt causes a bit of tunnel vision.

So after this long round about way of saying it, I completely agree with you! Writing a synopsis can be frikkin hard!

[hecdora]

Hah! Beat me to it and put it better than I could have!

[zetina]

Same here. Synopsis is a tough thing. I like them to be short and clever, in general. If the title is the core of the story, then the blurb would expand on it... and then the audience gets drawn into the full story. Or something :'D

An intriguing question might be good to include. If it's a comedy, then it better be funny. Idk. There are probably actual tips somewhere. But it probably takes understanding what the main draw of the story is. The hook. And then it's a matter of wording.

[mariusthered]

Write a few versions, and test them on willing volunteers.

good idea. and what you wrote hits the nail on the head, it is indeed the hook I need to think about.

[kambreapratt]

It is a really hard thing to do! I cheat. I have my husband do it, he used to be an editor and he worked in PR so he has a knack for pulling out a good blurb.

I agree with everything @AnnaLandin mentioned.

[Boneax]

making something interesting without spoiling important bits can be hard, i have a hard time when people IRL ask me what my story is about because of that since i don´t wanna ruin surprises for them, i´m pretty sure episodic comics may be hard to write a synopsis for too!

[MrKyleRose]

For me I always think about it like an "elevator pitch" to use marketing terms. Basically if you were riding in an elevator with someone and had to explain it to them before they arrive at their destination what would you say? Describe it to someone (or yourself) a few times and hopefully this will give you something good to start with. You can tweak it from there.

As an example for my series The Working Stiff I say it's about "A sentient zombie holding down an office job in New York City, because even the dead have to make a living." If I had to elaborate on it I could flesh out (no pun intended) some of the details or specific plot elements, but even this basic description give you an idea of what it's about.

[mariusthered]

thanks for the advice. bit harder when its a sci fi novel with two love stories, murders, a detective sticking his nose in all the wrong places while at the same time a corporation makes a play to take over humanity and a scientist is the lest chance to save the Earth. (one day i will write something simple)

[MrKyleRose]

I think you just did

[Asterodia]

@AnnaLandin and @MrKyleRose summarised it nicely methinks.

For one of my university courses we have to come up with several pitches for several different story ideas per term. I've found it's far easier to make up something from scratch than to take a beloved, well developed idea I've been working on for years and strip it to its core.

Part of the reason doing synopsis and elevator pitches is so hard is just that. You have to really know the central thing that makes your story stand out from the others and put it out there. It is said that the industry puts so much emphasis on elevator pitches because if you can only tell your story with a rambling essay then you don't actually know it! The elevator pitch is the core idea, and once you figure it out it's a good idea to stick it somewhere and remind yourself of it all the time to make sure your story doesn't lose it's plot or theme.

That epic star-crossed romance you can't wait to bring to life? That ancient feudal vendetta that has torn the world in two since the beginning of time, with all those juicy historical details that you have rehearsed the telling of ten thousand times over? They're all secondary details that will be what makes the story memorable once you've proven that it's worth reading... and not just another Romeo and Juliet retelling with a new paint job.

For this kind of thing I know there isn't really universal advice, but one way of looking at a synopsis or summary that I found really helpful was to go back and recall the initial idea that you had - that very first little "what if...?", that you might have had that conceived your story as it is today. Likely that idea you had initially will also encompass some information about your main genres and the relationships that would be born out of it. "What if an 18th century highwayman fell in love with a nun?" Bam. It's got the characters, it's got the setting, there's romance, there's conflict. To make that into a synopsis we just change it from a question and add some nicer language or something, "In 18th century England, a down-on-their-luck trio of highwaymen lose all hope when their leader falls in love with a nun." Or whatever. It's a starting point. Sure, lots of the finer details are missing, and many a first 'what if' isn't quite that helpful, but it's some bare bones to work from.

And if you can't recall if there was such a thought, if your story just progressively developed overtime from some character you created, another thing I found really helpful was to look at your story and think "what one, central element makes this different, unique, cooler or more memorable than all the other stuff out there?"

Which can be a pretty hard thing to figure out, I find :< especially when it's the bonds I've formed with the world and the characters that makes me love the idea rather than any unique merit of the story line itself. After all, nothing can ever truly be original, everything that can be done has been done, we can only twist it a little bit to tell it in a new way.

People like familiarity to a certain extent, but familiarity with a twist. @MrKyleRose has a great example here "A sentient zombie holding down an office job in New York City, because even the dead have to make a living."
Zombies, we all know that trope. They've been everywhere lately! It's just another zombie story, isn't it? But wait! A zombie doing boring mundane everyday things because he needs to 'make a living'? Hah! That is beautiful, unexpected, memorable, quirky.
Introduce a familiar concept, give it a twist, and make sure you introduce a character, a conflict and a setting in the process.

Personally I suck at these types of things, coming up with a bunch of them is the hardest part of that university course for me. I die a little bit on the inside every time and spend several days carrying a notebook with me everywhere while I look at every single thing I see and desperately try to squeeze a story idea out of it. My webcomics on here don't even have very nice ones at all xD I keep rewriting them to death and being annoyed and just bah! Especially with shorter ideas D: there is only one interesting conflict! And it comes in pretty late! How on earth can I make a compelling elevator pitch out of that!?!?

Anyways that's my two cents 0u0 I'm so sorry I typed so much D:

tl;dr: Try find the central unique aspect of your story idea or the initial concept and conflict that inspired it and put that into a sentence. Elevator pitches are hard man ;A;

[MrKyleRose]

@Asterodia first off thank you for the compliment on my series' elevator pitch. Secondly this is a really elegantly stated explanation of the how and why for writing good log lines. I will definitely be referencing this again the next time I need to write a series summery!

[nathankschulz]

Its hard because you want to convey ALL of the story at one shot. The trick I learned is that you want to convey the energy and tone of the story. With maybe one or two really interesting bits thrown in. Remember that your average reader only needs to be intrigued enough to START reading. They don't need, or want, to know everything at once.

[mariusthered]

thank you so much for this advice, I must admit seeing how much there was made me pause, but i will be printing this out so i can read it over as I'm working on my synopsis tomorrow.

[mariusthered]

@nathankschulz a valued point that I will keep in mind

[UzukiCheverie]

You've got an entire book to tell a story and get all the details in.

You've only got a single paragraph of 3-4 sentences to convince someone to read it with those same details and story, without coming across as boring or cliche or lengthy.

[jacintawibowo]

Writing a synopsis or selling a pitch is really easy for me. I can summarize a good story in a tweet.
The reason people find it so difficult is that they get their minds focused on the details of their story. They lose sight of what the story is about. What makes your story interesting shouldn't be in the details. If a plot twist is all there is to make me care about a story, why should I sit through half a film/book/comic for it? It should be interesting from the get-go.

I focus on selling an idea based on genre and uniqueness. That way people will know what they're in for (demographic) and why they should care about it. Plus, keep it simple! I don't want to read an essay before being able to care about a story. If you can't tell a good story in 2 pages, you can't tell it in 200 pages.

[Asterodia]

@MrKyleRose, @aronthemason Pleasure to be of assistance