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Writing a synopsis is the equivalent of writing a proposal for a Masters Degree. It is a professional document that is supposed to sell your story to the editor rather than to the public. Therefore, in the same way that you would put time, effort and tender loving care in airbrushing your curriculum vitae, you need to apply the same level of attention to your synopsis. So how exactly should a writer compile a synopsis? In this article, I intend to answer this question with the aid of material by Professor David Lodge , Lew Hunter , Chris Vogler and Robert McKee.

Before you can write a synopsis, you need to have a story, and in order to have a story you need to have a beginning, middle and end. This is what's known as a three-act structure. The first act usually consists of a crisis. It is something that imposes itself upon a character that we can identify with whose daily life is thrown out of balance, arousing in them a desire to restore that balance. Something out of the ordinary has to go wrong in order to kick-start a story. This is what we call an Inciting Incident. It is a mechanism to get us inside the heart of the leading character (whose viewpoint this story is told from) so that we can join them on their emotional journey through the story. But there is something that prevents the character from achieving that goal: a force of antagonism that could be internal or external. This is when our character becomes a protagonist because it is from their perspective that we are taken through the story. This is what the editor wants to know: how does the protagonist achieve their object of desire? Do they change during the process? What happens if they don't achieve it? In other words, the structure of a synopsis should be 1)The Inciting Incident 2)Plot Development 3)Climax and 4)Resolution. Don't leave the editor guessing. You can leave the reader guessing once you've been given your commission to write the book, but not the editor. In summary, a synopsis should explain the journey that a person takes who has conflict against another person or their environment. An example of a synopsis for Robinson Crusoe retold for our times is as follows:

Robert Cruise, a lonely Black Englishman, finds himself in Battersea strangely devoid of people. As he walks down the road to inspect the town's coffee bars he notices that no one is to be found. He enters into a themed bar, but he can't seem to find a soul. He calls into his local employment agency to speak to a recruitment consultant, but no one is there. He visits a local cinema, but it is empty. His desperation mounts. Even stranger is the activity that takes place in the shops without people.

In reality, Robert is an unemployed claimant at the Jobcentre who has been out of work for three years and has cracked as a result of being turned down from every job he has applied for. He relates his anxiety to an advisor, telling him that he feels like a Robinson Crusoe being relegated to a desert island experience of unemployment. His wanderings in the vacant town have been nothing more than a hallucination.

Copyright © Jason Young

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