Critical Thinking: The Chapter-by-Chapter Synopsis

It seems that every agent and editor has a different list of what they would like to see in an author’s query package. Many require a synopsis of the novel, chapter by chapter. And many authors, who have spent the last several months attempting to bulk up their word count, have a problem with this. How do you condense page upon page of eloquent prose into a few down-and-dirty lines? What about poetry? What about description?

Forget about it. The agent doesn’t want it and you don’t need it.

A chapter-by-chapter synopsis is simply that: a very short rundown of each chapter. Everything I’ve ever known about chapter synopses I learned from my writers’ group. Here are the basics:

- One paragraph per chapter.
- Label each paragraph with “Chapter 1” (or 2, or 78, or…you know).
- All action is written in present tense. (Use your judgment on this. If the action relates to something in the past, use past tense. Eg.: “Ethyl walks into the room, looking for Fred, then remembers she’d drowned him in pudding the day before.”)
- The first time each significant character is mentioned, the name is in all caps.
- No more than five sentences for each chapter. (Yes, you can do it!)
- Basic, plot-related information only.
- Reveal your ending. This is not the place to attempt to whet an agent’s appetite. This is the place to give them an over-all idea of your story without forcing them to actually read it.
- Don’t forget to cover the character arc.

My writing career in my earlier days was strictly limited to Air Force performance reports and awards packages. There are great similarities between these and the synopsis—mainly brevity and density. Well, and creativity. Every sentence should be vital to the description of the story. To stick to the five-sentence limit, you’re going to want to indulge in run-on sentences that cover everything and attempt to reveal the cleverness and down-right likability of the author not to mention the state of conflict in the Middle East and Henry’s obsession with flying cars. Don’t.

For illustration, I’m going to use the first paragraph of my first NaNo novel, Joshuwu Bradley: Rocket Scientist. You can find it here.

The synopsis for this chapter is:

Chapter One: JOSHUWU BRADLEY, eight years old, stands on the viewing deck of the space station Hokkaido, orbiting the planet Kerulen. He and his friends Charlie and Tippy, who live on the station, are watching the starship carrier, Onslow, which has just returned from war. After a long commander’s call, Joshuwu and his dad, TRIK, race to their room on the Hokkaido to meet Joshuwu’s mom, CAR, who has been stationed on the carrier as a fighter pilot.

- Note that Charlie and Tippy’s names are not in caps. That’s because they play minor roles in only a couple of chapters in the book. The detail that they live on the station is important because the story quickly transitions to planet-side, then to the Onslow, and this reveals why they’re not mentioned in those chapters.
- There’s no mention of the “black laser-blast scars along her flanks,” just that the ship is returning from war. Although the shape and appearance of the ship adds to the mood of the story and later helps the reader understand where Joshuwu is in the ship, they aren’t germane to the plot.
- The last two sentences do get into some perfect participle thingies, the exactedness of which I’ve long forgotten. In the last sentence, since Car is still assigned to the Onslow, it could just as easily have said, “…CAR, who is stationed on the carrier…”
- The synopsis is actually incredibly dry reading. As a kids’ book, the chapters are a little shorter, so it only took three sentences to get the gist.

Here’s another chapter synopsis:

Chapter Four: Joshuwu, Car, and Trik hike to a waterfall with their friends Snoh and Kano, their daughter Tres and son Saulie. Joshuwu proves his ability to hold his breath longer than anyone other than his dad. The adults jump off a high cliff into the pool at the base of the waterfall. Joshuwu wants to try, and Car supports his decision despite Trik’s misgivings. Although Joshuwu slips the first time, landing on his back and getting the wind knocked out of him, he tries again and successfully jumps into the pool.

- “Joshuwu proves his ability to hold his breath...” Yeah, believe it or not, this is relevant to the climax of the story, several chapters down the line. It shows the agent how the story builds, how important information is slowly revealed. Although the “other than his dad” isn’t relevant; it could have just said, “…hold his breath a very long time.”
- Part of the arc of the story includes the difficulties military families face when a deployed parent returns. Dynamics change when one parent has been gone for an extended period of time. In a previous chapter, Joshuwu and Car had problems relating. This shows Car’s truer personality and the trust she has in her son. Her confidence is validated when Joshuwu is successful, and he takes her confidence with him as he faces other challenges.
- Again, although Tres stars in the unwritten, un-outlined sequel, she and her family are only in Joshuwu’s story for a couple of chapters, so their names are not capitalized.
- The last sentence is getting a little run-onny, but you do only get five sentences.

One more:

Chapter Seven: Joshuwu, Trik, and Car fly to Cook Island. Trik and Joshuwu drive to Car’s office where they catch up with her former crew chief, Senior Master Sergeant BERNIE MASTERS. While Trik waits for Car, Bernie takes Joshuwu to “The Boneyard” where the GROUP stores obsolete and unneeded aircraft. Bernie teaches Joshuwu about propeller-driven aircraft and several types of jet engines. They meet Car and Trik for lunch, and Car briefly goes over how a jet engine is similar to a rocket.

This book is actually half-novel, half-textbook. Throughout, Joshuwu learns about things like jet engines, Amelia Earhart, and thermal lift near an east-facing mountain range. One sentence, “Bernie teaches Joshuwu about propeller-driven aircraft and several types of jet engines,” encompasses several pages worth of text. But the agent doesn’t need to know that turbo-jets are so loud they’re only allowed over water, or that the C-130 is one of the most agile airframes in the history of air flight. Condns!

The chapter-by-chapter outline is one way to plot your book before you write it. Pick out three to five plot-significant items for each chapter. It will show you story flow; give you an idea where to add to ensure the plot makes sense. If you’re writing a traditional three-act structure, it will help you time things out so your climax doesn’t come too late or your point of no return too early. You can see the entire book in front of you at once, making it easier to determine if scenes need to be switched around. And, if you update it while you write, your synopsis will be done when your book is.

If you have a synopsis you’d like us to tear apart—I mean, edit—stick it on your blog or the drop.io (code word challenge) and leave a comment indicating you’ve done so.

If you are an expert at the sell—the fifty-word attention grabber or the clever cover sheet—please write an article and send it in to slushpile at thefridaychallenge dot com. Like Bono said, “I come from a long line of salesmen on my mother’s side…” but I ain’t one of them.

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Kersley Fitzgerald is a wanna-be author whose then-six-year-old son thought Joshua was spelled "Joshuwu."