At the end of the book, I use three of the Synopsis Spotlights from this blog, critiquing them, and then I offer this one of my own. Note that this synopsis uses phrases which denote the tone of the book, to show that the book is not po-facedly serious in voice. This is a knack you should also develop for the pitch part of your covering letter.
This is a direct extract from Write a Great Synopsis, before proofreading:
Synopsis for Wasted*, by Nicola Morgan
I never had to write a synopsis for Wasted, but I'll show you what I might have written. (Warning: major spoiler alert!) Note that this is a non-linear novel, with a non-linear synopsis which omits almost every episode. You never learn the names of any of the characters except Jess, Jack and Spike the cat, though you do learn how they interact. It is just over 600 words long, well within one page of single-spaced type, so well within the guidelines. It took around twenty minutes to write and I’d probably spend another ten minutes perfecting it before sending it out. The reason it was so quick to write is that I already know, imprinted on my soul, the core drivers of the book, and have spent a lot of time working on the twenty-five-word pitch and pitch paragraph. And that’s the key: know your book from the heart. It’s not about the linear outline but about what the story is and how it fits together into a rounded whole. I can’t remember the order of everything that happens in Wasted: I don’t need to. Nor do you. Perhaps that’s the most important lesson in this whole book: you can write the best synopsis when you have forgotten almost everything that happens and in what order. Luckily, as you know by now, I have that good old Crappy Memory Tool.
As I mentioned earlier, I only realised this (the tip about using a bad memory to write a good synopsis, not the fact that I have a bad memory) while writing Write a Great Synopsis, so I blogged about it. You might find it useful.
PPS - and I hope you don't mind my reminding you that last week Wasted won its third award, the Scottish Children's Book Award. Still dancing!]