the mini-synopsis of your query

 

 

 

There are many parts to a query letter: the opening, the hook, the mini-synopsis, biographical information, and closing.

 

I’m going to say a few things about the mini-synopsis here. This is not the hook. The hook is something completely different and not discussed here.  Mini-synopsis is really a misnomer. If you think about it as a synopsis, you will probably get it wrong and also drive yourself crazy. You get around 3 short paragraphs, more or less, to elaborate from your hook on what happens in your fabulous manuscript. The ideal length is loosely from 100 words to 250 words. Anything longer is probably pushing it. Anything smaller is probably not enough.

 

It is really not a synopsis.  It is not an outline – god forbid. And it’s not a summary. If you think you have to include all the important people and events in your manuscript you are off to a bad start. What it is, is an advertisement. Its sole raison d’etre is to get the agent or editor you are querying to read you manuscript. And to get them to want to read your manuscript. And to get them to really, really want to read your manuscript.

 

You have to include some info on your main character. Do you have to include all the main plot points? – nope! Do you have to include all the other main characters? – nope! Do you have to include backstory? – definitely nope! Do you have to include the ending? – nope! You get the idea. Everything else is optional. After writing a whole book and hopefully a synopsis (you will be asked for it) it is kind of hard to change gears to marketing from creating a whole world. And of course, you know everything about your manuscript and the people and the place(s). Why it all happens. And you want to tell some agent or editor all about it. Don’t. Not here. And of course, it would be an impossible task to do that in 150 words, more or less. This is why it drives authors crazy.

 

So how do you approach your “mini-synopsis”? Well, you can look at how is should be done. If you look up books in online bookstores or in library listings, they have what is called a blurb. A few paragraphs which are an advertisement for the book. The blurb is basically the same as mini-synopsis, or what the mini-synopsis of your query should be. And if you look at a lot of them, you can detect a pattern.

 

They are usually 3 or 4 paragraphs, give or take a paragraph or two. The first one introduces the main character or sometimes the setting. It gives a brief but specific description. By specific I mean the description has pertinent information, it’s not random. Whatever way you describe you MC it must go to the heart of what they are as that pertains directly to this story.

 

The next paragraph is the inciting incident paragraph. You put out there what it is that happened to start the whole hullabaloo.

 

The 3^rd and sometimes 4^th paragraphs elaborate on the situation and present the possibilities of what could happen, or what the challenge is. 

 

As to the events of the plot, neat details, other characters  - here is a place where less is more. Remember it's not really a synopsis; it's an advertisement.

 

The language used is also of a certain type. For most writing, the writing police will fine you if you use adjectives and adverbs or a lot of adjectives and adverbs. But in a mini-synopsis they are rampant. Use at least one for every noun or verb and as many as three.

 

There are also types of phrases that are used. Like:

 

Receives an urgent something

While working to solve something

While something

Stunned to discover something

Someone joins forces with Someone

Was involved with someone or something

Someone learns Something

Match wits with someone

Decipher something

Anticipate something

With only something

Sets out to find something

Accompanied by someone

As their Adventure unfolds

unites someones

something reveals something

someone sees something

Now everything's changed

When something

discover that something

And then someone sees

 

One thing to remember, and this is important, is that the mini-synopsis should be written in the same style as your manuscript. Often writers write the mini-synopsis in a stiff style that is like an academic lecture on their manuscript. Not good. You are not writing about your manuscript; you are writing an extension of your manuscript. You are presenting a taste of your manuscript. It is like an amuse bouche. A provocative taste of what's to come.

 

Here are a few professional blurbs that pull all those elements together:

 

The excellent blurb for The Da Vinci Code:

 

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci — clues visible for all to see — yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion — an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others.

In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who seems to anticipate their every move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's ancient secret — and an explosive historical truth — will be lost forever.

 

 

Here's one for a book that's a favorite of mine, The Trials of Morrigan Crow:

 

Morrigan Crow is cursed. Having been born on Eventide, the unluckiest day for any child to be born, she's blamed for all local misfortunes, from hailstorms to heart attacks--and, worst of all, the curse means that Morrigan is doomed to die at midnight on her eleventh birthday.

But as Morrigan awaits her fate, a strange and remarkable man named Jupiter North appears. Chased by black-smoke hounds and shadowy hunters on horseback, he whisks her away into the safety of a secret, magical city called Nevermoor.

It's then that Morrigan discovers Jupiter has chosen her to contend for a place in the city's most prestigious organization: the Wundrous Society. In order to join, she must compete in four difficult and dangerous trials against hundreds of other children, each with an extraordinary talent that sets them apart--an extraordinary talent that Morrigan insists she does not have. To stay in the safety of Nevermoor for good, Morrigan will need to find a way to pass the tests--or she'll have to leave the city to confront her deadly fate.

 

 

And The Mystery of Black Hollow Lane:

With a dad who disappeared years ago and a mother who's a bit too busy to parent, Emmy is shipped off to Wellsworth, a prestigious boarding school in England, where she's sure she won't fit in.

But then she finds a box of mysterious medallions in the attic of her home with a note reading: These belonged to your father.

When she arrives at school, she finds the strange symbols from the medallions etched into walls and books, which leads Emmy and her new friends, Jack and Lola, to Wellsworth's secret society: The Order of Black Hollow Lane.

Emmy can't help but think that the society had something to do with her dad's disappearance, and that there may be more than just dark secrets in the halls of Wellsworth...

 

Look up online the blurbs for books of the same type/genre and style as your manuscript and check out what they are like and how they are put together. Use them as your guide on what to put into your mini-synopsis. Not every blurb follows the template set down here or in the exact order, and styles will vary. But I bet you will see they all cover about the same territory in about the same length.