Synopsizing the weird

[eveningstar]

Hopefully this is a good place for this question/topic.

I'm in the final editing stages of my first properly finished novel. There are a few novel-ish creatures that are not spoken of that predate it, but this is my first time stepping out onto the road to potential publication, clutching my weird little manuscript.

I've found buckets of useful advice here and elsewhere. My manuscript has gone through a handful of reliable, intelligent beta readers and I am working on some minor changes based on their feedback now. I have a few query drafts and a growing list of potential agents.

And the "synopsis" word scares the heck out of me.

I don't know how to approach synopsizing something that's a) non-linear, b) in three overlapping time lines, and c) formatted into 50 interconnected vignettes. And did I mention that about a third of them are in second person? Yeah.

I guess my main question is: is it acceptable to have a non-traditional synopsis for a non-traditional novel? Or should I put aside the way the novel is presented and just summarize the entire story, linearly?

Advice or suggestions welcome and appreciated.

 

[Shweta]

I have no idea whether a non-traditional synopsis is okay, but the story structure sounds fascinating!

 

[indiriverflow]

I'll be frank-this is the dilemma that forced me to abandon my precious love of experimental structure and focus on a book which is at least easy to explain. I can't say I'm finding it any easier.

Here we come up against the cross-purposes of author and the publishing industry. The experimental author has all sorts of aesthetic and literary goals. A book buyer, be it agent or editor, is after one quality alone: marketability.

That means that they aren't necessarily stretching their lit-major minds to wrap around the brilliant devices a manuscript may employ. Rather, they are looking to exclude books which lack widespread appeal, much as an average reader does.

Buying books is a reductive process. You start with the cover summary and title. If these grab you, you'll check out the first few pages. The first time something is more confusing than intriguing, you'll set it down.

Structure, no matter how elegant, is difficult to package into a selling point. The average reader doesn't understand or think about that sort of thing when buying a book. So if your synopsis is making reference to structure more than plot and character, you're giving the query reader reasons to slush the idea.

That said, your synopsis should present the core story as simply as possible, even if intricacies will tend to be lost. They'll see what you've done with POV and time when they read the manuscript. If it works, they'll know what you are doing. (This last piece of advice came directly from Nathan Bransford here on this forum, when I asked him a similar question.)

The purpose of the synopsis is to get a reading. Exclude any information which may not advance that goal.

Best wishes.

 

[eveningstar]

I have no idea whether a non-traditional synopsis is okay, but the story structure sounds fascinating!

Thank you, Shweta! It does seem to work well, structure-wise, at least according to people who've read it so far.

That said, your synopsis should present the core story as simply as possible, even if intricacies will tend to be lost. They'll see what you've done with POV and time when they read the manuscript. If it works, they'll know what you are doing. (This last piece of advice came directly from Nathan Bransford here on this forum, when I asked him a similar question.)

The purpose of the synopsis is to get a reading. Exclude any information which may not advance that goal.

Thank you, indiriverflow, for your entire response and especially this bit. I think I'm going to try to keep it as basic and tightly written as I can and let the manuscript formatting speak for itself. The subject matter is not as experimental as the formatting, and probably does have a decent amount of marketability, so I'll try to keep my focus on that.

 

[Dawnstorm]

I'd be a bit worried about giving a wrong impression. Any book I read has "something special", but - considering my reading taste - it's often not the story. Clearly, a synopsis focuses on story, though. The advice seems sound for books where the story justifies the structure/technique. But there are books out there where the structure/technique justifies the story.

I'd include Martin Amis' Times Arrow, in there. The heart of the book is the backwards narration. The thematic heart of the book is a vicious joke. (I still think the book should have been short story. 20 pages would have been enough.)

You cannot justify David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas as a novel through a synopsis alone. It's a collection of novellas (though maybe interrelated) at best, from a plot-point-of-view. What makes this one a novel is structure and over-reaching theme. (The book manages to be naively hopeful and utterly cynical at the same time. But that's the result of the utterly clever arrangement.)

And I'm tickled pink by the idea of a synopsis for Waiting for Godot. "Act one: Two guys are waiting for someone who won't come. Act two: They do it again."

I'd still probably do a a linear synopsis, and then have a paragraph (about as long, probably, as the synopsis for one time-line) about structure. It is important. I do think that agents should know what they're getting before they're getting it.

I think it's more important to find the right target audience than to try for a wide appeal that you might not deliver. The question you need to ask yourself is this: do you want an agent who's used to sell experimental fiction or an agent who's used to sell your subject matter? Once you have your answer, you have your accents, too.

But then I'm talking with no experience at all. And I'm talking from the perpective of someonw who almost never reads books on the strength of a synopsis.

 

[Ruv Draba]

I don't know how to approach synopsizing something that's a) non-linear, b) in three overlapping time lines, and c) formatted into 50 interconnected vignettes. And did I mention that about a third of them are in second person? Yeah.

I guess my main question is: is it acceptable to have a non-traditional synopsis for a non-traditional novel? Or should I put aside the way the novel is presented and just summarize the entire story, linearly?

Assuming that it's a dramatic novel -- i.e. there are scenes and through-lines and each response is caused by a stimulus then I'd suggest that you begin by synopsising each scene in logical order (i.e. stimulus before response), and where you have concurrent threads, arrange them for suspense. That way a reader can understand how the characters interact and change, and the plot will be evident too.

Once you have that, you might try rearranging your synopsis in order of presentation, marked with times. Submit both to your beta readers and see which better captures the story. If your rearrangements are for dramatic effect (e.g. suspense) then it may be the second one. If they're for aesthetics of imagery or voice contrast say, then it may be the first -- a synopsis doesn't care about imagery or voice and that's not why people read them. (Your synopsising might suggest improved arrangements too.)

If your scenes are logically disconnected (e.g. it's more of an anthology of vignettes or shorts than a single coherent story) then you might do the same sort of thing: synopsise each story in order that the reader encounters them, and then perhaps do a second synopsis showing arrangement with each story labelled.

Hope that helps.

 

[eveningstar]

I'd still probably do a a linear synopsis, and then have a paragraph (about as long, probably, as the synopsis for one time-line) about structure. It is important. I do think that agents should know what they're getting before they're getting it.

I think it's more important to find the right target audience than to try for a wide appeal that you might not deliver. The question you need to ask yourself is this: do you want an agent who's used to sell experimental fiction or an agent who's used to sell your subject matter? Once you have your answer, you have your accents, too.

Thank you, Dawnstorm. I agree with you about agents knowing what they're getting, I'm working a short paragraph about the structure into my query letter. I definitely don't want to present it as anything other than what it is, even if what it is can be difficult to describe.

And I've been mostly targeting agents by subject matter. While the structure is experimental the story itself is quasi-steampunk low fantasy. Really, in describing the structure it probably sounds more experimental than it reads.

Assuming that it's a dramatic novel -- i.e. there are scenes and through-lines and each response is caused by a stimulus then I'd suggest that you begin by synopsising each scene in logical order (i.e. stimulus before response), and where you have concurrent threads, arrange them for suspense. That way a reader can understand how the characters interact and change, and the plot will be evident too.

Once you have that, you might try rearranging your synopsis in order of presentation, marked with times. Submit both to your beta readers and see which better captures the story. If your rearrangements are for dramatic effect (e.g. suspense) then it may be the second one. If they're for aesthetics of imagery or voice contrast say, then it may be the first -- a synopsis doesn't care about imagery or voice and that's not why people read them. (Your synopsising might suggest improved arrangements too.)

Thank you, Ruv Draba, that helps a great deal. The rearrangement is based partially on creating suspense, and there is a single coherent (if somewhat sprawling) story in several parts. I'll try a few different versions and run them by my betas.