To fiction writers: Do you have any synopsis advice?

Question

I hate writing them, and they always seem harder than the actual book. (If I could tell the story in 1-2 pages, I would). Do you have a particular site or book that really helped you out, or something you learned from experience?
Anything would be helpful. Thank you.

Edit:
To that I8 person who sounds like a film-school salesman and who strangely posts the same link at the bottom of every response: I'm not a student, I said 1-2 pages (not sentences) and I'm not writing a film. You're in the wrong category.

Answer 1

Yes they are very hard to write. Until I took a Master Course in NY this past summer and got a handle on them. We did an exercise. We started with a 5 page synopsis, then took it down to two pages, then to one. From there we went to five paragraphs, then to two paragraphs then to one paragraph. From there, we went from 5 sentences then to 2 sentences then to 1 sentence. Hardest exercise I ever did. But it really taught me a lot about really pulling the meat out of the story and the theme and making the synopsis very very tight. Try it. It will drive you nuts, but you will be surprised at how much you learn. Pax - C

Answer 2

I think the problem you may be having is you're not being properly taught what a synopsis is and what it can do for you. The reason this happens is most teachers today have never been taught how to tell a story. They've learned a lot about creative writing, but that is not storytelling.

Please note that a synopsis is not one sentence. That would be your controlling idea. You can develop your controlling idea from a synopsis, though. There is a lot of confusion among teachers about what a synopsis is, which adds to the problem for students.

I highly, highly, recommend you get the book "Story" by Robert McKee. It's used to train storytellers at the top film schools. In it he describes how to create a synopsis and what it can do for your writing.

If a story can't work when someone reads a synopsis in ten minutes, it's not going to work when you put it into a book where they read it in days or weeks. Your synopsis should hook, hold, and move the reader. It should be just an emotional experience as reading the novel.

To do this, you will need to know your progressions, climax, turning points, inciting incident, essentially everything about your story. It should be very difficult to write because you essentially have to figure out your story before you write it.

E-mail me if you have any questions.