Has it really been a week since I last posted? Wow. I am a huge slacker. Enormous apologies. I’ll try to be better.

What have I been up to? Writing, what else? I suppose that’s a good enough excuse. 😉

Specifically, I’ve been putting together proposals for two different books. I have the chapters finally finished (hooray!), and about ready to go out to the CPs (be on the lookout CPs…your break has passed). Now I’m working on the dreaded suckopses.

Dreaded. Yes. Definitely. I hate them. With a passion. Since I’m a pantster, I generally write my synopses after I write a book. Teaching myself to write it before is a lesson in patience and hair pulling.

The biggest question I have is how long should it be? This is something I always struggle with. It seems everyone has different requirements. Agents want something different from editors. Editors want something different from each other. I’ve heard three pages, five pages, ten pages and, (my personal fav, the one that makes my eyes cross and my heart rate jack up into the triple digits), one synopsis page per 20 manuscript pages.

Holy cow. I could bleed all over the synopsis and still never get twenty pages out.

So I throw myself at the mercy of those who know. Gimme your synopsis writing tips. How long? If you’re a pantster, how close to the synopsis do you expect to be after you write the book? If you’re published and selling on proposal, what does your editor look for in a synopsis?