Erin and I hammered out a synopsis for Rosemary and Time! Now we're thinning it out. You can see an early draft of it here
We're thinning out the synopsis because we heard (from my mother) that most publishing houses request, nay, demand, that synopses be five pages long. Ours is eight. Then I have Imogen look over the synopsis and she says that she's jealous at the length I've been able to get away with. In her experience, she can only get away with TWO pages. "Um," I said, "Isn't that what you'd call a precis?"
I'm beginning to think that I should just make the synopsis the best it can be, regardless of length, and submit it to the publishers regardless. I mean, let's say if you come up with a brilliant description of your story, that drags in the editor, forces him to read it through to the very end, and makes him salivate for your work. Is he really going to reject your submission because your synopsis was two pages too long? And if you don't succeed in distilling the essence of your story, so that the synopsis comes out flat or rushed, is it going to matter if the submission meets the word requirements to the letter?
I doubt that I can get my synopsis below five pages. So long as it is not unreasonably long, I doubt that this will be what my submission ends up living or dying on.
So, we're on track. A submission should be going out this Friday. Our first target: Annick Press...