Synopsis
Methods & processA complete plot summary — ending included — meant for editors and agents: a working document, not a literary text.
Example
"Lea, 34, an art restorer, discovers beneath a varnish…" — and three pages later, the ending is told.
The synopsis summarizes a manuscript's entire plot, ending included: that's its cardinal difference from back-cover copy, which teases without revealing. Aimed at editors and agents, it lets them judge in a few pages whether the story holds — structure, protagonist's arc, the logic of the turns.
Usual conventions: present tense, one to three pages unless specified otherwise, focus on the main line (subplots appear only if they bend the ending). The classic error is styling it: a synopsis isn't a literary text but a building plan — clarity, causality, completeness. Many authors also write one for themselves, as a soundness test before or after the first draft.
Timeline and snowflake method
Write your synopsis from your own story
Put each plotline on its own line and each event at its date on the timeline, then grow your one-sentence summary into a one-page synopsis with the snowflake method. If you want it, the AI can also draw a pitch and a back-cover blurb from the manuscript.
Free to write and to export. No credit card asked.
Go further
Writing a synopsis: the complete guidePut this term to work
The writing studio novelists were missing
Outline, characters, places and objects, the links between them, mind map, scene board, export: everything lives in one place. Plus an AI that knows your story, whenever you want one.
Free to write and to export. No credit card asked.