Why Write a Synopsis

There are good reasons to summarize your novel.

Yes, an agent or an editor really expects you, in your book proposal, to compress your novel, no matter its length, to only three pages.

Impossible? Welcome to the world of professional novelists.

A clients whose middle-grade novel I’d edited asked me to check her proposal before she sent it to an agent. All was going well until I … Continue reading

Has Your Time Arrived?

There’s good news for discouraged novelists.

When I worked as an agent, publishers kept repeating the same bad news for one client, who’d just written her first novel. While they liked her story and style, they turned down her book because it just didn’t fit their boxes.

Some said they did publish historicals, but only stories that fit their familiar, sales-proven categories. Others were more specific: They … Continue reading