I've written a book which switches between two narratives in alternating chapters: the present and an event from the past. The past event ultimately turns out the be the reason behind all the drama in the present narrative. How can I go about showing this in the sypnopsis. Should I follow the exact sequence of the novel (i.e. alternating)? Or should I condense the whole 'past' down into the frist half of the synopsis and follow it with a condensed version of the 'present'? I'm worried about how I can smoothly change between each in the synopsis without a lot of 'Meanwhile, back in the past...' type sentences. Can anyone point me in the direction of any synopses done like this? I'm wondering what a synopsis would have looked like for William Boyd's Brazzaville Beach, for example.
to give the agents/publishers an idea of what reading the book will be like, you really need to follow the ms as it's written... doing otherwise won't work, imo...
I would say explain upfront the dual timeline of the narrative and mention the alternating chapters. Once you have established this you can summarize the two different stories seperately and link them together in the last few paragraphs. The last thing you want to do is confuse the publisher.
