This is my first serious attempt at a synopsis for this book. I would really appreciate anybody's thoughts on it. Dick, a bric-a-brac dealer and recovering heroin addict meets newcomer Maisie, a teacher, at a recovery meeting. Maisie is there in the hopes that she can avoid relapsing on the heroin she has just scored. Dick, immediately attracted to her and, in a misguided attempt to impress, lies and says he is a private detective. Maisie, who has only been clean for a short while, is confused and desperate having just had her laptop stolen from work and subsequently receiving a blackmail letter. There is a video on the laptop showing her injecting drugs and having adventurous sex. The ransom demand is to re-enact the sex with the blackmailer. Afraid to call the police she resigns herself to complying, and scores some heroin to cope. When Dick tells his absurd lie, which she sees through quite soon, she decides to ask him for help, playing along for now. Together they begin to formulate a plan to identify the blackmailer. Dick calls on a friend in recovery, Gemma, an ex-burglar and computer whiz, to help out. By now Dick and Maisie have become lovers, a state of affairs Dick is both delighted and troubled by. Gemma follows the prime suspect, establishing where he lives. Their plan is simple; break in and retrieve the laptop. However, things become complicated when Gemma discovers copies of the videos on an SD card and the probability he has copies in a cloud account. As she looks at the other files on that card a far greater problem emerges. This man is filming himself raping drugged young women. For Gemma this is a red flag, she is a survivor of abuse herself. Taking care not to leave any traces, she leaves and reports her findings to Dick and Maisie. The game has changed. The original goal to protect Maisie's career and retrieve her laptop is set aside when they agree the priority is bringing the rapist to justice. They consider going to the police and telling all, but they know the evidence they have so far is useless. Illegally obtained and tainted. They plan a second break-in. Gemma makes copies of everything she can find. When they review this material, Maisie recognises some of her students and Gemma discerns a pattern. There is one video of the girls drugged then one or two of them fully conscious, but clearly distressed. It would seem he drugs them, films himself raping them, then blackmails them into having more sex. Gemma goes back in and does three things. She clones the SD card on which the videos appear. On the blackmailer's laptop, which she has hacked, she installs some video editing software and runs a few spoof upscaling attempts of video files identical in size to the ones of Maisie. She substitutes the cloned card for the blackmailers one leaving the original in a slightly different spot. She corrupts the videos of Maisie so they are unwatchable on all the cards, Maisie's laptop, which she has found along with several others, as well as the ones in his DropBox account, which she has also hacked into. The corruption is blameable on the upscaling attempts. All they need now is a compelling reason for the police to get a search warrant. This means getting a victim to make a statement. They approach Suki, who Maisie clearly recognised, who eventually confirms what has been happening to her, but refuses to speak to the police. Maisie, frustrated by this comes dangerously close to relapse again. Suki then has a change of heart and agrees to make a statement. With Suki's testimony and the evidence unearthed by Gemma, they approach Sgt Alice Marshal, a police officer who had been good to Gemma in the past. The stage is set for a raid on the rapists flat. As the police search, it becomes clear to Sgt Marshal that the rapist has somehow got wind of his impending arrest and cleaned house. She fears Suki's testimony alone may not be enough to secure a conviction. Gemma insists they keep looking when Sgt Marshal calls her with the bad news, knowing they will find the most damning piece of evidence of all, the original flash card she had moved, just in case. The card is found, the rapist is arrested and charged. Images of two other men are also found. Sgt Marshal asks if anyone can put names to the faces. Gemma is stunned when she sees the face of her stepfather, the man who repeatedly raped her as a teenager. Gemma gets to testify against, and expose the crimes of, her stepfather. Dick and Maisie are now free to discover the full potential of what has so far been a confusing relationship.
As a synopsis, this is alright. I mean, it's smooth on a technical level and the events unfold in a logical manner. But overall, it just doesn't sound exciting. There is some sort of a crime that gets solved but there are no obstacles whatsoever to bring any tension to the story. Nothing stands in the way of your characters, everything is easy. There is perhaps a relationship story in there, too, as the plot begins with Dick and Maisie meeting and ends with them attempting to stay together or something. But the synopsis doesn't keep track of how their relationship evolves and there are no details on how the events influence those two characters. The plot in the middle runs as if there is nothing at all happening between Dick and Maisie while they are solving the crime mystery. It sounds as if they meet, get a little bit interested in each other, then they get involved in some crime solving, during which their relationship is put on hold. Maybe if this is literary fiction it will work. I don't know what genre you are writing, but as a crime story, this sounds quite weak.
Thanks. There is so much more to this story, especially in respect of the relationships. Finding a way to weave that in and still stay at the 800 word mark is tough.
So you've got a lot of moving parts here overall- which tells me it's probably a rather interwoven novel (a good thing!). Those can be extra challenging to summarize/turn into a synopsis. I agree with the above poster that I want to know a little more about the action and its progression- focus a little more on that to punch up the excitement, but I also think you already have a lot of good things in your synopsis. Where I think you could use some tweaking is the sentence structure itself. In the above paragraph, for example, some of your sentences are difficult to read. They don't lend themselves to a quick read flow. Especially the second one: "Maisie, who has only been clean for a short while, is confused and desperate having just had her laptop stolen from work and subsequently receiving a blackmail letter." There's a little too much jumping back and forth. Recently sober Maisie is desperate for help. Not long the theft of her laptop came the blackmail. Either she re-enacts the sexy scenes the blackmailer found on her laptop, or he will release the videos. Quick and messy- but just an example I think you can cut a lot of the buildup out, and bonus, get some of your word count back for more play.
I found this interesting, more so at the beginning than later on. I wonder if you introduce too many characters. Just a thought. Also the synopsis seems to get a little too technical in places. You need a comma after the word addict [near the beginning]. Also may be better to say "along for the time being."
Would like to see a little less detail and a little more about the plot and ending. https://www.janefriedman.com/how-to-write-a-novel-synopsis/ offers some good tips for a synopsis.
The only bit I had a problem with (besides tweaking some of the wording, as has already been suggested) is the technical detail in this quoted bit: Not being a computer whiz (although I'm not a complete dunce in that department either) I found that difficult to follow—and when I reached the end of the synopsis and discovered that the hidden SD card provided the key to the actual resolution of this investigation, I had to go back and re-read this paragraph again to make sense of what she'd done. Could you maybe condense this paragraph down, focusing on the general effect of what Gemma is trying to do, rather than on all the steps she follows? What does she think she is doing? It seems as if she's wanting to corrupt their stash without making them aware they've been tampered with? I think you should also make her action with the SD card more prominent. The SD card swap got lost in the shuffle over disguising Maisie's face, identical size videos, Drop Box account, other people's stolen laptops, etc. None of those other things matter individually, because the guys cleared out and took all these devices with them. Only the original SD card remains, and that fact needs to stand out. (Not during the story, of course, where you've got more time to put the readers through the whole experience Gemma is having, as well as her thinking behind the setup. But the SD card is central to the resolution of the story, and should be central to the synopsis.) This lengthy blow-by-blow account of her activities in the blackmailer's apartment also raised the question in my mind ...how much time did all of this take, and where was the blackmailer while this was happening? Gemma must not have known exactly what she'd find, and there are quite a few stolen laptops to deal with. Never mind Drop Box accounts to go through, etc. This might have taken hours and hours to do ...so where was the guy? And how did she know he wouldn't come back while she was working on this? Yes, it would also be good to know a little more about how Dick and Maisie's newfound relationship is fitting into this investigation as well. But I think your story sounds interesting, even though it's not the kind of thing I normally read.
Some helpful stuff here, thanks. I will look at this closely. May I ask what specifically led you to assume Gemma tried to disguise Maisie’s face?
Sorry, I think in all the confusion I was experiencing at that point, I misread this : I thought you meant that Gemma corrupted the videos of Maisie so that Maisie was unrecognisable. I misread unwatchable to be unrecognisable. I think 'corrupts' is what confused me, because in my mind, I read 'corrupts' as if Gemma was altering the file in some way, so Maisie would not be recognised.
Is this any clearer? Gemma goes back into the apartment and does four things. She clones the SD card on which the videos appear. On the blackmailer's laptop, which she has hacked, she installs some video editing software and runs a few spoof up-scaling attempts of video files like the ones of Maisie. She corrupts the videos of Maisie so they are unwatchable on both cards, Maisie's laptop, which she has found along with several others, and his Dropbox cloud account, which she has also hacked. The corruption being blameable on the up-scaling attempts. Finally, she substitutes the cloned card for the blackmailers one, leaving the original in a slightly different place.
I have rewritten the para with the sentence you picked up on, does this work better? Dick is immediately attracted to her and, in a misguided attempt to impress, lies and tells her he is a private detective. Maisie, recently clean, is confused and desperate having just had her laptop, on which there is a video of her injecting drugs and having adventurous sex, stolen from work. She has now received a ransom demand, either re-enact the sex with the blackmailer or he will publish the videos. Afraid to call the police and resigned to complying, she has scored some heroin to cope. When Dick tells his absurd lie, which she sees through quite soon, she decides to ask him for help. Playing along, for now, she leaves the heroin untouched. Together they begin to formulate a plan to identify the blackmailer.
One of things this synopsis overlooks are the backstory scenes for the three main characters. These are fairly substantial, though it could be said, not essential to the plot. There are also darker scenes involving the villain. Should I refer to these scenes in a synopsis?
@Francis de Aguilar Not really, at least not for me, because it requires a fair knowledge of computer systems and how they work. I don't know if what I've written below is 'correct' but it would preserve the essence of what the reader must take away from this situation, without snowing a non-tech-savvy reader with 'too much information.' The exact hows and whys of what Gemma did can be made clear in the actual story, of course. But the synopsis should be more succinct, and should focus on the purpose of what she did, rather than the technicalities of how she did it. My biggest concern here is why didn't Gemma just take the uncorrupted SD card with her? It was taking quite a chance just leaving it there, wasn't it? What was her reasoning for this? I'd make the reasoning clear in the synopsis, if I were you, because it's a question that will arise. Without it, the ending of the story just seems too 'lucky' to be totally believable. Oh, there just 'happens' to be an original copy of the card hidden in the apartment, and—wonder of wonders—it got missed by the blackmailer when he cleared the apartment.
If she just took the card it would alert the villain, and, as she suspects he would still have a copy of the videos of Maisie on Dropbox. He would now destroy any corroborating evidence against him and probably send copies of the Maisie tape to her employers and the press. The stolen card would be useles as evidence because of the manner in which it was obtained. What they are concerned with is bringing him to justice, not just foiling his blackmail attempt.
Yes. The above reasoning behind what Gemma does is what needs to be included in your synopsis. In your original—and in the revamped version you're just telling us (in technical detail) what she does. What is pertinent to the story is WHY she is doing these things. What does she want to prevent? What does she want to accomplish? You don't need to tell me the reasons here ...I get it. What you need to do is get these reasons into your synopsis. You shouldn't try to build suspense/intrigue into a synopsis. That's not what a synopsis is for—unlike a query letter or a back cover blurb, where you do want to entice the reader. A synopsis is supposed to let a potential agent/publisher know that your plot is coherent. Reasoning behind what characters do is crucial to any plot, so be careful not to leave these reasons out.
