What is the difference between a Synopsis and a....

"Informative description"?

I tried to google the term but came up with "Informative Summary" which was: "aims to summarise the key points of the material"

If that's the case, what makes it different from a synopsis and why might an agent require both?

 

agents of one literary agency i'm interested in want both

I kind of want to email to ask for clarification... but I dont want to burn my chances by showing them that i have no idea what i'm doing....

 

@deadrats have you come across this before?

 

Perhaps "informative summary" is agent-speak for "blurb"?

 

So, when I was agent hunting maybe 10-15 years ago it was for a narrative nonfiction book. I believe my synopsis was about 4 or 5 pages. I do remember also needing a summary of some kind, but I can't remember exactly what it was called.

My summary fit on one page. I took the opportunity to demonstrate why my story was important now and tried to write it in an engaging style very much like the rest of the book. I took the narrative approach with it instead of just recapping the story or condensing the synopsis. This is another hurdle. The goal or the query is to get them to read the summary. The goal of the summary is to get them to read the synopsis. The goal of the synopsis is to get them to read the book. I think it helps to think of it like that. It's another opportunity to show off your writing skills.

With me, I thought my summary was so good I decided to make it my query letter. Then I wrote another summary. My final summary ended up being one or two paragraphs. I wrote a really short scene that I felt captured the story I was writing. I'm not sure that's the way to do it, but I did get agent offers.

I don't think there is really a wrong way to do it, and I believe it can only help to get a little creative with it. You don't want your query, summary, and synopsis to all be saying the same thing. And, really, keep in mind that the goal of all these is to get them excited to read your book.

 

Ah. So far, I have a query letter with a brief paragraph blurb (the entire letter is 270 words), and a synopsis that I've worked down to 2 pages (1300 words).


if the agent requires " informative description, a brief synopsis and the first ten pages", does that mean in addition to a query letter, or the QL with the blurb counts as an "informative description" (as what @SapereAude suggested)?

 

A summary is just that, it sums up the gist of the story.

So-and-so had this happen, and to recover honor had to recruit Thing 1 and Thing 2 to go on an epic quest to set things right.

the synopsis often has more to do with theme.

So-and-so goes on this epic quest to recover his lost honor, but realizes... along the way, making him a more honorable person than he was before.

 

I would guess, given that they intuitively mean the same thing, the differentiation is to do with purpose. Synopsis is for editor/publisher, the other for marketing/cover blurb or somesuch.

 

I'm no expert, but to me, the distinctions are:

A synopsis is a digest of the plot, like the synopses you see on the International Movie Data Base's movie list. It summarizes the story in a more or less compact form. This happens, and then that happens, and so on.

An "informational description" would be a one that tells the length of the book, its setting (Ancient Rome? Alpha Centauri?), and a brief plot description, like the one you'd see on the blurb or back cover. It's something the publishers would like to know before they commit to learning more about the book, specifically the kind of things that a reader might want to know, and therefore might want to buy.

It might also help if the "informational description" explains why this book differs from other books with similar settings and plots, to reassure the publisher that it isn't some retread of another book.