A synopsis tells an agent the entire story, including the ending, in plain factual prose. It is not a blurb, it is not a teaser, and withholding the ending is the single most common way to get it wrong.
One page is the most commonly requested length, but it is not a rule. Agencies specify anywhere from 250 words to 1,500.
Every Agency That Explains It Says the Same Thing
This is unusually consistent, and it is the most reliably sourced claim about synopses:
- Blake Friedmann asks for "the full story in brief, including the ending".
- Madeleine Milburn: "The synopsis should 'tell the story,' with spoilers, rather than 'sell' the story".
- LBA wants one that "tells the reader the entire plot of your book, with spoilers!"
- Watson Little: "This should outline the plot or structure of your novel from beginning to end, including spoilers."
- Chicken House asks for a "factual explanation of the events in your book" covering "all the major events, including the ending", and adds: "no cliff-hangers, please".
- Felicity Bryan wants a "factual summary of the story", explicitly not a chapter-by-chapter breakdown.
The instinct to preserve the twist is understandable and wrong. An agent is not reading for pleasure; they are checking whether the plot holds together, whether the ending is earned, and whether the book does what the genre requires. A synopsis that hides the ending withholds exactly the information being looked for.
A.M. Heath adds the other half of the job, which is what to leave out: "we don't need (or really want) to know every twist and turn".
The Length Is Not One Page
"One page" is the plurality answer, not the universal one:
| Length | Agencies asking for it |
|---|---|
| 250 to 300 words | Blake Friedmann |
| 500 to 800 words | Graham Maw Christie |
| One page | Darley Anderson, Janklow & Nesbit UK, Andrew Nurnberg, Madeleine Milburn, Hardman & Swainson, Felicity Bryan |
| One to two pages | Greene & Heaton, LBA, David Higham |
| Up to 1,500 words | A.M. Heath, which calls it a "Summary" |
Blake Friedmann's 250 to 300 words is about half a page. A.M. Heath's 1,500 words is about three. So write it once at roughly a page, then keep a compressed version near 300 words, and you can serve almost every request.
Note also that most US agencies do not ask for a synopsis at all, which is covered in what goes in a submission package.
The Present Tense Rule Is Folklore
You will be told, everywhere and confidently, to write your synopsis in present tense.
Not one of the 30 agencies checked specifies a tense. That silence is meaningful rather than merely accidental: these same pages specify word counts, spoiler requirements, file formats, what to leave out, and whether to attach or paste. Several are extremely detailed. None mentions tense.
Present tense is a sensible convention and most synopses are written that way. Just know that it is a convention rather than a requirement, and that no agent is going to reject you over it.
The same caution applies to the other rules that circulate: capitalising character names on first appearance, a fixed paragraph structure, and a ban on naming more than three characters. None of these appears in any agency's stated guidance.
Writing One
Since the sourced requirements are thin, this is craft advice rather than rules:
Start with the protagonist, their situation and what disrupts it. The reader needs to know whose story this is within a sentence or two.
Follow the causal spine. A synopsis is not a list of events but a chain of them: this happens, so this happens, so this happens. If your synopsis reads as "and then, and then", the plot may be episodic rather than causal, which is worth knowing before an agent tells you.
Include the ending, plainly. Say what happens, who survives, what changes.
Name few characters. Not because of a rule, but because a page cannot hold many names and stay readable.
Cut subplots ruthlessly. A.M. Heath's "every twist and turn" warning is the guide here. A subplot goes in only if the main plot makes no sense without it.
Write it flat. Voice belongs in the sample. A synopsis trying to be atmospheric usually loses clarity and gains nothing.
A useful test: give it to someone who has not read the book and ask them to tell you what happens and how it ends. If they cannot, the synopsis is not doing its job, however well written it reads.
What Deckle Does
Deckle has a synopsis field on every document, which is a different thing from the submission synopsis but useful for building one. Each chapter or scene carries its own short summary, visible in the Outliner and on the corkboard.
The practical route: write a one-line synopsis per chapter as you go, then read them in sequence in the Outliner. That gives you the causal spine of the book in order, which is most of the drafting work for a submission synopsis, and it exposes the "and then, and then" problem while you can still fix it in the manuscript.
The submission synopsis itself is a separate document. Write it outside the Draft folder, or in a folder excluded from compile, so it never exports with the manuscript.
For the rest of the package, see what goes in a submission package and how to write a query letter.
Common Mistakes
- Withholding the ending. Every agency that explains the synopsis asks for it explicitly.
- Writing a blurb instead. Milburn's distinction: tell the story, do not sell it.
- Including every subplot. A.M. Heath does not want every twist and turn.
- Assuming one page is a rule. Requests range from 250 to 1,500 words.
- Worrying about tense. No agency specifies one.
- Naming a dozen characters. A page cannot carry them.
FAQ
Q: Should the synopsis include the ending? A: Yes, explicitly and always. This is the most consistently stated requirement across agencies.
Q: How long should it be? A: One page is most common, but agencies ask for anything from 250 to 1,500 words. Check each.
Q: Present tense or past? A: No agency specifies. Present is conventional and entirely safe.
Q: Do I need one at all? A: In the UK, usually. Most US agencies ask only for a query and a page sample.
Q: Should it be chapter by chapter? A: No. Felicity Bryan explicitly asks for a factual summary rather than a chapter breakdown.