The synopsis of a book is likened to the silverware at the end of the dirty dishes. A tedious job that you know you must do, or you can't eat. Well you can, but it's gonna be messy.

When all is said and done and you have written "your masterpiece" you will need to condense the contents. A good synopsis should be somewhere between 5 and 12 pages. The less said the better. In a previous Hub (Recipe for writing Romance...) I breifly touched on why agents and publishers do not have the time to read your entire novel. It's got to be down right spectacular for an agent to read your entire novel, novella, "62" page article, etc, on whatever the writer feels is paramount to the entertainment of a given reader. We all have different interests and focus' of what's of interst to us.

The synopsis should tell the agent/publisher what your book is about (including the ending) in as little word count as can tell the story and still be interesting.

A Synopsis is the agent's/publishers selling point. They are selling your work for you and they don't have time to la-dee-da about the content. It's a western about, thus and such, it's a charming, funny,romantic novel of the struggles of thus and such.

It has to "smell" like money to a publisher/agent. You are a residual stream of income to this group of people. If you can prove, in your synopsis, that you can make them continued dollars, then you are golden...if not, it's off to the slush pile for you, or worse, the rejection pile.

The synopsis will usually take you longer to figure out how to write than your entire novel, (lol, not really, but you get the picture...not an easy task).

Most pros will admit that they still have trouble writing their synopsis' and that it is their least favorite part of the writing process. I am far from being considered a pro and am not published (at this writing), so apparently I don't have the secret recipe down pat yet. I have had to take synopsis writing classes and have had plenty of truely great mentors to help me through this process and still...nothing.

I've been told that rejection builds character. Well if that's true than you could say that I'm quite a charachter . Sometimes the agent/publisher is just not buying that particular saga, storyline, etc and you have got to move on to the next project and come back to your "Baby" later when the market turns in your favor.

My first synopsis took me weeks and weeks to write. I kept it getting tossed back at me..."close but no cigar". Finally, I got an e-publisher to request my first 3 chapters! Must be getting closer!? That was greater than six months ago. Must be in the slush pile because I haven't received a rejection letter as yet.

I will include my synopsis for my 100,000 word historical romance suspense thriller, Seacrets.

If you think that it's interesting drop me a line. I will, however, NOT include the ending as I plan to self-publish within a year, if I am not picked up by anyone.

Synopsis: Seacrets

Maura McCoveny can barely breathe whenever she is too close to Captain Daniel Hargendon, master and commander of the Irish-American trade carrier, Arabella.

Maura is disguised as a cabin boy after her father, Richard, con’s his old shipmate Albert Godsey to sneak the girl on board the Arabella, bound for the colonies.

King George III obsession to wed all Irish lasses to only men of English nobility, thereby ensuring that Ireland will remain under the thumb of the crown, is weighing heavily on Richard’s mind. He is dying from consumption, a slow and painful death. Richard’s desire for Maura to live a life free from British oppression outweighs his fear of sending her alone to a foreign land. So he risks her dowry, her maidenhood…her life, to get her to America.

Maura and Daniel are getting closer by the day. So close, in fact, that Daniel begins to think himself a buggerer of boys and is increasingly disturbed by these feelings. He is not the only male to notice peculiarities about Maura’s faux maleness.

James Kilern, the ship’s quartermaster, keeps a close watch on Maura and eventually discovers that his intuitions that this cabin boy is really a female are correct. James Kilern is evil and corrupt and thinks only of his own gain and how to best utilize this new found treasure.

He has plans for Maura, in that her virginity will fetch a high price, indeed. So he endeavors to bargain with her, under heavy threat to her personal well being, to keep her secret from Daniel…for the time being. But that does not stop him from violating Maura on a smaller scale to relieve himself of his animal-like desires for female flesh.

Maura, fearing the worse of two evils, decides to keep quiet about Kilern’s assault of her in hopes of making it to America and finding some way to escape the fate that her father had tried so desperately to spare her.

Maura’s greater fear is that she and Godsey will be flogged for their crimes and then thrown overboard to their deaths.

Daniel prays daily that his thoughts of a lustful nature about his cabin boy will pass. He is sure that he is not sexually attracted to males. All he has to do is think of his betrothed, Mallory Gilmore, and his trousers gain a characteristic snugness known only to a licentious rogue.

Still he is confused as to why his breathing instantly becomes labored and his immoral compass gravitates toward Maura each time he is too close to her.

That secret is revealed to Daniel on the morning after one of the bloodiest battles the Arabella has seen in recent times. A rogue pirate ship attacks the Arabella in hopes of relieving Daniel of his cargo. They could not have under estimated the Arabella’s crew more.

Maura is lulled into a false sense of security that Daniel is much too busy assessing the damages to his ship to interrupt her assessing the damages of her disguise. She is dead wrong. So busy is she hurrying to rewrap her breast bindings that she fails to hear him enter the cabin. The ear shattering slam of the portal door affirms to her that she has been caught.

Once Daniel is able to move past feelings of insurmountable anger at being duped into hiring this young waif of Ireland, he is equally as relieved to know of Maura’s gender. Now he is able to listen to her and Godsey’s reasoning for sneaking her aboard. However, regardless of how well founded their reasoning, there is a known superstition among the seafaring that a curse will befall a ship if a female sails among the men. During the battle that had ensued, some were lost that were friends of the survivors. They would surely blame Maura…and Godsey for bringing upon them this blight. Daniel tells himself that this is the reason that he will keep their secret, but it will be more for his own gain, his own base needs.

From this moment forward, Maura and Daniel could feel the tides of emotion change between them as the sexual tension begins to mount and eventually cascade to the inevitable.

Despite close quarters and a watchful eye, Maura is kidnapped by the quarter master, Kilern, the day the ship docks on the shores of the Shawmut Peninsula. She is held against her will for many months, suffering abuses that she’d rather forget. Her will is strong and she never loses hope that she will escape her vile captors and find her way back to Daniel.

After a daring and dangerous escape on the night before Daniel is to wed another, their jubilance at finally finding one another again is halted in a most dramatic way. Maura is shot in the back before she could explain to Daniel what has happened to her over the past months, only to recover not remembering any of the prior circumstances leading up to her shooting.

Kilern remembers very well, the state of affairs and enlists the aide of Daniel’s jilted betrothed to help him regain his lost treasure. Mallory agrees to help for no other reason than to avenge her stinging pride for having been dumped at the altar by Daniel Hargendon. She vows to make him pay with a vengeance that he will soon not forget.

Kilern plans to make Maura pay severely for thwarting his plans to become rich off of her back and retire from sailing for good. Maura’s fighting Irish spirit takes hold and will not allow Kilern to assault her time and again. She murders him in a most hideous and bloody fashion that even she can not believe she is capable...