How-to: Synopsis...

My book is done and I want to send it off to the Debut Dagger Award...easy?

I thought so, but no!

You need to send:
1) The first 3000 words of your book (done)

BUT...

2) A synopsis... what the hell is that?

I did research on Google (of course) because I wanted examples and here are some awesome websites that I found...

Synopsis site 1

Synopsis site 2

Basically, what I learned was this...a synopsis is an interesting summary of the story where you actually give away the ending...

According to the book "Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel" by Ephron (which I think is a must-have for all mystery writers) you need this:

1. to write in present tense
2. summarize your main characters
3. tell the setting and context
4. tell and not show
5. summarize plot, hitting the major plot twists
6. communicate your protagonist's motivation and key challenges
7. don't try to explain every character and plot point

How long should your synopsis be? About 4 double spaced pages...depending on the size of your book. One website said, one page synopsis for every 25 manuscript pages.