Publishing
A synopsis needs the ending
A synopsis reveals how the story develops and ends, with enough cause and consequence to make the shape intelligible.
Read before preparing
Submission requirements vary between agencies, publishers, individual agents and kinds of book. Read the current official page before adapting your materials. A remembered rule about three chapters or a synopsis is not a reliable substitute. Even within an organisation, individual interests or instructions may differ.
Separate eligibility from packaging. First confirm that the recipient is considering your kind of work and is open to the relevant submissions. Then note what they request: sample extent, synopsis length, covering information, file type and delivery method. Preparing a perfect attachment does not help if it is the wrong category of submission.
Save the page address and the date you checked it in your submission record. This gives you a reference if instructions change later. Use the official source rather than a copied list on a discussion forum, particularly for contact details and submission portals.
Turn the instructions into a short checklist
Translate each requirement into something you can verify. “Opening sample” might mean a stated number of chapters or pages; “proposal” may include several distinct elements. If alternatives are offered, choose one rather than sending every possible item. Extra material can make the requested material harder to identify.
For example, David Higham Associates distinguishes adult-fiction submissions from nonfiction proposals and directs writers to relevant agent information. The lesson is to identify the applicable path on the page. Do not transfer requirements from one category merely because they are easier to satisfy.
Check whether material should be pasted into a form or attached. Preserve the requested order and naming conventions where specified. If a field has a limit, write for that space instead of relying on the system to truncate your text. Review the result after pasting; paragraph breaks and punctuation can change between applications.
Inspect what will actually arrive
Open every final attachment. Confirm that the file contains the intended version, begins and ends at the correct points, and does not contain internal notes or unresolved tracked changes that were never meant for the recipient. Check the query's title and word count against the manuscript.
Read the recipient's name, email address or portal destination independently from the body of the query. These details are easily overlooked when adapting a previous submission. A useful final check is to look at the package as a stranger would: can they identify the book, find the requested material and contact you?
If instructions are genuinely unclear, use a published enquiry route if one is provided. Avoid guessing based on another organisation's rules. Once sent, record what you submitted and any stated response policy. That record will guide a later follow-up more reliably than memory or repeated checking of the same webpage.
