"Summary vs. Synopsis What is a synopsis vs. a summary? A summary is a short explanation of what your book is about. Think of a summary as your "elevator speech" -- suppose you're at a conference step into an elevator and standing next to you is the well-known editor that you've been thinking of sending your book to. "I see you're a writer," the editor says, reading your name tag. "What have you written lately?" Quick! You have between now and the 18th floor to tell the editor all about your book! That's what a summary is: your sales pitch. The summary is often a part of a query letter or proposal package. A synopsis, which is used when selling novels to editors, is essentially a longer version of a summary, but unlike the sales blurb on the back of a book, the synopsis doesn't leave the reader in suspense. The synopsis tells all. A good synopsis is a running narrative of the book's major events, told in the third person, present tense. A synopsis should capture the flavor of the book, including its tone and language. A summary of a hard-boiled detective story, for example, shouldn't sound like an abbreviated article from the Encyclopedia Britannica. Your synopsis should introduce your main characters, their goals, and the main conflicts of the story. A "who... wants... but... so" format, useful for kids when writing book reports, also applies here. Who are your main characters? What do they want? But... what gets in their way? So... what do they do about it? Some writers find that writing a synopsis is a painful process. How do you condense your entire story down to three or so short pages? That's a problem if you write the synopsis after you've written the story. However, some writers get around this problem by writing the synopsis first, as a kind of an outline, then altering it if the story changes as they write. This allows the writer to see the "bigger picture," the entire novel at once, and is a good composing device, as it helps keep your plot on track as you work." Source and further information: http://www.gkbledsoe.com/articles/submissions/query.html