Let me disagree….

The build is durable and cannot be changed flat if a new cog is transformers the movie….

The easiest time to get an agent is when you’ve just gotten an offer on a book or gig. The editor or producer phones you and says, “I want your work!”

From a writer’s aspect, the following will apply:-

“Wow! Gosh! Gee Whiz!” you say coherently. Then you thank the editor, make sure you have their correct phone number, and tell them you’ll get right back to them. Call the agent who’s your first choice. Politely explain that you’ve just gotten an offer, and would they be interested in having you as a client? If they say they’re not interested, call your second choice. It’s hard to imagine your having to call a third choice. You’re offering them a commission on a book you sold.

It’s harder if you haven’t sold a book. Selling short stories helps. Having a really good novel in hand also helps.

(If you’ve never sold anything, and one of the top agents in the genre not only takes you on as a client, but gives you his Saturday-night dinner timeslot at the next Worldcon, please believe that he’s taking your prospects very seriously indeed. You know who you are.)

Least appreciated fact about agents: There are very few real ones. Of the gormless, the not very helpful, and the confirmed scammers, there are a great many.

In the UK, you normally send first three chapters plus synopsis with a query, but you still put a hook in your cover letter. Maybe it’s less important for it to tick all those Miss Snark boxes (introduce protagonist, introduce antagonist, etc) because you have your full synopsis enclosed. I don’t know, though. It’s still likely to be the first thing that gets read, so I suppose you want it to be as intriguing as possible.

I don’t really know the answer to your question, but I hope that helps.

Good luck!

The synopsis is the story, but told in a highly condensed nuts&bolts way. It’s what you use to attract an agent or publisher, and its purpose is to show them you have a complete story. A synopsis doesn’t need to include every twist and thread, but it should demonstrate that your story has a middle and an end (the sample chapters will show the beginning), and enough interest to keep someone reading. In that respect, you have to tell them how it ends. Don’t try teasing them with a ‘You’ll never believe how this ends!!!’ type of synopsis because the strong possibility is that they’ll just chuck it back at you. They need to know it’s something they can confidently sell and, if they’re going to invest time in reading your full ms, they want to know in advance that it has a plausible and satisfactory ending.

The hook is really, in the smallest possible space, what your book is actually about, and what makes it different from other books in the same genre. The synopsis is how the novel delivers that hook and gives a more in depth view of what the book is about.

There is frequent discussion over how detailed a synopsis should be. I’m on the side of the fence that says it should give a good overview of what the book is about without giving too many names or getting lost in detail - a summary in about 200 words that you could deliver to someone in a pub without boring the pants off them. Rather than giving every detail, the ending and how all the loose threads tie up, I see a synopsis as a way of saying to the agent, “you’ve had a taste, now read the full script and find out the full story”. So my take on a synopsis is to make it sell the script, much like a blurb. I know that most books on the subject say otherwise, but each to their own, eh?