Okay to Cheat On Font?

Not unless you want your manuscript to get pitched. The difference between 11 and 12 point font is glaringly obvious to people who spend their days reading manuscripts, and it hurts the eyes.

11 point font is an auto-reject.

Besides, the font won't change the word count, and that's what matters.

Just. Don't. Do. It.
It's like making margins 0.9 all around. It's like sneaking that extra fifteen pages into a fifty page partial request. It's like telling an agent that others are dying to represent you when they're not...
It starts a precedent. And like Cyia says. It's the word count. There is never a good reason to subvert the process.

childeroland said:

Sorry, I meant on the synopsis, not the manuscript. To squeeze a half page out of it, in a pinch.

Click to expand...

I still wouldn't do it. Remember in high school when your teacher assigned a three-page essay, no more no less? She said three pages because she knew exactly how much writing it took to adequately explore the essay topic.

Same goes for synopsis. If the agent requests a one-page synopsis, it's because she wants the story explored in a way that only takes one page.

If the agent says 12 point, use 12 point. If the agent says they want a one page synopsis but does not specify font size, that's a different story.

I personally would not want to be represented by someone who would auto reject a requested manuscript based on a font size choice in the synopsis when they didn't even specify a font size. Such a person has issues beyond being busy and would probably not be a good fit for you in terms of developing your career.

Being rejected for such minutia in an unsolicited query is, of course, a different matter altogether.

You want to keep the 12 point, but there are ways to fudge and still stay in the rules. Fonts are different "sizes" even when they're all 12 point, so you might try seeing if another serif font would get you a few more lines. Garamond is narrower than Times Roman for example (and I think it reads easier myself).

You can also play with the leading (the space between lines). It's okay to single space in a synopsis if it's only a few pages. I liked to use the 1.5 spacing, as it made it easier to read, but still kept things contained to a smaller page count.

You can also delete any spaces between paragraphs, and run the text same as you do in your manuscript, with half-inch indents.

What matters most is ease of readability, and content. If it's all scrunched together to get it to fit, and it's hard on the eyes, then it won't matter how many pages you have. But if it's easy to read and the synopsis is interesting and well written, then no one will mind the extra half page. (unless they say "no more than three pages"). Print it out and see how it reads to test it.

Just a thought. Have you ever read a three page synopsis of someone else's book? They tend to be confusing and hard to follow. Plus most are boring. The shorter you can keep it the better. Leave out extraneous plot lines and characters. I know many agents who (even tho they say synopsis) really prefer something along the line of back flap copy. I've never seen a long synopsis at a writers workshop that wasn't easily chopped in half.
The point is not accurately depicting exactly what happens in your novel chapter by chapter but to entice the agent to request the full.
With publishers synopses may have to be more detailed if they've expressed interest but I never had to do one for my publisher.