The First Three Chapters

My question today is about when publishers ask for the first three chapters and a synopsis of your novel what are they really looking for?

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The three chapters: Something that grabs them, hooks their interest. That's pretty subjective, unfortunately. What might grab one agent won't grab another. The story should also have something fresh and new while not straying too far from what's already sold (meaning, be different, but not too different). Not so subjective: That you actually have a story and that you can write. It's fairly common to see manuscripts that spend fifty pages setting up the backstory (first three chapters) before getting to the story. The story should start on page 1, paragraph 1, and backstory filtered in later.

The rest of the story should also stand up to a great first three chapters and be just as great.

Synopsis: That you know what your story is about. When I wrote the synopsis for the first book I submitted, I had a terrible time it with it. It was hard getting it into five pages, and it sounded choppy. It turned out there was a problem in the manuscript itself, and the synopsis flagged it.

Also, it's really tough to summarize my novel in 1-2 pages. I'm dreading it. Any advice for that too?

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Start it now, while you're writing the book. Just save it in a document and keep wandering back to it periodically and making revisions. One of the things I tried was to make a list of the major story events and then wrote the synopsis based on those. It kept a lot of extraneous detail out and helped me focus on getting just the story down.

Just to clarify what Linda said. When they ask for three chapters, they want the first 3 chapters. Not random selections of what you think are the best chapters. They want chapters 1,2, and 3.

Grab them on the first page. Don't wait for a 50 page build up. Have a cliffhanger of some kind at the end of every chapter.

Assume they're not reading in a cramped office, stacked to the ceiling with other queries, running on too much coffee, with people poking their heads in every two minutes to ask dumb questions, though that is a possibility.

Write something that will distract a tired-eyed, burned-out slush pile reader from not only a subway full of potential muggers, but cause her to miss her stop home.

Do that and you'll make a sale.

As an extension of this, what happens if your first few chapters are exceptionally short?

I just started a novel where currently, the first two chapters are one line, and one paragraph respectively. I don't know if it'll stay that way, but I've seen it done before. What does one send in that situation?

It's always been the first three chapters OR first 50 pages, stopped at a natural break of some sort.

Everyone follow me to the 808 section of the library, where I learned all this stuff when I was a teen.

Love the 808 section. LOVE. IT.

Area 808! The truth is out there.

For your synopsis, write 1-2 sentences for each chapter. Also, make sure your synopsis uses the same basic tone/style of your novel, and that you reveal the ending.

-Feathers

If your story doesn't kick in until chapter five, maybe chapter five should be chapter one.

The best way to describe it is that they're looking for three opening chapters that make them want to read all the others.