Oh, Synopsis, how we loathe thee!

Well, that's not exactly true.

If I'm in the right groove, I enjoy the challenge of distilling the story down into about 600 words. There's something beautiful about a well crafted synopsis that gets the story across, but also shows off a little of my writing personality.

But at the moment, I'm struggling. Not with the story or the characters, but with the length. It's a true art to pack 50,000 words worth of conflict, characterization, plot and romance into 600 words and make it so you want to read the story.

How much do you tell? What do you leave out?

It's truly a balancing act.

I usually start with too much plot detail and end up cutting that out. Eventually I get to where I'm only focusing on the inner conflict and the romance between the hero and heroine, but some days that takes longer than other.

How about you? What's your secret for working out the synopsis and how many words do you take to tell the story?