Guide to Literary Agents - The 'Flight of the Navigator' Synopsis

The 'Flight of the Navigator' Synopsis
Posted by Chuck

I always tell people that if they're confused as to how a novel synopsis
should look, simply go to Wikipedia. Search any movie made in the last five years and the first thing on the page is the long "Plot" section, which is essentially a front-to-back synopsis. A lot of them are too long; a lot of them are poorly written; but some are good, and you will get a sense of how they work. Or—you could just let find good ones for you and edit them a bit.

This time it's Flight of the Navigator. In book terms, this would be considered fun middle grade, considering the protagonist is 12. More specifically, it would probably be a science fiction adventure. Concerning this synopsis, I cut all out mentions that Max's home planet was called Phaelon. I cut all info about how the craft could fly at high speeds. I left in one little moment about the freefall, because I felt it showed David's arc in taking control of the situation after starting as a guinea pig at NASA. I had to lose a lot of specifics about how Max got stuck on Earth and what exactly he did with David's brain. You're starting to see a pattern here - cut, combine, cut, combine, cut. Smooth and fast—that's how a short synopsis has to look.

Twelve-year-old DAVID FREEMAN is trekking through the woods at night when he falls into a ravine and blacks out. Waking a short time later, David heads home only to find an older couple in his house and no visible trace of his parents or brother. Police arrive and start asking questions, but David’s answers are met with puzzlement. His parents are located in a nearby city in Florida, but upon meeting them, David is shocked to see they have visibly aged. He faints and is taken to a hospital. There, he has a conversation with his younger (now older) brother, JEFF, who explains that eight years have passed since that night in the woods and David was declared dead long ago. Everyone in the family is overjoyed with this miraculous reunion, though no one can explain David’s disappearance or lack of aging.

NASA official DR. FARADAY arrives at David’s home and asks for testing. David agrees. At the NASA base, David receives garbled messages in his head, apparently coming from something or someone in a nearby hangar. During tests, Faraday discovers that David’s brain now holds incredible amounts of information related to a strange flying craft, galaxy maps, bizarre languages, and more. Faraday theorizes that an alien spacecraft picked up David in the woods and took him to another galaxy and back. The light-speed trip only took four hours, but everyone on Earth aged eight years. Scared at this revelation, David runs out of the testing room, screaming that he wants his old life back. He hears more from the voice, and follows its directions to a hangar. There, he discovers the spacecraft his mind projected on screens earlier. Inside, he meets the ship’s robotic pilot, whom he nicknames MAX.

Max escapes the base with David onboard. It turns out that David, along with creatures from other planets, was taken for study on Max’s peaceful home planet. Unlike usual, Max did not return David to his original timeline (eight years prior), fearing that humans as a species are too delicate to survive time travel. While Max explains how he got caught in power lines trying to leave Earth (then captured by NASA), David takes a liking to a small friendly creature whose home planet was destroyed by a comet.

David and Max realize they both need each other to get home. David needs Max to pilot to Florida, and Max needs star chart information in David's head to navigate back to his home galaxy. Max performs a scan of David's subconscious to extract the information but accidentally gets some of David’s memories and personality. Max’s voice immediately changes, becoming less robotic and more humorous and erratic. David and Max bicker as to their next course of action, to which Max's response is to shut down in a freefall, forcing David to take control and drive the ship. The two bond, and David heads for his family in Fort Lauderdale, though Max warns him NASA will anticipate this move.

They locate David’s house when Jeff sets off fireworks from the roof. David’s initial happiness to see home wears off when he discovers NASA is waiting for him for more "guinea pig tests." He urges Max to return him to his own timeline, despite the danger. Max and David share a heartfelt good-bye, having become friends. Max speeds up the ship until David passes out. Awakening in the ravine like before, David walks home and finds everything the way he left it. He hugs his family (yes, even his little brother Jeff) and gets a pleasant souvenir from his adventure: The "orphaned" alien creature he bonded with seems to have stowed away in his backpack.

Want more on this subject?

Read about Everything You Need to Know to Write a Novel Synopsis.

Concerning names and backstory in a synopsis.

Read another good synopsis: Peggy Sue Got Married.

Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.

Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.

Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2010 Guide to Literary Agents today!

Children's Writing | Synopsis Writing