Relate the narrative in terms of time, place, character and action as a series of (hopefully) connected scenes and sequences. Start at the beginning and keep going until you reach the end. Style Like your screenplay, your synopsis should be written in third person, present tense. And if you go beyond three pages, you risk losing your reader’s interest. Some writers try to tell their story in a single page, but the results are usually so truncated as to be dry and lifeless.
This usually translates to two to three single-spaced typewritten pages. Length A synopsis should be long enough to pack in everything that’s good about your story, but short enough to be read in less than five minutes. Here, then, are some guidelines on writing an effective synopsis: As helpful as they are to the writing process, treatments aren’t usually as good as synopses for marketing your projects to would-be buyers. (Although some extended treatments do include dialogue sequences to better illustrate the content of key scenes.) Writers and producers usually write treatments as an intermediary step to help flesh out story elements before committing time and energy to a full-blown screenplay or short film. A treatment, on the other hand, is a scene-by-scene breakdown that contains just about everything to be found in an actual screenplay or short film, except dialogue. As noted above, a synopsis is a brief retelling of your story designed to generate interest.
They’re different tools designed for different purposes. Many fledgling writers confuse the terms synopsis with treatment. To accomplish this, your synopsis should be as compelling, detailed and cinematic as you can make it in the limited amount of space you have available. (That being defined as the order in which events occur in the story.) Above all else, a synopsis is a sales tool designed to get the reader eager to read your complete script or view your short film or web series. It contains all the important elements - characters, storyline, actions, reactions and major incidents - from beginning to end in chronological order. What is a synopsis? How can a solid synopsis help you sell your project? And how do you write a synopsis that will produce the kind of response you want?Ī synopsis is a brief telling of your screen story in written form. Before agents, producers and studio executives agree to read a complete screenplay, they will often first ask to see a synopsis.