Writing a deadly synopsis

[mikebabz]

Trying to wrap up my film in a paragraph or two is a very tough thing to do, when i feel that words just don't do my story justice.. any tips on writing a solid synopsis? I obviously am trying to sell my film through this too, catch peoples interest, but I want to keep it real.. synopsis writing is an art unto itself!
thanks
mike babiarz

 

[indietalk]

I don't know, it's hard. Can you think of a witty tagline? If so, you can expand upon that.

 

[Unknown Screenwriter]

synopses...

Trying to wrap up my film in a paragraph or two is a very tough thing to do, when i feel that words just don't do my story justice.. any tips on writing a solid synopsis? I obviously am trying to sell my film through this too, catch peoples interest, but I want to keep it real.. synopsis writing is an art unto itself!
thanks
mike babiarz

Writing a synopsis for a film is DEFINITELY an art unto itself...

From everything I've learned about writing synopses, whatever you do write basically comes down to being able to answer YES to the following questions...

• Will someone (hopefully a sales agent or better yet, a producer) be able to read what you've written -- and IMMEDIATELY understand the concept of the story and based on what you've written, be able to PITCH it to a prospective buyer?
  
• Is the synopsis a truthful portrayal of your story?

Rather than sit here and try to explain the mechanics of writing a synopsis, why not click on over to:

PLOT-O-MATIC

Now of course this online script is limited -- I'm not suggesting you go here to create your synopsis... I am suggesting however, that you create several of them just to see how they read and to get the feel of it how the script works.

Reason being, is that PLOT-O-MATIC actually creates some pretty decent synopses... You probably won't be able to match your story perfectly but you can easily come up with several decent ones and then tweak a new one from all the ones you've made.

filmy

 

[Unknown Screenwriter]

PLOT-O-MATIC

Writing a synopsis for a film is DEFINITELY an art unto itself...

From everything I've learned about writing synopses, whatever you do write basically comes down to being able to answer YES to the following questions...

• Will someone (hopefully a sales agent or better yet, a producer) be able to read what you've written -- and IMMEDIATELY understand the concept of the story and based on what you've written, be able to PITCH it to a prospective buyer?
  
• Is the synopsis a truthful portrayal of your story?

Rather than sit here and try to explain the mechanics of writing a synopsis, why not click on over to:

PLOT-O-MATIC

Now of course this online script is limited -- I'm not suggesting you go here to create your synopsis... I am suggesting however, that you create several of them just to see how they read and to get the feel of it how the script works.

Reason being, is that PLOT-O-MATIC actually creates some pretty decent synopses... You probably won't be able to match your story perfectly but you can easily come up with several decent ones and then tweak a new one from all the ones you've made.

filmy

Okay... To give you a little better idea of how to do this...

I just went to PLOT-O-MATIC and created the following synopis:

The Men's Room
an original screenplay concept
by filmy

Black comedy: An absent-minded scientist teams up with a kind hearted prostitute to solve the perfect crime. In the process they rescue a nun. By the end of the movie they chase 7 bad guys and end up winning the admiration of their world, living happily ever after.

Think Die Hard meets Se7en.

--Okay, now let's say we made MORE than this one concept so we can get the feel of writing a decent synopsis and at the same time, see how PLOT-O-MATIC works.

Now here's how I can take the above created synopsis and tweak it to something I might actually be making...

The Men's Room

A passive-aggressive dentist teams up with several of his weekend buddies to murder all their ex-wives. In the process, one ex-wife proves to be too formidable for them and by end of the movie, the lone ex-wife takes them all out except her ex and together, they realize that they need to start all over.

Think Die Hard meets Grosse Point Blank.

Okay, that's just a joke concept but could actually work the more I think about it... Hopefully, you get the idea.

The point here is that you need to try and summarize each act of your film... Boil each act down to a sentence or two that best describes what actually takes place but also GRABS the hell out of us -- makes us sit up and take notice -- makes it easy for us to tell someone else without screwing up the synopsis so they can turn right around and tell someone else and not leave anything out...

filmy