The story is clear in your mind.
The months or years it has taken to develop characters, arcs, reversals, and all has produced an excellent product. But let’s be honest. No one wants to read that shit.
The hardest thing to do as a writer is to get other people actually to sit down and read your stuff. Unless you’re paying them, I guess, and even then it’s often a gamble.
This is why sales documents for scripts are so important–if you can’t get someone’s attention with a short synopsis, they sure as shit aren’t going to read even the first ten pages, let alone all 100+ pages.
Unfortunately, since the story is all in your head, distilling this complete 100-page screenplay into a 250-word synopsis is difficult. It requires absolute clarity about your story and the eye of an impartial observer.
It’s a distilled, 198-proof version of your story. It’s bottled. Pressurized. If you manage to do this correctly, a clear, impactful synopsis will be your way in with producers, agents, grant committees, and even those pesky competitions.
If you don’t get it right, good luck. Now let’s discuss how to compress your story into a 250-word synopsis without obliterating its soul.
Revisit your logline. If you don’t have a logline, or haven’t done one since drafting, create a new logline.
You need to be clear on this.
This one- or two-sentence nugget provides the DNA of your story: the protagonist, goal, stakes, and hook.
This is where you ask yourself:
>what is the story really about?
>who is the story really about?
>what makes this story compelling?
If your logline is clear, concise, and makes others want to know more, you can move on.
Take your first act–setup through the irreversible, world-changing event at the Act II break–and compress this into 2-3 sentences. You’ll notice this isn’t too far off your logline.
Get in fast. The reader needs to know who your protagonist is, and you basically have one adjective to describe the whole setup. After these sentences, the reader will know who the main character is, what her world looks like, and how the rubber actually hits the road.
Avoid emotional description. Stick to factual information.
Instead of: Rupert feels broken after his wife leaves.
Try: Rupert’s wife leaves him, and he spirals into compulsive gambling.
We’re just going to use the obvious example because why not. I haven’t seen this film in 20 years and it’s still clean enough to be easily synopsis-able.
Example: 19-year-old Luke is bored working his uncle’s farm on the planet Tatooine. By chance, Luke meets a retired intergalactic samurai called Obi-Wan, who offers to train Luke in his “Jedi” ways. Unimpressed, Luke leaves–but after his family is murdered by the Galactic Empire, he agrees to accompany Obi-Wan to deliver an important message to Leia, leader of the Rebel Alliance.
In. Out. Clean.
Step 3: Dive Into the Second Act (The Meat of Your Synopsis)
The second act, as Blake Snyder would have it, is “the promise of the premise.” This is where the idea you showcased in the logline needs to resonate.
Unsurprisingly, this will take the bulk of your 250-word limit. So, focus on:
>the central conflict
>your story’s Unique Selling Point – like, why should I even care?
>the midpoint – what leads there, and punch the reversal hard
>the fallout from the midpoint reversal, leading to despair and metaphoric death
Subplots, romances, all the rest really don’t matter here.
(That is, unless you are writing a romantic comedy or your narrative spine follows the romance: e.g., Jack banishing Marla in Fight Club is the same fucking scene where he receives Tyler’s kiss.)
Go back to the logline. Make sure you’re delivering on your promise here.
This is the part where Luke and his ragtag crew go to the Mos Eisley Cantina, we watch Obi-Wan use the Jedi Mind Trick, Han deals with Greedo, etc. They have space adventures and demonstrate the hyperspace drive. Luke learns about Jedi tricks. Then they find Alderaan destroyed. The ship is captured.
Alternatively, if your logline is about an undercover FBI agent taking to the waves so that he can infiltrate a group of surfing bank robbers, this is the part where you describe how he discovers–to his horror and disappointment–that his newfound buddies, the very ones who taught him to surf, are the bank robbers.
Make sure that the language is active and clear. Each sentence, taken alone, will reveal escalation or complication. Each sentence makes the reader feel the pressure build.
Example:
Luke and Obi-Wan head to the Mos Eisley starport, where they ally with smugglers Han and Chewbacca to find Leia on the planet Alderaan. During the trip, Obi-Wan teaches Luke the secrets of the mysterious energy of the Force. Upon arrival, they find that the Empire has destroyed Alderaan.
This is a touchy point. It’s where a lot of synopses stumble hard.
It needs to be impactful, yet concise. One sentence that changes the game.
A moment of reversal, realization. Something significant must change, often totally changing the direction of the story. Notably this usually means a substantial location shift as well as a plot impact.
Example: Just as Caleb is getting into his role as the AI tester, Ava the robot shuts down the power and tells him that Nathan has been lying about the entire project.
Let this beat be the fulcrum of the story. What was initially trucking along just fine takes a sharp turn. You have one sentence to do it.
Time to grab the handle and hold on, bucko.
Example: Before they can leave, their ship is drawn inside the Empire’s moon-sized superweapon, the Death Star.
.
Of course at this point, it’s a downhill slope.
Thanks to the flip at the midpoint, all the bad stuff lines up and gets progressively worse until we hit a point where the protagonist is lost, defeated, and all alone. We have to build the reader’s emotion to this level.
The reader must think–even in this short synopsis–that there is, in fact, no hope.
Remember, avoid feeling words and state facts. If the facts are clear enough, the feelings will come along for the ride.
In other words, feelings are by nature abstractions. This is not clear writing. Rather, give a clear, objective indication of why someone would feel that way.
With his cover blown among the bank robbers, his knee busted, and Tyler–now aware of his lies–long gone, Johnny lies alone in bed.
If done correctly, this makes the synopsis feel like a story rather than some dah-dah-dah-dah list of events.
Example:
Within the Death Star, Obi-Wan splits off to deactivate the tractor beam. Han, Chewie, and Luke rescue Leia, who is held on board. The group narrowly escapes being crushed in the ship’s trash compactor. They return to the Falcon, where only to see Empire heavy Darth Vader and Obi-Wan squaring off with laser swords. Vader bests Obi-Wan, killing the ancient Jedi. The rest of the group escapes to the nearest Rebel base.
This might seem somewhat counterintuitive: as precise as you make the rest of the piece, end it on a cliffhanger.
That doesn’t mean everything is totally vague, but you want to leave the reader wanting to know how it all ultimately plays out. If you cut out just before the resolution, it leaves the reader gagging for more.
And that’s precisely the way you’re trying to leave the reader.
With the 50-year Wave moments away and the police only meters behind, Johnny confronts Bodhi, man-to-man, on the beach.
That sense that there’s still more juice in the story will encourage the reader to explore it more. To turn the page. To figure out how it all resolves.
Example:
At the Rebel base, analysis of Leia’s stolen Death Star blueprints indicates a weakness: an impossibly small port in the exterior of the monstrous weapon. Rebel pilots, including Luke, scramble to send a torpedo down the port. Several try and fail, but if Luke can summon the Force, he just might succeed…
It’s important to read the synopsis out loud. Have a computer use text-to-speech on it. Figure out whether if flows even in the robotic computer voice.
Does something sound off or redundant? Are sentences too long? Is there any more passive voice than absolutely necessary?
Ruthlessly eliminate adverbs and qualifiers. In fact, this is an excellent reason not to use AI for this–too much of both is a notorious hallmark of AI writing.
Make it lean.
“She decides to finally try to get help” → “She gets help.”
“It seems like all hope is lost” → “All hope is lost.”
Energy. Motion. Action. Make it read like a story. Careful editing and iteration will pay dividends.
Make sure to explain the story visually to people who don’t understand what the fuck a “light saber” or a “Wookiee” is, but also pepper in references like “Galactic Empire” that give it a certain amount of flavor.
The general rule is this: if you’d have to explain what it is–or its role in the story–to a five-year-old, then use explanation. If it’s a proper name, use the proper name. If it’s clear what the point is, like “Galactic Empire” vs. “Rebel Alliance,” then you can use this for pepper.
Something like “Mos Eisley” is a little bit more difficult. The name is nice as pepper, but we equally need to understand its plot function as “a spaceport.”
19-year-old Luke is bored working his uncle’s farm on the planet Tatooine. By chance, Luke meets a retired intergalactic samurai called Obi-Wan, who offers to train Luke in his “Jedi” ways. Unimpressed, Luke leaves–but after his family is murdered by the Galactic Empire, he agrees to accompany Obi-Wan to deliver an important message to Leia, leader of the Rebel Alliance.
Luke and Obi-Wan head to the Mos Eisley starport, where they ally with smugglers Han and Chewbacca to find Leia on the planet Alderaan. During the trip, Obi-Wan teaches Luke the mysterious secrets of the Force. Upon arrival, they find that the Empire has destroyed Alderaan with its moon-sized superweapon, the Death Star. Before they can leave, the Death Star’s tractor beam captures them.
Inside, Obi-Wan leaves to deactivate the tractor beam. Han, Chewie, and Luke rescue Leia, who is held on board. The group narrowly escapes being crushed in the ship’s trash compactor. They return to the Falcon, where only to see Empire heavy Darth Vader and Obi-Wan squaring off with laser swords. Vader bests Obi-Wan, killing the ancient Jedi. The rest of the group escapes to the nearest Rebel base.
At the base, analysis of Leia’s stolen Death Star blueprints indicates a weakness: a tiny port in the monstrous weapon’s exterior. Rebel pilots, including Luke, scramble to send a torpedo down the port. Several try and fail, but if Luke can summon the Force–and stay out of Vader’s sights–he just might succeed…
/244 words
1. Write Your Logline: (Single sentence, 30-50 words max)
2. 2-3 Sentence Setup (first paragraph)
3. Second Act Overview (paragraphs two and three):
4. Leave It Hanging (fourth paragraph):
The paragraph breaks are only suggested. I’d suggest using more if possible, but I would be reluctant to use fewer than four paragraphs in this size synopsis.
So let’s get real here for a second: if you actually write a decent synopsis, you’re probably one of the 2% of contestants who didn’t just use AI to write the whole thing for you.
The readers, if not total fools (or AIs themselves), will be very aware of this.
It’s worth doing this thing right–and maybe someone useful will read your script!
All that said, the AI can present a decent post for the limited amount of space. There are some inherent problems with them, which are a topic for another blog post–how to use AI as an adjunct to help improve your synopsis.
FWIW, ChatGPT gave me a 259-word synopsis when I asked for 250 words, so that might give you some minor indication of the precision we’re working with here…
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