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This
week's answer:
Synopsis
Synapses
Typed Out, I
appreciate your e-mail and you not wanting to write a
synopsis for your screenplay. It does take time.
It also takes a special talent to be able to synopsize a
screenplay. If you haven't done it before or that
often, you might want to consider having somebody do it who
has. Like a story analyst, somebody who does
coverages. Or a PS (a professional
synopsisizer). Not really; I made the last one
up. But wouldn't it be nice if there were PS's.
You could just call one up or go to his or her website (I
don't recommend typing in "synopsisizer" in the
search box). Maybe a friend who majored in English
lit. could help you. On second thought, someone like
that might write it in stanza's and try to rhyme the whole
thing, or, perhaps, write it in prose, but take 350 pages to
synopsize a 100-page screenplay. You've got to watch
out for those English literature people.
Even if you
end up having to write your own synopsis, take heart Typed
Out: nobody ever WANTS to write a synopsis.
Synopses (I'd rather they were called
"synopsissss") were invented for lazy people who
don't like to read. And, since producers are notorious
for not wanting to read anything except large checks with
their names on it and menus of expensive restaurants where
they can spend some of the money from those large checks...
They
Love Synopses
I used to write a
load of them when I worked at Hearst when I did coverages
there. It was the synopsis of the screenplay in a
coverage that took the most time. I was praised for
these coverages, my scintillating and insightful comments,
but, after a while, the "powers that be," those
who were in another city and who apparently were reading my
coverages, sent word that, even though they appreciated my
two-or-so- page synopsis, they decided, in addition to
those, they now wanted me to write a second, even briefer,
no-more-than-one-page synopsis. Translation: We
don't like to read scripts and now we don't even like to
read synopses. They were looking for the Cliff Notes
of the Cliff Notes. After calming my synopsis synapses
and less than pleasant expletives had been expressed by me
personally, I acceded to the Powers That Be's wishes and
discovered that it was even harder to condense the main
story beats into an even smaller space. But I
learned. I did quit, though, when they wanted a
synopsis in twenty-five words or less. I made that up,
too. But it wouldn't surprise me if, one day, you, the
screenwriter, after painstakingly laboring over and
finishing your masterpiece screenplay, you hear that a
producer is interested and would you please send a very,
very brief synopsis. On a matchbook cover..
And that shouldn't
take much time at all.
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