Blog Post Written by Kay Lynn Err
How to Write a Synopsis that Represents Your Work Well
You’ve written your play and now comes the synopsis. What is it all about? Many things, of course,
but for the purposes of this paragraph we are now setting out to write, what is the story at the heart of
the play, who are we following?
What exactly a synopsis is is hard to pin down, so let’s start by defining what it is not.
A synopsis is not:
– A beat-by-beat account of your play.
Some writers start their plays by planning plot points and writing detailed documents setting
out the narrative of the play. This is not that! It may be helpful to draw from such a document
if you do have one but writing a synopsis requires you to distill everything down to the most
important points of the plot.
– A commentary on your play.
It should not include lengthy comments on the theme of the play. These are important ot know
but should be kept to statements of intent.
Instead, a synopsis should:
Summarise the most important events of your play relating to its protagonist. If it’s an ensemble piece,
pick one character to use as the point-of-view through which you frame the synopsis.
With these in mind, let’s begin! Here are some questions that might be useful to answer when drafting
your synopsis:
1. Who is your protagonist?
2. What is their daily, ordinary life?
3. What happens to interrupt that?
4. What do they do in response?
5. What happens then? Does it get better or worse?
6. What does this force them to confront? This could be an external event or an internal
realisation.
7. How does the situation end? How have things changed?
It might also be useful to write a short sentence tracking the actions of your protagonist in the format
“[Protagonist] wants ________, but _______[what is the key obstacle they face?], so _________[what
action do they take?]”
You may notice that this set of questions and this sentence format are aimed at fitting your play’s plot
into a conventional 3-act structure. Because we are aiming to convey the story of the play in the most
straightforward, effective way possible, a structure that is simple and familiar to most people is often
the best choice. At their core, most plays are based off of the 3-act structure, whether they play off it
or subvert it, making it widely suitable for use in writing a synopsis.
Ultimately, the synopsis is a tool for communicating the story of your play and what makes it unique.
As such, aim for simplicity and conciseness, chipping away at drafts of your synopsis until you arrive
at the core of the story you are trying to tell.
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