From the Treatments Sticky Thread:

Quoted from Alan_Holman A treatment is a synopsis of your movie.  It explains the story, including the ending.  It should also reflect the theme.  A decision maker will enjoy this handy document.   User "bert" submitted this insightful comment ... If you have a story that you actually intend to shop around, I think you should prepare a treatment. What if somebody asks for one and you ain't got it?  You can't -- CAN NOT -- whip up a decent one of these in a couple of hours.  You can make a bad one, but not a good one. Better to have it and not need it than...well, you know.

This is EXCELLENT advice and I think that what many of us find to be true is that working in this regard actually helps greatly to identify weaknesses in clarity of "What it is we're promoting".

Putting something into a nutshell is really hard work!

The time that I've worked hard and desperately on Queries for little short and insignificant stories, which I've been successful with is bordering on an absurd compulsion towards perfection, but it's the query letter, the synopsis, treatment and ESPECIALLY-- THE LOGLINE, that might just be the ultimate mountain that a writer ever climbs.

These are precise sales tools and must definitively embody the "whole package" of what it is we are selling.

I remember spending more than a week ruminating and working over a plot summary and it was truly enlightening as I re-discovered important scenes and focussed hard upon "what" genre market I was gearing towards.  I'm not one for bad language, but I had realized that I wanted to adjust my work from a "restricted" to a "mature" audience, (I almost went Disney, but decided to keep in some scenes that were way too far away from "Little Mermaid".

So as I began to "define" the story and sharpen its important points, I set my trajectory towards a "mature" audience, but with nothing so bad that a child couldn't watch.

I hadn't set out to "define" my audience as I worked the summary, but it seemed to happen as a natural result of being forced to be precise.

In even the simplest works it's important, but especially in wrangly difficult works such as my current balancing act of dark fantasy and comedy, there needs to be words, (and correctly sequenced words) that will properly equate with the premise, the mood, the characters...

I'm working hard, but I expect that the sharpening will continue on into the summer.  I'm looking forward to be inspired by my daughter's art work with the characters in this Novel and Script.  I'd like to take a break by seeking a venue for some articles and short stories I've had in the works and work with other writers I've gotten to know here on "simply".

In my opinion, writing a synopsis is one of the hardest thing a writer ever writes.

It's a critical element that needs to be understood and regarded as just as important as the work itself.

Sandra