What is the difference between summary and synopsis

It should outline your plot in neutral non-salesy language and demonstrate a clear story arc. Every major plot twist, character, and any big turning point or climatic scene should get a mention.

Skip to content Technology. As you write the outline, try to imagine blocks of action rather than acts. These blocks will built on each other, and result in the progression of the story. To accomplish this, think of the narrative as going along a horizontal line or as a curve that rises. Exclusive savings! This document usually ranges between five and 20 pages and explains how you will utilize drama in order to move the story forward stylistically.

You should use both the synopsis and outline as the basis for the treatment. If you know how to write a treatment, you will be able to sell the fund provider on the idea of your movie.

Just like with the other documents, you do not want to hype it up or use teasers in the way you would when showing a movie trailer. Instead, you want to use the treatment template as a way of assuring the potential investors that you really do have an interesting, coherent story and that it follows a well-organized formula.

You should use the treatment as an opportunity to synthesize the subplots with the main plot in terms of explaining how they work together. Now let us discuss the difference between synopsis and summary.

Sometimes you want to have a general idea about a book or movie before you determine whether it is worth devoting several hours to reading or watching the medium. This is exactly what a summary fulfills. It contains general hints about the main points, but without giving away the key details that are meant to generate drama and suspense. It should also not be confused with a review, which aside from providing a brief summary also includes your opinions and reflections about the work.

Ultimately, the summary can be used to generate interest among an audience that might be interested in reading the book or seeing the movie. In that sense, when discussing summary vs synopsis, both are intended to "sell" the story. Fairly detailed and technical Synopses generally tend to have more detail than a summary. This is distinct from a free executive summary in that you can provide more details, particularly for the purpose of analysis.

Usually applied to literary works Most of the time, synopses are associated with literary works such as books, plays, films, and so on.

This is likely due to synopses being able to sum up the subject matter of such works such as the plot, themes, characters, etc. Of course, that is not to say that synopses cannot be used for any other purpose, as there are some project summary templates that can serve as synopses for fields other than literature. Relatively long, can be up to a few pages in length Unlike summaries, synopses need not be limited to a number of pages.

In spite of the fact that a synopsis is, in its own way, also a summary, it might be more accurate to say that it is short relative to the original written work. That said, rather than copy the original work, it lists and discusses the parts that make up the work, which may take up a few pages to facilitate easier analysis of that particular written work.

May be in prose form or table form Unlike a summary like a summary report template , it is possible for you to find synopses written in the form of tables, though you can just as easily write your synopsis in prose form.

However, if a table might be more appropriate to your work, then you may want to use a synopsis instead. I answered this way somewhat altered and enlarged here and thought it might be something my THT readers might be interested in reading. In the first three paragraphs, I am speaking as an author.

The last four, I speak as an editor, which I was for a number of years, first at Knopf and then at Harcourt with my own imprint. Plot summary can either be a chapter by chapter summary, or a more generalized summary of the plot. But it is pretty thorough, down to the basic plot twists in each chapter while not neglecting the overarching movement of the entire story.