You've read the story summary for Sleeping Beauty last week, and
you've just read the summary for Star Craft II, Wings of Liberty, and
these give you good examples of synopses.
So now, let's take a look at how you can begin to summarize your own stories
into a synopsis on your way to making it again.
First of all, what's a story synopsis?
Well, it's a summary of the story line in paragraph form.
It lays out the spine of the story.
It introduces and tells us about the characters involved, and
what they do throughout that story.
It also sets the tone and
the pace of the story, as you want to tell, it in a concise document,
that can be maybe a few paragraphs long to a maximum of a couple of pages.
The story synopsis summarizes the story best, I believe,
using the three act structure,
setting up where important points of the structure happen in your story.
You've gotta answer, what's the inciting incident?
How does the action escalate?
What's the final crisis?
How does the resolution come?
So as you summarize your story, think of the three act structure.
Think of that framework in defining the beginning, the middle, and the end.
For a proper synopsis, try to tell us the following eight points.
One, where are we?
Where does the story take place?
Two, who are we following?
Who is the protagonist and why is it them?
Three, who or what force is opposed to that protagonist?
Who stands in the way of the hero?
That's the antagonist, and, importantly, why?
Why are they standing in the way?
Four, what do these characters what to accomplish?
What's at stake for them?
Number five, what's the ensuing conflict, and why does it exist?
Number six, how does the action rise?
How do you keep things moving, and getting more tense as you go along?
Seven, what's the final crisis, and how does it play out?
And finally, the eighth point.
How do things resolve?
How do they wrap up?