Synopsis
시놉시스
한국어로 읽기A synopsis summarizes a work's plot, characters and theme in one or two pages; in submissions, contests and pitches it is read before the manuscript.
Also written as: 시놉 · 줄거리 요약 · 작품 소개 · story summary · 시놉시스 작성법
Meaning
A synopsis is a whole work summarized in one or two pages. The standard structure is intent, logline, main character sketches and the plot, including the ending. Unlike a reader-facing blurb that hides the ending, a submission synopsis reveals it, because what the reader of a synopsis wants to know is whether the story is designed all the way through. It is the gate read before the manuscript in web novel contests, platform serialization reviews and pitches to drama and film producers, and if it is weak the manuscript is never opened.
Why it matters
A synopsis is also a tool for the writer. Compressing a 200-episode story into two pages exposes the holes in the structure. If the middle reduces to one sentence, the middle has no events; if the ending is hard to write, there is no ending yet. The core of a synopsis for a judge is not what happens but why this story differs from others like it. If the first paragraph does not say that, the rest is not read. Genre, length, target readership and completion status conventionally go in one line at the very top.
Example
Title: The Bankbook in the Drawer Genre / length: Contemporary mystery romance / planned 120 episodes (60 written) Logline: A granddaughter who finds a bankbook in her own name among her grandmother's belongings sets out to find who deposited money every month for thirty years, and meets the lie behind her own birth. Intent: A family story told with a mystery structure, paying off one clue about the depositor per episode. Plot: (1-20) Funeral and discovery. The deposits were made all over the country. (21-60) Following the deposit locations in order, she meets the people from her grandmother's past. One is hinted to be her father. (61-120) The supposed father is already dead; the actual depositor is... (stated through to the ending)
Within a page every question a judge asks (which genre, how long, why different, does it end) is answered.
Common mistakes
- Hiding the ending. "See the manuscript for the ending" in a submission synopsis is grounds for rejection.
- Character sketches longer than the plot. Two or three lines per character. The plot is the body.
- Opening with setting. Starting with worldbuilding tells the judge there is no story. Start with an event.