Treatment 'take 4'

Today I got this e-mail off my dads friend....

Tom, You asked 'when you write a book do you have to write a treatment?'

I said 'yes', which is in fact a lie,

The answer should have been 'no, I have to write a synopsis'. Which is pretty much the same as a treatment.

In publishing they ask for a synopsis. In film and TV they ask for a treatment. They're very similar. Basically, a summary of the whole thing. Everybody hates doing them and there is no right or wrong way because everybody has a different idea of what should and shouldn't be included.

The only rule is if somebody asks for two paragraphs don't give them three pages and vice versa.

Sometimes you're asked to write a treatment after you've written the whole thing. Everybody hates doing that as well. It seems pointless and sounds easy, but sometimes it's hard to condense the whole thing into a short document.

Have fun.

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(He also gave me this website to look at, he said its quite long winded and that they should have written a synopsis!)

http://www.movieoutline.com/articles/write_treatment.html