Script writers often get cold shivers when asked to produce a treatment. Novelists do the same, I suspect, the moment we hear the word 'synopsis'. In both circumstances creative people find themselves being asked to do something against their essential nature: write down a plain language linear description of a story. One that, to boot, they probably haven't written yet.

There really is nothing I hate more in this whole process than being asked to provide a synopsis of a planned work. There are writers who manage to outline entire books in detail before they start. If you ever get the chance to hear Jeffery Deaver talk about his method you'll find one of the most accomplished around. So gripping is Jeff's description of the MO that one year, after hearing it, I set out to emulate him and failed miserably. Mapping out everything in advance is <em>hard.</em>

So I just don't do them and my editors know it. Maybe I've been around long enough for people to trust me, so far anyway. But I can plan a few steps ahead for myself only, you understand, and with some magic inside Scrivener manage the whole process pretty damned slickly too. Here's how...

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This technique uses the Scrivener Inspector, the bar on the right of the window here. I'll discuss some of the other things there on another occasion (I don't use all of them and I suspect you won't need to either). For the moment let's look at the topmost box: synopsis. Does what it says, of course. But the important thing is that Scrivener sees a book in terms of scenes or chapters. So this is a synopsis for that scene alone. I've typed in some boilerplate text for the scene/chapter itself. After that I can go to the next scene, write a synopsis for that, then write that chapter too.

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Big deal? Well it is actually. Because what we can now do is view these synopses in a very different light. First I need to select the enclosing folder (or master document). Then I go to the menu bar and click on Corkboard. What I get is this...

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Yes. A corkboard outliner and index cards. Americans love these. I'm sort of learning to love them. But if you prefer a more conventional European-style outliner just click on Outliner instead (make sure you have that folder selected again). Then you get this.

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Corkboard or outliner the idea is the same. What you get here is an overview of your various synopses (and rather more in the outliner view). You no longer need to feel restricted to jotting down your ideas in the sidebar either. In these views you just type them into the index card/outlining section itself (and they will magically appear in the sidebar as you do so). It's a great way of setting down ideas very quickly indeed.

How would you use this?

My present project is approaching its climax. I want to choreograph the steps to the finale. So I set up a bunch of scenes with boilerplate titles, type in actions for the synopsis of each, and map out the line to the conclusion. If one's in the wrong place I just drag it to a different part of the sequence. And, of course, any chapter text I have written for it goes to that new location too. The whole linear construction can be reshaped in a matter of seconds and, if I don't like it, put back the way it was or changed to something different again.

If you want to work that way it feels more natural to me in the Corkboard view. Type, drag, brainstorm... Dead easy (apart from finding the right ideas, of course).

If you must produce a full synopsis for an editor this is one way you could do it. Scrivener will let you use these synopses as the basis for a full synopsis which you can export out to Word (shudder) or something. I imagine the same goes for movie script treatments too, though that's not my field. Movie writers can also make use of a nifty trick to plan a movie in Scrivener then export it in a format which can be read by the popular scriptwriting app Final Draft. I would test that for you but unfortunately Final Draft deauthorised itself when I upgraded to Snow Leopard and the only way I can get back the software I paid for is by phoning someone in Los Angeles, at their convenience. Thanks a bundle.

I'm a synopsis hater and find this facility really rather useful. Just don't tell any of my editors, will you?