We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
A STUDY OF THE SYNOPSIS 61 Count your words and find out how much you must eliminate. Now go over your rough draft carefully and see what you can best spare. Lightly underscore with a pencil the passages that are not necessary. Now count the number of words in these pas- sages. If you have taken out enough, cross them off, close up the breaks and clean copy. If you have marked too much, leave some of it in if it really interests, but remember that the Editor wants to know what the story is about rather than precisely what each scene contains. If he wishes the latter information he will turn to the plot of action. It is not absolutely necessary that you tell your synopsis with literary skill, but if you are able to write, this is the one place in your script where fine writing is not only permissible but desir- able. You cannot do very much fine writing in 250 words, but you can work over and polish your phrases until you have suc- ceeded in getting something that is almost like a prose poem. Even if you cannot write in polished phrase you can and should acquire a reasonably fluent style. Do not chop the story up into four and five word sentences nor on the other hand use too in- volved a phrase. Both are bad. Do not, for example, say: Jack loves Mary. Mary loves Paul. Paul is amusing himself with Mary. She asks Jack to teach her to write. He does so. He thinks she is going to marry Paul. When he is done teaching he finds he's the man. That is bad, but no worse than this : Jack, a young country schoolmaster, loves Mary, a simple coun- try maiden, but Mary, in her turn, loves Paul, a visitor from the Njorth, though Paul does not love Mary, but merely seeks to win her love, that he may amuse himself, because he really intends to marry Gertrude, who has come south with her mother and is also a guest at the hotel where Paul is stopping, though Mary does not know this and Jack is equally ignorant of the fact. If you find that you have trouble in expressing yourself, forget that you are writing a story. Pretend that you are writing Tom Jones a letter telling him about the story you have just done. You want to tell him in a few words what the plot of the story is. Go ahead and do it, then discard the letter part and you will have a synopsis. Sometimes the beginner is frightened out of his ex- pression by the thought that he must write a story; like an Eng- lish barmaid who could pour a little vermouth into a glass of gin and bitters, but who could not do it properly after she was told that she had mixed a martini cocktail. Just write the letter and then take out the part you want. Don't be afraid to waste time in getting your synopsis just right. Nine-tenths of your sale will be made on your synopsis and