What a treatment is
A treatment tells the film as a story, in prose, in the order the audience will see it. It is written in the present tense and the third person, like the action lines of a script, but without the script's layout. It reads as paragraphs with no scene headings, and dialogue turns up only where a description wouldn't do.
Producers, development executives and film funds read treatments to decide whether a story is worth a screenplay, and whether you are the one to write it. Writing one helps you as well: a hole you find now costs a paragraph to fix, where the same hole in a draft might cost twenty pages.
A treatment tells the ending. A logline holds it back to make someone read on, but the reader of a treatment needs to see that the whole film works.
Treatment, synopsis, outline: the differences
The names overlap, and different people use them differently. These are the usual meanings. The lengths for the outline and the treatment are the ones Screen Australia gives in its guide to story documents, for a feature.
| Document | Length | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Logline | One sentence | The premise, with the ending held back. |
| Synopsis | A paragraph to two pages | The whole story in brief, ending included. |
| Beat sheet | One or two pages | The turning points, a line or two each. |
| Outline | About 4 to 12 pages | The structure: sequences, turning points, cause and effect. Can be plain and note-like. |
| Treatment | About 10 to 20 pages | The story told as prose, with tone, key scenes and subplots, written to be read. |
| Scriptment | Longer than a treatment | Part treatment, part script: prose with the key scenes written out in screenplay format. |
When a producer asks for a feature treatment, ten to twenty pages is the usual length. A short film needs one to three. Some producers want five pages, some want thirty: when someone asks you for a treatment, ask how long they would like it.
What goes in one
- The title and your name, on a cover page or at the top of the first.
- The logline, so the reader knows what they are about to read.
- The main characters, a short paragraph each if the story needs them introduced. Many treatments skip this and introduce each character, in capitals, the first time they appear, as a script would.
- The story, start to finish. In order, act by act or sequence by sequence, with every turning point and the key scenes told in enough detail to see them.
- The tone. Let it show in the writing itself. A horror treatment should be frightening to read, and a comedy treatment should be funny.
And what to leave out:
- Camera directions. Write what the audience sees and leave the shots to the director.
- Every scene. The treatment picks the scenes that move the story and summarises the ones between.
- Backstory as a lecture. What the audience learns, when they learn it, is part of the story. Tell it at that moment.
- Selling words. "A gripping, emotional ride" tells the reader you hope it is. Let the story show them.
An example: Low Tide
The whole treatment for Low Tide, the sample project in Scriptopus, a 12-page short drama, in about a page and a half. A feature's treatment works the same way, with more of the scenes between.
MARA WELLES (early 30s) records the sound of rooms for a living: the particular hush of a place before it changes hands. On the coast road, headphones on, she is recording the sea when an old cassette in the car gives up a few seconds of her mother's voice. She stabs STOP and keeps driving, dry-eyed.
Her mother's cottage stands at the end of the road with a red SOLD sign by the gate. Mara still has a key. Inside, the house is half packed, stopped mid-sentence: a box is labelled KEEP? in marker, the question mark left hanging. She sets up her microphone in the empty living room. Then a floorboard creaks that isn't hers.
DES (60s), her father, steps out of the back hallway. They have not spoken in thirteen years, not since Mara stood in the doorway at her mother's funeral and left before the cars did. Neither of them leaves now. The estate agent is coming for the keys at sundown, and there is a kitchen to pack.
The afternoon turns into an argument conducted over newspaper and packing tape. Small courtesies curdle. A box of school things surfaces: a child's drawing of a yellow house, a birthday tape. Des lets slip that "you'd be amazed what she kept", then shuts the subject like a drawer.
At low tide Mara walks out onto the flats to record the water, and Des follows. Out there the argument finally breaks open. She accuses him of deciding she should never know her mother was dying. "Then whose decision was it?" she asks. He can't answer. He walks back up the beach, and the tide fills his footprints.
In her mother's study, Mara finds a key taped under the desk, where her mother always hid the spares. Against her father's plea she opens the bottom drawer: letters addressed to her and never sent, and a dozen numbered cassettes. Tape one is ELENA, her mother, speaking to her. Elena hid the worst of her illness on purpose. She made Des promise to keep Mara away, so that her daughter wouldn't put a hard-won life on hold to spend two years watching her mother die. Des kept the promise, and let his daughter hate him for it.
On the porch step, as the tide turns and starts back in, Mara admits she made him the villain because it was simpler than her own guilt. When forgiveness comes, it is a laugh neither of them saw coming.
When the agent's headlights swing into the yard, Mara does the one thing she knows how to do with something she loves and is losing. She points her microphone at her father and asks him to tell her one story about her mother. At nightfall she drives away with the house sold and his voice saved, playing it over her recording of the sea. She drives with the window down.
Look at what it chooses to show. Mara's job is in the first line because the ending depends on it. The midpoint (the beach) and the low point (the tape) get the most room. The dialogue is two short lines, each one a turning point. And the last paragraph puts her back on the coast road from the first, driving the other way.
How to write one
- Start from a logline and a beat sheet. Each beat on the beat sheet becomes a paragraph or two here.
- Write a paragraph for each beat or sequence. Say what happens, who wants what and what changes, and don't polish yet.
- Read it as a story, out loud if you can. Anywhere it drags, or anywhere you catch yourself explaining, is a place the film will struggle too.
- Give the key scenes room. The catalyst, the midpoint, the low point and the climax deserve detail: the images, a line of dialogue, how it feels.
- Cut to length. Summarise the scenes between the turning points in a sentence each.
Write in the present tense, with active verbs, and put a character's name in capitals the first time they appear. Keep paragraphs short enough to read easily. Act or sequence headings help a long treatment, and are usually left out of a short one.
In ScriptopusThe Treatment tab sits beside Synopsis and Beat Board in the same project. Write it as cards, one for each part of the story that you can drag into a new order, or as one long document, and switch between the two at any time. It exports as a clean PDF to send.
How it looks on the page
A treatment is not set like a screenplay. It is an ordinary document: a readable 12-point font, single spacing with a space between paragraphs, page numbers, and generous margins. Many writers set it in Courier to match the script; a clear serif or sans serif is just as acceptable.
Start with a cover page or a heading block: the title, "A treatment by" and your name, and your contact details. Then the logline, then the story. The template below is laid out this way.
Download the treatment template
A template with every part in place and a note in each on what it is for, and the Low Tide treatment above as a finished example.
The template
Cover, logline, characters and three acts, each with a short note.
The Low Tide treatment
The example on this page, as a page to print or keep beside your own.
Questions
Does a treatment include dialogue?
A little. A line or two at the moments where nothing else would do. A treatment full of dialogue is turning into a script.
Do I need a treatment if the script is already written?
Sometimes you will be asked for one anyway, because it takes a fraction of the time to read. Writing it can also show what a draft is missing.
Is a treatment the same for television?
Not quite. A series is usually sold with a series bible: the premise, the world, the characters and the stories of the first season. A single episode can have a short treatment of its own.
How long is a treatment for a short film?
One to three pages. The Low Tide example on this page runs to about a page and a half for a 12-page script, which is generous for a short; it keeps every scene the story turns on.
Can I register a treatment?
Your treatment is protected by copyright as soon as it is written. In the US, both the Copyright Office and the Writers Guild of America West Registry list treatments among the works they register, which gives you a dated record. The UK has no official register, so keep dated copies of each draft; some other European countries offer voluntary registration.
Sources and further reading
- Screen Australia, Story Documents: Drama (PDF), for the outline, treatment and scriptment and their lengths.
- Michael Brindley for Screen Australia, What Is a Synopsis? An Outline? A Treatment? (PDF).
- US Copyright Office, registering performing arts works, which lists screenplays and treatments.
- Writers Guild of America West, Registry.
Write it formatted from the first line
Scriptopus sets every line as you type, keeps the beat board and the treatment beside the script, and exports the PDF and Final Draft file you will need. The editor is free on Mac and Windows.
- Every element in its place, with Tab, Enter and Ctrl+1 to 6.
- Beat Board, Treatment and Synopsis in the same project as the script.
- Six title page layouts, Industry Standard first.
- PDF, Final Draft, Fountain and Celtx exports.