Six Things You Need To Know About Treatments
If you want to write for film or TV, then treatments, outlines, synopses (the terms are interchangeable in the industry) are something you have to get good at. And to write good treatments there are…
Search Results for: treatments
Three Tips for Writing Treatments
Writing a good, compelling, readable treatment is tough. It’s difficult enough to write a script – but then to boil the whole thing down from 90+ pages to one or two…! However it’s a crucial…
Want to enjoy writing treatments – find your voice
It’s true screenplays don’t offer a great variety of style or voice – but that doesn’t apply to treatments, synopses and outlines. There are far fewer style rules for such outlines of your story.
Write treatments with style
I’ve written before that good screenwriters often get tangled up writing treatments. One major reason is that they are simply using the wrong style.
Writing Treatments – Get Out Of First Gear
Treatments are essential both for developing and for marketing your scripts – and yet many good screenwriters fail to write good treatments. It took me a long time to realise why.
Sharp thoughts on books, film, crime and storytelling
LATEST ARTICLE Not the Oscars 2026 – Part Deux For the second time this year, we trip down the digital red carpet to deliver the final 7-12 of Not The Oscars 2026 – part deux.…
BESTSELLING NOVELS
Crime fiction – thrillers and satires Discover bestselling novels and original writing about crime, books and film. Get The Cupboard, my acclaimed book of short stories, plus a novella for free Explore Books Charles Harris…
How the gurus who teach “show don’t tell” could ruin your treatment
All screenwriting gurus teach “Show don’t tell” – it’s one of the few things they all agree on. How can it possibly be bad? And yet, what they don’t tell you is sticking to “show…
The biggest synopsis mistake that writers make
I see hundreds of treatments and synopses and most have clearly been slaved over by their writers, but there are still half a dozen major mistakes that sabotage them, no matter how good they are…
12 essentials for writing a film or TV treatment
Writing a treatment for a screen story is one of the most difficult forms of writing there is. I know, as a director and producer, as well as writer, I read hundreds, and most fall…
Four simple steps for writing a gripping treatment
Do you find it difficult to structure a treatmentso that it grips the reader as strongly as the full script? Join the club. I don’t think any writer enjoys distilling their exquisitely crafted scripts down…
Treatment writing tip: It’s not how much, it’s how little!
OK, let’s face it, it can be tough writing a good treatment, cramming all the important events in a 99-120 page screenplay into a fraction of that length. But the point of a treatment is…
How you can use not knowing to write better scripts
The strange realisation hit me the other day: the more I write, the less sure I become about all my theories about writing. One day, with luck, I’ll be sure about nothing at all. This…
Losing faith in your work?
Losing faith in your work happens to the best writers – and it can be lethal. The story starts to feel flat. The emotions false. The scenes mechanical. Soon you wonder what you even saw…
How to land a top star and the BBC with one treatment
Most people hate writing treatments. Not me, I love them. This is how I used a treatment to hook a top star comedian and the BBC in just five pages – and how you can…
How long should your treatment be?
I’ve been running my Exciting Treatments workshop for over ten years now, and one of the first questions I’m asked is alway, How long is a treatment supposed to be?
Get it rite, not written
Most people understand if a few typos or stylistic solecisms slip through in an email or (perish the thought) in a blog post. These are informal media. But a treatment or script is different. Unlike…
Recommended books for writers
A practical reading list for writers who want to own the craft. There are thousands of recommended books for writers, most for beginners, rather fewer for the more advanced. All aim to help writers, and…