Also known as story treatment
A present-tense prose summary of the story — usually a few to several pages — used to pitch and develop before a full script exists.
A treatment earns its pages by making causality obvious: each turn should force the next, not merely list events in order. Readers should feel why the protagonist cannot go home after the mid-story blow, and why the ending is the only honest landing for the premise you are selling today.
Write in present tense and favor visual cause over interior essay. If a paragraph only works as novel psychology, translate it into behavior and consequence on the page. Tone can live in word choice, but the job is still story logic a buyer can follow without reading the full script first.
Keep the treatment close to the screenplay work — a linked Plot project for a longer packet, or an early draft line before pages exist. When notes kill a turn, update the treatment before you polish dialogue -- a pretty line will not rescue a broken causal chain, and mismatched packets waste meetings you cannot get back.
Yes for development and most buyer asks. They are testing whether Act Three works, not whether you can tease. Hide-the-ending treatments waste the read.
No. A treatment is usually richer development prose. A synopsis is a shorter complete plot report optimized for coverage and applications.
When the major turns and ending hold under cold questions. If you are still inventing the midpoint every draft, keep treating -- pages will only freeze the confusion.
Beside the screenplay in Plot, not stranded in a separate drive. Named save points help you keep the version that sold the room while you revise.
