Question
examples of a synopsis
Answers
GPT-5 mini
Here are several concise synopsis examples for different contexts (each gives a one-line logline and a short paragraph synopsis). Use the tone and length appropriate to your submission: agents usually want 1–2 pages with spoilers; query letters want a 1–3 sentence logline + short hook without full resolution.
1) Fiction — literary mystery
Logline: When a reclusive mapmaker’s granddaughter returns to their dying coastal town, she must untangle a decades-old disappearance that ties the town’s maps to a hidden crime.
Synopsis: Clara Hale returns to Greyhaven to nurse her ailing grandfather and discovers a gap in his atlas where a street should be. Digging through his journals, she finds references to a missing teenager and a map that changes every night. As Clara confronts townspeople who prefer old secrets, she pieces together the truth: her grandfather covered up a fatal accident to protect the local elite. Clara publishes the map online, forcing the town to reckon with its past, reconciles with a brother she’d estranged, and leaves Greyhaven determined to rebuild her own life away from silence.
2) Genre — crime thriller
Logline: An ex-cop with memory loss races to stop a serial killer who is rewriting his past — and a trail of bodies confirms the murderer knows every secret he’s lost.
Synopsis: After a head injury erases three years of his life, Jonah Reyes scrambles to piece together who he was. Clues lead him to a string of victims linked to an undercover operation he once led; each crime scene contains a personal memento. As Jonah recovers fragments, he realizes the killer is an informant he betrayed. In a final confrontation at the abandoned train yard, Jonah exposes the killer and accepts responsibility for past corruption, choosing prison over silence to finally atone.
3) Film — romantic comedy
Logline: Two rival food-truck owners are forced to share a prime city block for the summer and find that competition tastes suspiciously like attraction.
Synopsis: Maya and Ben battle for business and customer hearts when zoning changes require food trucks to rotate locations. Their sabotage escalates from prank pies to local-food-festival sabotage until, while co-running a charity dinner, they see how well their menus and lives actually blend. After a public fallout, Maya considers selling her truck; Ben intervenes publicly, admitting he can’t imagine the block without her. They team up, combining cuisines and romance, and win the festival — and a long-term vendor permit — together.
4) Nonfiction book
Logline: A practical guide showing how slow, iterative growth strategies outperform fast-scaling myths for most startups.
Synopsis: The Slow Startup argues that sustainable, customer-driven growth reduces risk and increases long-term success. Drawing on interviews with 50 founders and case studies across tech, retail, and services, the book outlines a three-stage approach: validate, stabilize, and scale; provides frameworks for unit economics and hiring; and debunks common VC-driven myths. The final chapters show how to craft a five-year plan that preserves mission while delivering profitability, making the book a playbook for founders who want durable companies rather than quick exits.
5) Master’s thesis (short)
Logline: An empirical assessment of how urban tree canopy affects summer energy consumption in mid-sized cities.
Synopsis: This thesis analyzes energy billing and satellite canopy data from 2015–2020 across 12 mid-sized cities to quantify the cooling benefits of urban trees. Using difference-in-differences and spatial regression, the study finds that neighborhoods with a 10% higher canopy cover experience a 6% reduction in residential summer electricity use. The results support municipal investments in tree planting as a cost-effective strategy to reduce peak load and emissions.
6) Research article (scientific)
Logline: A randomized trial testing whether a mobile app improves medication adherence in hypertensive adults.
Synopsis: In a 12-week RCT (n=300), participants randomized to the adherence app showed a 20% higher pill-taking rate and a 4 mmHg greater reduction in systolic blood pressure compared with controls. The app’s reminders, real-time feedback, and clinician alerts appear responsible for improved outcomes. Limitations include short follow-up and self-reported adherence; further study should evaluate long-term cardiovascular endpoints.
7) Business project proposal
Logline: Retrofit 20 municipal buildings with green roofs to reduce stormwater runoff and cooling costs over five years.
Synopsis: The GreenRoof Initiative will install modular green roofs on 20 city buildings at a cost of $2.1M, funded by a mix of municipal bonds and a state resilience grant. Expected outcomes: 30% reduction in peak stormwater runoff, estimated $120K/year energy savings, and a 7–10 year payback. The project phases include feasibility assessment (3 months), pilot installation on two sites (6 months), and citywide rollout (2 years), with measurable KPIs and community engagement events. Implementation will create local green-jobs training opportunities and meet upcoming regulatory requirements for stormwater management.
8) TV pilot (hour-long drama)
Logline: A recently demoted FBI profiler takes a desk job in a small town — until a string of copycat murders pulls him back into the field and into a network of local secrets.
Synopsis: In episode one, Caleb Mercer arrives in Riverbend to teach criminology after a public mistake. When a body matching the calling-card of a serial killer he once hunted is found, Caleb is pulled into the investigation despite supervision. He discovers the dead woman was connected to town leaders and an old case that Caleb failed to close. By the end of the pilot, Caleb apprehends a suspect who is only a pawn; the real mastermind remains at large, setting up a season arc in which Caleb must rebuild his reputation and expose corruption while wrestling with his own demons.
Quick tips
- For fiction use present tense, third person, and include the ending if submitting to an agent/publisher.
- Keep nonfiction focused on thesis, methods, results, and contribution.
- Length: 1–2 sentences for a logline, 1 paragraph (3–6 sentences) for a short synopsis, 1–2 pages for a full synopsis with all major beats.
- State the protagonist, inciting incident, main conflict, stakes, and resolution.
If you tell me what type of project you need a synopsis for (novel, film, thesis, grant, etc.) and a few plot points or facts, I can draft a tailored synopsis.
1) Fiction — literary mystery
Logline: When a reclusive mapmaker’s granddaughter returns to their dying coastal town, she must untangle a decades-old disappearance that ties the town’s maps to a hidden crime.
Synopsis: Clara Hale returns to Greyhaven to nurse her ailing grandfather and discovers a gap in his atlas where a street should be. Digging through his journals, she finds references to a missing teenager and a map that changes every night. As Clara confronts townspeople who prefer old secrets, she pieces together the truth: her grandfather covered up a fatal accident to protect the local elite. Clara publishes the map online, forcing the town to reckon with its past, reconciles with a brother she’d estranged, and leaves Greyhaven determined to rebuild her own life away from silence.
2) Genre — crime thriller
Logline: An ex-cop with memory loss races to stop a serial killer who is rewriting his past — and a trail of bodies confirms the murderer knows every secret he’s lost.
Synopsis: After a head injury erases three years of his life, Jonah Reyes scrambles to piece together who he was. Clues lead him to a string of victims linked to an undercover operation he once led; each crime scene contains a personal memento. As Jonah recovers fragments, he realizes the killer is an informant he betrayed. In a final confrontation at the abandoned train yard, Jonah exposes the killer and accepts responsibility for past corruption, choosing prison over silence to finally atone.
3) Film — romantic comedy
Logline: Two rival food-truck owners are forced to share a prime city block for the summer and find that competition tastes suspiciously like attraction.
Synopsis: Maya and Ben battle for business and customer hearts when zoning changes require food trucks to rotate locations. Their sabotage escalates from prank pies to local-food-festival sabotage until, while co-running a charity dinner, they see how well their menus and lives actually blend. After a public fallout, Maya considers selling her truck; Ben intervenes publicly, admitting he can’t imagine the block without her. They team up, combining cuisines and romance, and win the festival — and a long-term vendor permit — together.
4) Nonfiction book
Logline: A practical guide showing how slow, iterative growth strategies outperform fast-scaling myths for most startups.
Synopsis: The Slow Startup argues that sustainable, customer-driven growth reduces risk and increases long-term success. Drawing on interviews with 50 founders and case studies across tech, retail, and services, the book outlines a three-stage approach: validate, stabilize, and scale; provides frameworks for unit economics and hiring; and debunks common VC-driven myths. The final chapters show how to craft a five-year plan that preserves mission while delivering profitability, making the book a playbook for founders who want durable companies rather than quick exits.
5) Master’s thesis (short)
Logline: An empirical assessment of how urban tree canopy affects summer energy consumption in mid-sized cities.
Synopsis: This thesis analyzes energy billing and satellite canopy data from 2015–2020 across 12 mid-sized cities to quantify the cooling benefits of urban trees. Using difference-in-differences and spatial regression, the study finds that neighborhoods with a 10% higher canopy cover experience a 6% reduction in residential summer electricity use. The results support municipal investments in tree planting as a cost-effective strategy to reduce peak load and emissions.
6) Research article (scientific)
Logline: A randomized trial testing whether a mobile app improves medication adherence in hypertensive adults.
Synopsis: In a 12-week RCT (n=300), participants randomized to the adherence app showed a 20% higher pill-taking rate and a 4 mmHg greater reduction in systolic blood pressure compared with controls. The app’s reminders, real-time feedback, and clinician alerts appear responsible for improved outcomes. Limitations include short follow-up and self-reported adherence; further study should evaluate long-term cardiovascular endpoints.
7) Business project proposal
Logline: Retrofit 20 municipal buildings with green roofs to reduce stormwater runoff and cooling costs over five years.
Synopsis: The GreenRoof Initiative will install modular green roofs on 20 city buildings at a cost of $2.1M, funded by a mix of municipal bonds and a state resilience grant. Expected outcomes: 30% reduction in peak stormwater runoff, estimated $120K/year energy savings, and a 7–10 year payback. The project phases include feasibility assessment (3 months), pilot installation on two sites (6 months), and citywide rollout (2 years), with measurable KPIs and community engagement events. Implementation will create local green-jobs training opportunities and meet upcoming regulatory requirements for stormwater management.
8) TV pilot (hour-long drama)
Logline: A recently demoted FBI profiler takes a desk job in a small town — until a string of copycat murders pulls him back into the field and into a network of local secrets.
Synopsis: In episode one, Caleb Mercer arrives in Riverbend to teach criminology after a public mistake. When a body matching the calling-card of a serial killer he once hunted is found, Caleb is pulled into the investigation despite supervision. He discovers the dead woman was connected to town leaders and an old case that Caleb failed to close. By the end of the pilot, Caleb apprehends a suspect who is only a pawn; the real mastermind remains at large, setting up a season arc in which Caleb must rebuild his reputation and expose corruption while wrestling with his own demons.
Quick tips
- For fiction use present tense, third person, and include the ending if submitting to an agent/publisher.
- Keep nonfiction focused on thesis, methods, results, and contribution.
- Length: 1–2 sentences for a logline, 1 paragraph (3–6 sentences) for a short synopsis, 1–2 pages for a full synopsis with all major beats.
- State the protagonist, inciting incident, main conflict, stakes, and resolution.
If you tell me what type of project you need a synopsis for (novel, film, thesis, grant, etc.) and a few plot points or facts, I can draft a tailored synopsis.