User blog comment:DJay32/On Writing Synopses/@comment-1988716-20140125120643

Your jokes are all funny, but remember that a good synopsis conveys the theme and/or feel of the story accurately. Wizard of Oz would be "Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl embarks on a journey to get back home assisted by three strange characters who are seeking wholeness." Finding Nemo would be "A fish searches for his son across a dangerous ocean with the help of a quirky friend." The individual details, such as Dorothy accidentally killing someone in The Wizard of Oz, do not matter so much in a short cohesive synopsis. It's implied in both the synopses that Dorothy and Nemo's father (whose name escapes me) succeed in their adventures. If, say, a story does not end successfully, you account for that in the synopsis too. So if Finding Nemo ended in tragedy, a synopsis would read "A fish loses his son to the dangerous ocean and, assisted by a quirky friend, attempts in futility to get him back." Or something, depends on what how it'd be handled.

Like here, how about I synopsize Mulholland Drive? "An actress falls victim to the Hollywood system and her lover's twisted web of lies, so she dreams of a better life where all of her problems get catharsis." It doesn't quite follow the film in the order the information is shown, but it conveys the general theme of the great tragedy of Hollywood dreamers as portrayed in the film.

..heh. Y'know, synopses are actually really fun to write! How about the video game Braid? "A man comes to a standstill in his life and undergoes a mental journey to rethink his philosophies and approach his obsessions differently."

Ooh, and then let's try some music. Pink Floyd's The Wall: "A rock star breaks down as a result of his unstable life and seeks in futility to find judgement for his issues."

Genesis's The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway: "A New York gangster watches his world crumble away and journeys to detach from his misogynist distrustful ways and find enlightenment."

The Blues Brothers: "Fresh out of prison, a musician gets his band back together to raise money for the orphange where he was raised, only to make plenty more enemies along the way."

..okay so it's admittedly pretty tough to capture the exact feel of a story in a synopsis. But that's why articles have sentences like "X is a comedy blog" or something.