Everything You Need to Know About How to Write a Treatment

How long is a film treatment?

Whether you are writing a treatment for a feature film or short, it is important to keep your writing concise. Treatments are often used to pitch your concept to potential financiers and creative collaborators.

When you are trying to hold the attention of others with your treatment, it is best to keep it straight to the point. Your treatment should be presenting only the essential elements of your screenplay, and not every minor detail and character nuance. With that in mind, try to communicate your story in as few words as possible.

A feature film and a short film will have different lengths, so their respective treatments will be different as well. Below we have broken up the difference between feature film and short film treatments.

Feature film treatment

If you are writing a treatment for a feature film, try to keep it under ​10​ pages in length. There are examples of 30+ page treatments, but those are usually written under special request by a studio who is paying a writer to go into more detail.

Short film treatment

It should be no more than ​three ​pages long. If you can communicate your story in fewer pages, don’t be afraid of having an even shorter treatment. The more airtight your synopsis is, the better.

Is my concept a story?

If your concept is not communicating a story, no amount of rewriting will be able to fix it. A compelling story will show a significant change that happens to your protagonist from start to finish.

The protagonist, in one way or another, needs to end their old way of life and set out on a journey to begin a new one. This journey does not always have to be a physical one, it can be emotional or spiritual. Either way, the protagonist must change over the course of the film.

In a good story, the stakes do not always have to be high. However, there needs to be a catalyst for change and some form of pressure on your protagonist to act on that change.

How do you write a strong treatment?

Every treatment needs a coherent beginning, middle, and end. A proper treatment should have an overall theme that communicates the structure of your story. If you are unsure about what the theme of your story is, identify it in the resolution. The theme of the film should be clear in the story’s resolution.

The main idea of the plot and its theme should be evident to every reader. To make sure your concept makes sense, send your treatment around to your friends or colleagues to get some constructive criticism. Getting a second pair of eyes on your film treatment can only give you a new perspective on your story and can open new doors for you.

The main problem when writing a treatment is that most ideas are stating facts that are happening to a character, not communicating a story. An example of a fact is the sentence: “I have x amount of money in the bank”. An example of a story is the sentence: “I have x amount of money in the bank, and I wish that was different because I am scared I will not have enough in the future.”

Make sure that your concept brings your protagonist on a journey that changes them.

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