How to write for Twine Club

Write it yourself, from having watched the film. No AI tools: readers can tell, and it breaks the one promise we make.

The job of a synopsis

Make one person, on a phone, at 9pm, decide in under ten seconds whether this is tonight's film — and leave them glad they picked it two hours later. It must be irresistible and honest at the same time: overselling wins the tap and loses the evening, and the "Did it match?" score.

Length and shape

• 30–45 words, hard cap 50. Three or four lines on a phone; a 6–12 second read. (Judgement call — to be tested.)
• 2–4 sentences. None over 20 words. At least one under 8 words, so the rhythm sounds like a person.
• Present tense, third person. "You" only for how it will feel to watch.

The three beats

1. Person and picture. Who, defined by one behaviour, job or habit — never a name — in one situation you can see. Concreteness is the strongest single predictor of interest.
2. The turn and the stakes. What goes wrong or what they want, and what it costs. Best as a contradiction: the situation attacks exactly what defines the person. Curiosity peaks when the reader half-knows.
3. The felt promise. How the evening will feel and how strongly — laugh, grip, ache, or a stated mix — plus an honest pace cue if it is slow or talky. People choose films for how they will feel; overselling lowers satisfaction.

Beats 2 and 3 can share a sentence. Beat 3 can come first (Shape C).

Give and withhold

Give: the opening situation (about the first fifth of the film), the contradiction, the stakes, tone, pace, and the emotional category of the ending if it matters ("it will make you cry" is fine; "it ends happily" is not).

Withhold: everything past the inciting incident; the route (how it gets there — process spoilers hurt most); twists; who survives or ends up together; famous scenes and quotes; names, places (including nicknames), eras, title words; genre labels used as labels.

The test: a reader can say what kind of film it is and what the problem is, but not how it resolves.

Voice

One specific person telling a friend about a film they loved. Plain verbs, common words, UK spelling. Concrete about behaviour and objects, never proper nouns ("he irons the tea towels", not "a Bristol flat in 1987"). Confident, never a promise the film can't keep.

Banned (they read as ad copy or machine-written, and kill the trust the byline buys)

• Adjective threes: "Warm, funny and painfully unfair."
• Morals and slogans as closers: "Kindness travels further than you think."
• "It's not X. It's Y." / "Not just X, but Y." / "No heroes, no rescue, no way back."
• Clickbait pointers: "one secret", "what happens next", "everything changes", "until one day".
• Rhetorical questions, colon reveals, exclamation marks, em dashes.
• Stand-in words — replace each with the fact it hides: journey, explores, a meditation on, love letter, poignant, haunting, tender, quietly devastating, heart-warming, life-affirming, upended, must confront, unravel, navigate, against all odds, in a world, masterpiece, unforgettable.

Four shapes (rotate — a week of one shape reads templated)

• A · The contradiction: [Person defined by one trait]. [Situation that attacks that trait]. [Felt promise]. — comedies, character dramas, unlikely heroes.
• B · The clock: [Who] has [fixed time or chance] to [concrete goal]. [Complication from their own character]. [Feel or pace]. — thrillers, heists, near-miss romances, sport.
• C · The feeling first: [What watching feels like, as "you"]. [The situation that causes it]. — mood films, "sad but worth it". Use sparingly.
• D · The one detail: [One concrete object or habit]. [Widen to the situation]. [Stakes or feel]. — quiet, slow or art-house films a plot summary would undersell.

Worked example

Before (21 words, all abstract, two banned patterns):

A small, decent life is upended by one wrong accusation. Warm, funny and painfully unfair. Kindness travels further than you think.

After (Shape A, 43 words):

The politest resident on his street never locks his door. Then he is jailed for a theft he didn't commit, among men nobody has thanked in years. He is kind to them anyway. Funny, and unfair enough to make you furious for him.

Every detail in a real synopsis must be true of the film, and it must pass the guess test below.

Editor's checklist

Approve only if every must is yes. Two or more should failures: send it back with a note.

Must

1. 30–50 words; no sentence over 20 words.
2. No names, places or nicknames, eras, title words, famous set-pieces or quotes.
3. Nothing past the inciting incident: no twist, route or outcome (an emotional category is fine).
4. A second person who knows the film, shown it cold, wouldn't call it instantly; live guess rate stays under 25%.
5. Every detail is true of the film.
6. Honest about tone and pace — nobody who loved the synopsis feels misled at minute 20.
7. None of the banned patterns.

Should

8. Can you picture the opening situation?
9. Is there a contradiction, deadline or open question you want answered?
10. Are the stakes plain?
11. Could a reader say how it will feel, and how strongly?
12. Swap test: could this sentence describe twenty other films? If so, add a detail only this film has.
13. Read aloud: a person recommending a film, or a poster?
14. Uneven rhythm: one short sentence, sentences not all the same shape.
15. Different shape from the last few in the queue.

How writers are judged

On the "Did the synopsis match the film?" score and the guess rate — never on how many people tapped "Tell me" or pressed Play. A synopsis that sells a film it isn't fails, however many taps it gets.