Creative writing works when the writing creates. The act of writing to invent character and narrative is the most powerful way to make an original story. So if writing, in and of itself, is a highly effective way to develop a successful script, why are we told to plan what we will write before we ever start actually writing?
Scriptwriters are often advised to make an outline of their script before they start writing. They are encouraged to follow a formula which will ensure their script will be well-received by the marketplace. If a writer has no experience, they are directed to take classes, read books, listen to podcasts, watch videos and hire script consultants to learn how to prepare and write their script.
This advice scares writers and often gives them their first taste of anxiety around the process of writing a script. Writers are told you can’t simply start typing and telling a story inspired by an idea that they love. This damages their faith in their natural ability in storytelling. Suddenly, there is a right way and a wrong way.
There Are No Rules In Writing A Script
Anyone who tells you there’s a certain way to write a script is wrong. There is no one way to do it. Some people tell all new writers to use an outline before they start. Others encourage you to read a book and follow a formula——-you can find several spelled out in books on Amazon. Are they wrong?
No. You can follow their suggestions and will most likely be able to complete a script. Is it your best effort? I don’t think so. Why is that?
A Different Place
Writing a treatment, a beat sheet, an outline—-even stack of notecards—-comes from a different part of your heart and mind. It’s you thinking ahead to what will happen in your story. It’s a projection of how the story will play in the future when you sit down to write it.
When you write a scene, when you describe a character taking an action or express the dialogue between people in your story, you are in the moment of the story. It’s happening to you right at the very time it’s present for your characters. And in this moment, you are living it. You’re there.
When we are in the moment, we are closest to the truth of our story. We are tied to our emotional memory. We are writing directly from our own lives.
When we write from the truth, we become more original. Our stories taken on different paths compared to what we had in our plans. Writing a script takes on a life of its own.
Try working on an outline and then write a scene. You’re still writing words on the page, but it doesn’t feel the same. It comes from a different place in your body.
Writing Is Not Hard—-It’s Hard Work
So you’ve sat down to write a script without a plan and the story goes in all sorts of directions. You create new characters, a lot more than you imagined when you discovered your idea and started to write the script. You’ve come up with so many twists and turns and your script is alive with the unexpected.
But it’s also a mess, because it’s a rough draft, and you’ve launched every idea in your head onto the page in some form or another. You don’t have an ending, you don’t know where it’s going, you’ve written yourself into a corner.
So what. Whatever time you saved by planning the hell out of script has been surpassed by the wonderful elements you found while you were writing your script. Take those wonderful things, sit down with another blank page, and begin to rewrite.
The fastest way to a successful script is taking longer to write it. Don’t shy away from rewriting your script. Don’t fear the labor of writing. You wanted to be a writer. Why micromanage an outline to death to ensure you write as little as possible?
You want to write efficiently and fast? Go ahead and create your story from your plans, and your script will awkwardly contain the story you chose before you ever wrote a word.
But sit down with the white space before you, and discover your script when you write, and the gold you will find will reward you for all the pages it took to get there!
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I am currently working on a screenplay. Recently I joined a group and today I deleted my work from their site because they wanted me to write it using their programmed guidelines. Their reason being ALL screenplays have to follow a set of guidelines. I have one question: what is to prevent your company from taking submitted screenplays and giving them to a well known director or producer? I am using one of my own books,”Rosewood The Early Years” as a guide for my screenplay. Can I submit only one part of the screenplay to get a feel of how it will be accepted?
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Do both. Write the whole dern outline b/c executives will want to see that first. Writing it as a general prose piece also forces you to connect the character’s actions:
“Bill shoots the criminal. Freaked out yet knowing he had to protect himself, he goes to cops . The Detective, sensing his innocence yet obligated to be investigate, ask him a bunch of thorough questions. Overly sensitive Bill goes on the defensive. The Detective keeps his calm. He knows how people react.”
If I hadn’t outlined this, I’d still be able to write the shooting scene and showing the aftermath. But I might not be able to figure out the nuance of Bill’s emotions. Or what would happen next.
Regardless I now write the scene and let it unfold in the moment. Doing so, I suddenly imagine Bill calling a family member or trusted friend – not going to the cops. So I got back to the outline and revise:
“In a panic and unable to comprehend what he should do, Bill calls his sister Mary b/c she’s always able to calm him and is a lawyer. Since she’s a lawyer and knows her shit, Mary tells him to stay put. She wants to get more details and decide to do what’s next. After having heard the details and since she’s a lawyer, she knows he has to go to authorities but to keep him safe, she goes with him (as his lawyer).”
Now I’ve shifted from the outline but detailing the actions and motivations with “since” and “because” + “he decides” I’m hitting on character motivations which drive the action. Every character has makes a series of decisions. Isn’t that what life is all about? So keep tabs on that.
Okay, I write the scene, open to the moment. So I drop Mary and Bill into the office. When the detective arrives, I realize the detective gonna approach the situation totally different with him having brought in a lawyer off the bat.
As you can see, I’m outlining yet getting into the moment – keeping it fun and real but not writing myself into a corner b/c the outline is shifting but not going off the rails. On top of that, I’m going scene by scene so I don’t write 3 extraneous scenes that fall short.
A push and pull. If I’m not open to the moment, I send Bill to the cops without having brought his sister into the story. But what if I write the cop/sister interaction and it gets boring or goes stale and I want just him and the detective. back to the outline.
“Bill calls his sister. She doesn’t answer. Bill calls his best friend Tony. No answer. Bill tries to think of someone else to call. But since he can’t think of anyone and he’s worried someone else will come onto the scene, he forces himself to go the cops.”
Now this approach isn’t for everyone. But it’s a balance if you’re struggling – like keeping on top of your bank account daily so you don’t go wild with your budget.
Some of my thoughts. Feel free to disregard. I’ve never sold a screenplay.
Well put – serendipitous happenings are the stuff of life so they should be in stories too.
Even more weirdness happens when you share the writing.
Thank you!
No. Write the book.
Then the script will write itself.
Give it a try!
Exactly. I wrote a screenplay first, then wrote the book. Then rewrote the screenplay with major revisions. The book is a true crime story about my mother – a family memoir with a big fa t crime story stuck in the middle.
I love this.
I always thought it was a problem, specific to me. Every time I plan and write I actually end up shelving the idea simply because of lose of attachment to the original story and its flow. I love to just draw the picture in my head, then sit down and write only keeping in mind; how the script should end and maybe a few turning points.
This has helped me do a lot of my work.
Pleased that you put creativity at the heart of the writing process. It’s the bit ‘structuralists’ gloss over. I’ve tried the ‘structuralist’ approach and what it does is turn your idea into a formula and everything turns out feeling the same. For me, writing is an adventure. That’s the emotional energy I get. If I start off trying to fit a story into a structure I quickly lose enthusiasm and energy. Might as well be an accountant.
Ha, ha yes!!! Structure is needed but in later stages. Much more fun baking a cake without scales don’t you think? 🙂
i have a software, before that i had a notebook and a pen. so i’d go out and watched people and ideas would flow, then i’d work my story into the script software. i just got divorced, and then got hit in a car. so in order to finance myself i wrote… i wrote so many scripts but haven’t sold. um sighs, i don’t use blueprint or sheets, that for me comes later, it stops my writing, and my flow of ideas. i don’t write as much because i haven’t sold, and someone is using my electrity. i feel electrity as i write, therefore i became a bum, thin bum. just write. use all that stuff later.
Richard S. I’ve got to agree with your observation. Years ago, I paid strict attention to the structural approach of writing and wrote a lot of carefully parsed, unreal junk that was stiff as a plank and just about as interesting.
I now let it flow – basing my characters on people I’ve known, observed, disliked and loved in my life. I write and let it flow. The results? I really like the work. It’s a road trip for me, not worrying about driving without a map but very aware of wrong turns and schleppy stories in my story line. RT.
I once had a friend who decided to learn how to swim from a book. I’d love to read some of his stories.
I’m a playwright attempting to make that transition to screenwriting and I can say the two are not alike. We playwrights focus in creating a exciting dialogue to captivate our audience whereas the action appears to carry the audience in screenwriting, both strive for the same achievement which is winning the audience heart. I have never used an outline in writing plays, I simply see each step in my mind, i only write a synopsis of my main characters. Now i wonder if i should use the technique of an outline vs imagery? I wonder if the majority of screenwriters use a set format? Is it a right way or is it okay to take a left and get the same results? I’m learning as I’m writing but would it make more sense to follow what the norm do or just take a class?
I would write a story. Then I’d write the synopsis of the story. When I discovered they would match each other i’d have a winner.
Winner? Did you sell, get an option agreement or win major, notable competitions?
Thank you for this article. It took me back to a time I wrote a play from some unseen muse, which led to a story that was developed in a weekend of nonstop writing. I shared it with an English professor, friend and confidant, who had me rewrite it 13 times before it was truly dimensional. I have many ideas and can visualize the scene, but have read the need to format in a certain way and the need for a special program I can’t afford that I have not just written from my heart. This gave me the desire to pick up the pen.
I find that my story expands, contracts and changes direction over the course of writing it. I take long walks with my dog and mentally think through things and have revelations that I have paper to write down because I’d otherwise forget them. I think a plan is a good start but only at an extremely high level and open to significant change.
Pfft! I have NEVER used an outline. Ever. If you give a writer one word and they can sit down and create a whole world around it then you’ve got something.
I write the logline first(heart of the story). To get ideas I observed life around me…My characters are names from people I met along my Journey. I write by hand better than typing, then I type it after.
“Writing a treatment . . . comes from a different part of your heart and mind.”
Absolutely. Carl Jung said, “In each of us there is Anʘther, whom we do not know. He speaks to us in dreams and tells us how we look to him…”
I see a lot of comments, turning noses up at pre-planning story, but I am not reading anything about any of these people the scripts sold, optioned or winning the major screenwriting competitions.
Let me know when and how you get it past the script reader who is conditioned to look for the hook and related segments of an outline.
If it’s good those moments will be there- structural “rules” come from recognizing the elements that exist in every story. The problem is trying to start with those moments instead of coming to them organically through the process of writing.
I’m an amateur playwright who is trying to turn my current play into a screenplay. looking forward to finding a mentor to help me through the process.
I’m also a part time blogger.
There are a number of writing communities, even local to you, that could help support you!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
There Are No Rules In Writing A Script
How refreshing – almost in tears – to read these words. Until now, unfortunately, I’ve heard nothing but, “prepare to be rejected if you don’t abide by the formula”. No one will be interested. You have to write for what’s trending, or for a specific genre. On the contrary, I could not agree more with your article. When I write, I’m simply the instrument that lets the story reel in my internal screen. I go on autopilot – all but my hand which does the writing.
Almost everything in this article was incorrect and terrible advice. Planning a script, in whatever way a writer chooses to do it, IS a creative act. Great painters don’t just throw paint at a canvas then try to see if they can make sense of it. Composers at some point need to acknowledge the rules that govern music. Even revolutionaries like Stravinsky or Picasso had a plan. It’s the same with screenwriting. Within certain storytelling strictures, anything goes. But if you ignore those guidelines completely then you are not a serious professional screenwriter and your work will never get produced.
The other ridiculous comment in this article is that rules and guidelines scare writers. According to whom? The reason books and classes on screenwriting are so popular is that writers are hungry for knowledge about their craft. Someone who has chosen to devote their life to a complicated art like screenwriting recognizes that the better informed they are, the more tools they will have at their disposal. A writer may choose to ignore a rule or bend it but, to have success, he or she must first know what those rules are.
Finally, the writer of this article assumes that writing a treatment or outline is a shortcut that gets the work done quicker but not better. Again, according to whom? Is there evidence that this statement is true? For everyone? Impossible! Plus, while the question of whether writing a treatment actually saves time might be true or not (writing a workable treatment could itself take months), wouldn’t that be a good thing? Time saving strategies that don’t compromise quality, if they can be found, should be part of a writer’s process. A professional writer owes it to him or herself to explore those options fully.
Frankly, I expected something a bit more cogent from a distinguished organization like Blue Cat.
Outlines are for after it is written– for me. Analytical mind sets in for outline and laptop typing. Creative mind needs paper and free flow of ideas.
Love the article! I always start with a character or characters, put them in a crazy situation and then let them go. I never know where they’re going to take it. I like the idea that the story comes from the heart, not a template or outline, but in my case it comes from my people. I enjoy the hell out of watching my people bumble around. To make it interesting I’ll move the furniture around and see what they do. Writing is so much fun!
This is so true. the scripts I’ve written without outlining, just going with the characters wishes, are so much better. which also means those written solo are better than the more well planned collaborative scripts.
I do a blend of both methods. After I get an idea, I decide on the genre, a location(s), time frame, and the protagonist and his goal. I’ll do research as I go along (my favorite part), but then I am off and running.
I think it’s important to learn structure and how to write a well-structured story using an outline. Then, by all means, break the rules and write from the heart or the mind or whatever creative energy that speaks through you. I think you will intuitively realize as you are writing and, especially when you get to rewriting, what works and what doesn’t and the structure will begin to emerge.
I have a real problem with structure, and I am still trying to grasp its tendrils. I am basically a pantzer, but have converted to the dark side. I do outlines, take courses and write scripts inside the dismal swamp of structure. Sometimes, I find something kin to it; until the writing leads the way, but I’ve been critiqued as missing the theme on page 5 where it’s supposed to camp. There’s been some complaints I’ve left behind the second act on page 25 where it’s supposed to shelter. It takes a lot of surgery, (and it pays to know anatomy,) but the story suffers. You do whatever you can to jump rope with those supposedly in the know…