Question about writing a treatment..

[DoubleIT]

I am working on a treatment for my next feature (First time ever doing a treatment - trying to work on my process so that I actually finish the features I start). I am getting hung up on diaglouge. Its obviously important to the story, but I'm not sure how i should be doing it in a treatment. Im guessing there shouldnt be a tone of it, but im confused as to how i get the points across that need to come across in diag? And then i get stuck trying to get good diag. How should I do this?

[StephieM]

When I write my treatments out I normally don't use dialogue unless something comes to mind and I don't want to forget it. I concentrate mainly on getting my story out, making sure my story is going somewhere, that it makes sense, that the scenes move forward, and my turning points are clear. Later when I do my index cards, (a layout of all my scenes), I might add a few lines of dialogue here or there.

My treatment are about 6 pages long.

One page for the opening and the "hook".
One page describing the action of Act 1
One page for the first turning point.
One page for the actions leading to the middle point.
One page for the actions leading to the second turning point.
One page for the ending.

But everyone has a different way of doing it. I try to limit myself otherwise I'd probally end up with more pages than my script. :)

If I do add dialogue to my treatment, I just write it. It's not in any particular form.

For EX:
Karen comes home from work and enters the kitchen. "What the heck is this mess?" She walks over to the table. Blah, Blah, Blah.

Remember no one is going to see the treatment but you. Do what ever is comfortable for you.

Steph

[NikeeGoddess]

yeah, there's no dialogue in a treatment. a treatment is just a tool so there's no right or wrong way really. it's like an exhaustive outline that tells step by step your entire story. it's easier than writing the script because you are not bound by strict format guidelines and you can be more descriptive and explanative than you can in action lines.

check this out:

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