Methods behind your madness

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absolutewrite

How do you typically write a screenplay?

Do you outline and write detailed character sketches, letting it all simmer in your mind before starting the script?

Write by the seat of your pants and get the first draft down in two weeks?

Jot down a few notes here and there, then write the first draft slowly?

Or...?
 

TonyRob

Heavy brainstorming, researching, outlining, character work and general procrastination, followed by a disgorgement of my id onto blank sheets of paper, followed by heavy rewriting and polishing.


Not always in that order.






(okay, it's always in that order... so far)
 

Hamboogul

Okay, I'll step out of my fuzzy, naive persona to answer this honestly.

How do you typically write a screenplay?

- I write the first draft. Throw it away. Then I write another draft. Throw it away. By the third "first" draft, I feel that I know the characters pretty well. My current "first draft" took 1100 new pages to get it to a crispy 116 pages.

Do you outline and write detailed character sketches, letting it all simmer in your mind before starting the script?

- I tried the outline method. But the moment I start writing, I find that my characters don't cooperate with the outline. So I kinda stopped doing that.

Write by the seat of your pants and get the first draft down in two weeks?

- I wrote one script in two weeks. It was very rushed and I didn't really know what I was doing. The script turned out pretty well. And three years later, after going through various revisions, I find that the original draft holds up pretty well.


Jot down a few notes here and there, then write the first draft slowly?

- Now my inner critic doesn't seem to allow me to just write for the heck of writing. I used to be able to crank out 10 pages a day and, you know what, those pages were 90 percent there. But now I'm so fearful that my pages aren't at 95 percen or 99 percent that I cannot write as prolifically. But the resulting pages are, at best, 91 percent, let's say. Also, now that I have an agent and producers looking over my shoulder, it's very hard for me to not second guess if they would like what I'm writing.

So in a way, I miss the days when I didn't know what I was doing and didn't have an agent.
 

TonyRob

That post was 87.754% there. Scrap it and start over.

;)


(btw, I was wondering when you'd fess up, you dork :lol )
 

maestrowork

I write my screenplay almost the same way I write my novels. One scene at a time.
 

A Pathetic Writer

I usually just write and hope it all makes sense when I finish at the end of the weekend.
 

scripter1

Wow Ham!! We have something in common. I never would have guessed you wrote this way. I always took you for a very careful planner and outliner.
Don't know why, just an assumption I made.

I write what ever pops into my head. It usually comes out all right but I've learned that it needs to be refined. Some things should be toned down and other things need to be amped up.

I usually ponder on ideas for a little while, talk them over with friends, get their input and take and then just wait until the words hit me. I carry index cards in my purse and jot down things from time. Sometimes a totally new idea will hit me, I'll sit bolt upright in bed at 1 in the morning, rush to the computer in my underwear (I'll let you guys imagine what ever you want just to keep it fun) and write until I run out of words. Sometimes 10 or 15 pages at a time.

When an idea occurs to me I usually have a beginning and an end. Then I just think about things that could happen between point A and Z.
I get a first draft done, sense that it's lacking something, and then go back and change it. It's sometimes easy to realize what that missing thing is (peer feedback helps quite a bit) but it's often very hard to plug the solution into the existing script without rewriting a whole bunch of pages which I hate to do. I get very attached to my words.

It's a very painful process, loads of harsh rewrites and cutting. Wouldn't recommend it but I can't stand the constraints of outlining.
I'm the jump in with both feet and damn the depth kind of gal.

One of these days I'm gonna end up breaking my ankles or my neck. :(
 

absolutewrite

Tony: your last line-- :ha

Ham: Do you seriously throw away your first two drafts?? That takes an amazing amount of self-discipline! Can you still manage that if you're on deadline?

Even when I do a page-1 rewrite, I'm still working from the original draft. I sometimes print out the pages, then open a blank document and start again-- but the previous pages are still there for me to draw from.

All my scripts came out in a crazy frenzy. One literally took me four or five days to write-- no sleep, often forgetting meals and showers. Rarely do I spend more than a month on a first draft.

The rewriting, however... now that's an ugly, long process for me. I don't think I have a single script that I'm 100% happy with, even today. I just hit a point where I have to quit tinkering or I'll never move on. A year or two later, I change my mind on every script, decide it's an embarrassment to the craft and wasn't ready to show, and rewrite it again. I cherish feedback, too. My manager has a great sense of pacing, and I have several fellow writers who I can turn to when the work's pretty formed but not fully functional yet. (Or, at least, all of this was true a few years ago when I wrote my last script.)

I like to do minimal outlines and sketches, but I try NOT to outline the end because it takes away most of the excitement for me. Half the reason I write fiction is so I can find out how it ends.

Some of my best ideas came from doodles in classes.
 

Hamboogul

jenna,

i don't mean to throw away my first drafts. i earnestly believe that the draft that i'm writing is the best possible. but then when i get to the ending, i discover that the themes i had intended when i started the script have morphed. also my understanding of the characters are so much better than when i was at page one. so i go back to page one and start over. some of the scenes stay the same but then the dialogue doesn't... and it's far easier for me to start over than to tweak the scenes and massage them to make the story work.

as far as deadlines go... while i'm repped at a fairly big agency, my agent and i don't feel the pressure to send out the scripts that aren't ready. okay, lemme rephrase. i feel the pressure to make money but i know that it's better to wait another six months or so to take out the best possible "first" script. so in theory, i've had no deadline. in practice, i've been working very closely with a production company and we've agreed on certain timelines for me to prepare my script.

but i'm certain that if there's ever a time i'm fortunate enough to get paid assignments, i'll probably have to adhere to treatments and following them for the execution of the script.
 

noh1

I write by the seat of my pants. It's the only way my characters can talk to me and work in the story.

Drafts? As many as it needs.

Rules? did someone ask this? Well, if not (shrugs)... I don't think about "rules". I do whatever I need to do, in order to make the script the best it can be.
 

Writer1

Starts with an idea. Something that jumps out at me and says, "wow, this would make a great story!"

Then...I forget about it. I push it out of my mind hoping that it'll go away.

After a few weeks, if that idea is still creeping into my brain, I realize it's not going away and decide that I should try and work a story around the idea.

Then, I sleep on it. I go to bed thinking about the story...thinking of different ways to make a story out of the idea. This is how I go to sleep...thinking about stories.

Then, if the story is good, I'll wake up in the morning thinking about it.

That's when I get out of bed and start writing it. Last week, I got out of bed at 6:10am and started writing a new story.

I usually don't have the entire story worked out in my head. But...there has to be enough of a story for me to be excited about the possible ways it can go. If I'm not excited, I can't expect a reader to be.
 

JustinoIV

I write synopses first. Then I go over them, and write the first draft in two weeks.
 

joecalabre

I mull it over in my head for a few weeks and then I write it down-- as a first draft screenplay.

I never write anything down during the thinking stage. I figure that if I forgot something, it wasn't that important to begin with.

Once I start writing, I usually through compose from scene 1 on. When I get to a scene I'm not sure about or is real sketchy, I'll write the slugline and a brief note and go on to the next scene.

I try and get a first draft in a week and then rewrite for about six...

Any research I do, usually falls in during the thinking period. I'll google things as I write the script if I need specific, additional elements.

One man's garbage is another man's treasure. This works for me and that's all that counts.
 
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