Jacob Malewitz
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How Do You Start A Script
Posted: 2007/08/14 12:39
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How do you guys start a script? I am moving away from doing the outlines because they kind of take the fun away. But I have heard to start with a synopsis. What is your strategy? Just from the initial idea, to the planning time, to the actual synop and outline, and then the script. How do you handle these aspects? I have changed it each time I write. Thanks for listening.
Post edited by: jfmalewitz, at: 2007/08/14 12:40
Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night
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Elton Pruitt
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Re:How Do You Start A Script
Posted: 2007/08/15 15:00
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Jacob Malewitz wrote:
How do you guys start a script? I am moving away from doing the outlines because they kind of take the fun away. But I have heard to start with a synopsis. What is your strategy? Just from the initial idea, to the planning time, to the actual synop and outline, and then the script. How do you handle these aspects? I have changed it each time I write. Thanks for listening.<br><br>Post edited by: jfmalewitz, at: 2007/08/14 12:40
This is something I hope to discuss in Running Up That Hill in the near future, because I feel like I've finally blundered into a process that works for me pretty consistently.
I tend to think through the story as a background process as I go about life doing whatever. I'll jot down a handful of notes when key scenes or lines of dialogue or whatever hit me.
Then, when I'm ready to tackle the story, I get out my trusty spiral notebook, and write a series of numbers, one per line, for each page in the story. So, for the stuff I've been doing lately, which is short pieces for anthologies, it's like 1 to 8 for an 8 page story.
I then jot down the key action or moment for each page, next to the numbers, as a map to help me from getting lost as I write.
Next, still working with a pen and paper, I break the first page down into numbered panels (1-1, 1-2, etc., which is officially known as the Drewey Decimal system in honor of its inventor, Drew Melbourne). For each panel, I write down the key line of dialogue or action or setting description or whatever -- just whatever is the focus of that panel, what makes it necessary to move the story along.
Finally, after I've got my roadmap for page 1 done on paper, I get on the computer and start scripting it. And once I finish page 1, it's back to the spiral notebook to figure out page 2. And the process repeats itself like that till I'm done with the first draft.
Although I by no means invented this, it is for me a true revelation and an immense boon to my productivity. Because it saves me from the thing I hate and fear most about writing: sitting at the computer, fingers on the keyboard, with no earthly idea what I'm doing.
Elton Pruitt
Writer by Night
EltonPruitt.com | EltonSpace | My ComicSpace
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Caleb Monroe
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Re:How Do You Start A Script
Posted: 2007/08/15 16:14
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The short answer is, "Any way that works."
I also used to do the line-per-page outline Elton's describing here. I think a lot of writers have found that helpful. But (and this is a bad analogy) it's a 2-dimensional way of looking at a script and my stories tend to tumble through my head in all three dimensions.
So I end up doing a one-page that's partly the above approach, partly this, and partly a sort of fractal idea map.
But you never know how it will work on the next script. Any way I can get the ideas down in a way I can understand them best as I script.
Post edited by: Caleb Monroe, at: 2007/08/24 22:14
CalebMonroe.com / Creator Help
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Fred Duran
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Re:How Do You Start A Script
Posted: 2007/10/09 22:33
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What I do after inspiration hits is make a "master sheet," which contains a one-sentence main premise, a paragraph underneath that goes into a bit more detail, and any important characters and/or character relationships. Then, I write out the plot in the present tense (i.e. "He jumps up over the couch" instead of "He jumped up over the couch"). I feel like if I write it like it's happening, it'll feel like it's happening when I script it (I do the same thing when I actually write the script, using the active voice instead of the passive voice. I've been told artists like that more, so you can't lose). Then, I go back to the plot, put it in one window, bring up a blank document in another window, and start writing the script, using ALT-TAB to switch between plot window and script window (which saves a LOT of time with the mouse). The trick is to know which sentence needs a panel and which sentence needs only a caption or piece of dialogue.
This helps me a lot more when I'm trying to script longer pieces (like graphic novels), but it also works with smaller ones (like the 10-page sci-fi piece I got published in Mysterious Visions Anthology this year over at Dimestore Productions). But the most important answer to your question was Caleb's: Do whatever works for you, because if it doesn't work for you, you're not going to get it done.
Fred
Fred Duran- Creator/Writer/Madman
Project E (currently on hiatus)
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Yann Krehl
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Re:How Do You Start A Script
Posted: 2007/10/21 07:59
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For me, writing a comic script can be broken down into three phases:
1) The plot
2) The page breakdown
3) The script
Every script I write goes through these three phases. But the length of the script determines how much of that I will actually write down and how much will just happen in my head.
If the story is only 1-6 pages long, I usually just type away without bothering to write a synopsis or a page breakdown first.
For a comic of 6-22 pages, I usually skip the plot phase, but not the page breakdown. And so I write a few sentences describing what’s supposed to happen on that page for each page. Sometimes I just write down the dialogues.
If the script is even longer (or a part of a series), there usually is no way around writing a synopsis first.
So that’s how I start a script – in theory, at least. In practice, it’s usually much more chaotic.
For example, I’ve started scripts of 20+ pages by scripting the first three pages before writing a synopsis and then starting to break down the plot into pages. Every part of the script still went through the three phases mentioned above - they just didn’t all go at the same speed.
It gets even more complicated with stories that miss a beginning, a middle and/or an end when I start writing them down.
Just recently, I started a 10-page story by writing the synopsis (so it could be send to the editor who had to approve it). Sometimes I need to write a synopsis after I've written the script. When I’m adapting a book, I start with the page breakdown (since the plot is already done).
So I guess I do whatever works best for me and for that particular story. And that’s the way it should be.
Writer: www.YannKrehl.com
Editor: www.INKplosion.com
www.INKstudio.de
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