The more I get other people to read and critique my work, the more I realize how essential outlining and pre-planning is. I realize that it is painfully obvious I had not engaged in such pre-planning. Sure, I jotted a few notes here and there but for the most part I was just trying to free hand it lol. So upon realizing this was were I initially went wrong, I tried to correct the situation. My next question was HOW? Since there is not a golden formula for a successful outline I turned to my best "digital" friend for help: Google. I came across a pretty interesting suggestion and I wonder has anyone else heard or tries this. The suggestion was to get a copy of your favorite (or not so favorite) show or movie on DVD and summarize every single scene. Make your own outline of that program to see how the flow is from scene to scene. I did this using the 1st episode of "House of Cards". I picked it not only because it's my new TV addiction lol but also, at least in my opinion, HOC is written exceptionally well and really is one of the best right now in terms of television drama. It took me 2 days and a lot pf pausing to get through it but I got from the experience a 9 page outline and a slightly better understanding of scene sequencing. So I wonder has anyone else tried this method? If so, did it work for you. If not, what other techniques do others use to outline or pre-plan before they sit down to actually write a script? All comments and suggestions are welcome my fellow writers. Thanks.
Screenwriting : Script Outlines by Tarus Rhinehart
Other topics in Screenwriting:
Check out Trending Discussions
Register / Log In
2 people like this
Yes Tarus many times I have done this! It does help to analyze a movie like that, but not as much as I originally thought it would. What you end up with is a scene list, but behind that scene list is the story, and that's something that's more abstract.
A movie is not 60 scenes, it's really just a few key beats which are interesting enough to generate 60 scenes. I've tried a number of different methods with different results.
What I've found is that if I outline too much, my stuff reads "flat", and when I just freestyle it, it has energy and it's unpredictable and it has moments of magic that I would never have come up with if I outlined it, BUT the downside is I end up with 70 compelling pages but no "point" to it all and no ending. So now I try to have a VERY loose sense of the overall story before I then start writing.
2 people like this
I use beat sheets. Usually structured from Blake Snyder's "Save The Cat". After that you can change or add detail to the outline however you see fit
It's great to see I'm not alone on this one lol.
for a full feature script, I get a notepad and number it 1-90 or 1-45 on each line I write out whats going to happen in the story from beginning to end. Then I get my cast and names/personalities together; Then, I go back and start from #1 and write the full story. It makes my process so smooth...