Totes McGoats: I feel like the only proper way to write a script is to establish your... »

ginandchronic:

austinlhewitt:

I feel like the only proper way to write a script is to establish your ending before you even begin. It just makes it that much easier to allude to it throughout the plot. I always go into writing thinking, “I’ll figure it out as I go along,” but when you do that, you’re really eliminating so…

To help really get your plot down and figured out, don’t start with scripting. Start with what’s called a treatment. In my screenwriting class, we did three of these. First was three pages, then five, then seven (all single spaced). It might seem tedious, but remember that if you can’t describe what happens in your scenes in three pages, you sure as hell won’t get to 90 pages without filler. You’d also be amazed at how much your plot will evolve when you have to reduce your writing down to just what moves your plot forward.

When you get to scripting, don’t limit yourself to your treatments. Things will change as you go. But here are two things that my teacher recommended that I found to be really helpful

• Don’t revise as you write. Your first draft is just about getting those 90-120 pages. Like I said, things change as you write. We worked in 20 page increments, so by the time I hit 60 pages, I had a completely different (and better) script than what I envisioned when I wrote the first page.
• If you change your plot, revise your treatment. If you don’t write with a plan, you’ll end up with fluff.

So just some things to think about for all future hobos writers.

Abby, can you think of anything that the amazing J-Keyt said that would help?

Character journals! They were a pain in the ass, but they actually helped for my story since it was so internal. What you do is you pick up a blank journal that looks like something your character would write in. Then you try to write journal entries in your character’s voice. If that doesn’t feel natural (it didn’t for me), try to use it as like a collection of things your character would like. I used a lot of collages, copied down poems, and found art. And since the arc of my story was entirely in this character’s development, it was vital.

“Don’t revise as you write” is absolutely the cardinal rule of finishing anything, ever. Writing is awesome because there’s no such thing as perfect. You could revise one script for the rest of your life and leave it to your kids to revise for the rest of their lives and it still wouldn’t be perfect. First drafts are magic. Don’t ruin it with revising. It’s great to get feedback in increments like we do in classes because you keep it in the back of your head while you continue and it makes your pages stronger as you go, then when you go back for your second draft you have less to tackle.

(Source: ewan-mcgregors)

I write because I can’t do normal work like other people.

”

— Orhan Pamuk (via confusionis)

But none of them taught me the things I learned from Carrie White. The most important is that the writer’s original perception of a character or characters may be as erroneous as the reader’s. Running a close second was the realization that stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.

”

— On Writing by Stephen King (via lifeofliterature)

My protagonist deserted to Mexico. Since I had never been to Mexico, I was obliged to stop.

”

— Gore Vidal (via theparisreview)

The thing is that nobody becomes a writer because of his or her tremendous ease with social interactions and the spontaneity of the spoken word. What are you going to say to someone like that? Especially if you are someone like that?

”

— Elif Batuman, on talking to Jonathan Franzen, in her memoirish “Life After A Bestseller,” now on the Guardian online edition.

(Source: Guardian)

often it is the only
thing
between you and
impossibility.
no drink,
no woman’s love,
no wealth
can
match it.

”

— Charles Bukowski, Writing (via holdonmagnolia)

(Source: theoryoflostthings)