Writing Tips for Forest People
Because you are working more "in the heat of creation"
than tree people are, what you write can be much more fragile - and you must
be aware of this and protect yourself.
For example, if a tree person is interrupted by the telephone, s/he can return
to work and pick up at the outline where s/he left off. The outline
already exists.
But as a forest person, you have jumped into the story from the get-go and
are doing everything at once. A telephone call can interrupt your train of
thought - and with little committed to language yet, that can be disastrous.
Here are some tips for avoiding this and other disasters:
- Create a working environment in which you will not be interrupted.
As noted above, your work is much more fragile because you are creating your
story as you write.
- Think small. Even though it is your interest in "the big picture" that
makes you a forest person in the first place, try to focus on what you are
writing in the moment. Think in five-page increments. What am I
trying to accomplish in the next five pages? And then accomplish it.
- Try to strike a balance between "excursions" in your writing and staying
on track. What makes being a forest person exciting are those moments when
the characters take control of the story. But your characters aren't
necessarily good screenwriters! Where they want to take you may not
be where you want to go. Be aware of this - and if their journey is
taking you too far afield, back track and get back to where the journey
began and try a different route.
- Review the basic skills to make sure you are
writing with necessary economy.
- Don't let your hero out of your sight (or "site" for that matter - this
being the screenplay). Most scripts begin to go astray
when the hero drifts out of focus - and this error is more common with
forest people than with tree people, who have the anchor of an outline.
Keep reminding yourself that the hero should be center stage as often as
possible. Put another way, be sure you can justify every scene that does
not have the hero in it.
- Realize that you are in a process of creation and give yourself slack to
make mistakes, on the one hand, but demand of yourself the discipline to abandon false
leads, on the other.
- Congratulate yourself for the pages that you want to keep.
- And keep plowing ahead.
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MODULE 5:
SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting
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