Writing Tips for Tree People
As you write your script, try the following and make
those tips that work for you a permanent part of your writing habit:
- Print out the paradigm chart and have it beside you at all times. Or double
task, so that you can easily bring it up on your computer screen and move
back and forth between the chart and your developing script.
- If you made a step outline, also have the index cards at hand,
going through them one scene at a time as you expand the scenes into
scripted form.
- When you make changes from the chart or outline - that is, when
you script something substantially different from what is on the
paradigm or outline - draw a circle in red pen around the "discarded"
scene or moment on the chart/outline. Sometimes you discover that your
first notion was right, and it's convenient to be able to easily find
the changes that you make along the way.
- Write "point by point" and think about what you need to accomplish
in small increments of pages - no more than five at a time. "Okay, I
have the opening five pages here, and I want to establish that some
hoods have been trailing the First Lady and are getting prepared to
kidnap her."
- Be satisfied that each small part of your script - the hook, the
complication, the call to action, the plot point - is how you want it
before you move on. The advantage of having a chart or outline set down
is that you can easily find out where you are at any moment. You're not going to
get lost here.
- When you see yourself wanting to make major changes, stop and go
back to your paradigm chart. If you make these major changes, what else changes
as a result? You may find you have to start over. If you do, you do.
You certainly want to end up with the best script you can write, and if
you come up with better ways to do things, sometimes there's no choice but
to go back to the beginning - and write a new paradigm chart.
- From time to time, go back and review the basic skills
to make sure you are writing with sufficient economy.
- Try to write on a schedule and set a realistic pages-per-session goal
for yourself. Write for a week and see what your average is. Don't set
a goal that is a challenge but one that is realistic, one that you can
actually meet every writing session - and then congratulate yourself when
you surpass your goal.
- Remember that "clay is not cement" - this draft you are writing is not
the end of the world, and everything can be changed later. Don't be too
hard on yourself too early. You can be your own worst critic - and should
be! - later in the process. We want to get the first draft of a
screenplay down. At this stage of the game, be your own cheerleader more than
your own critic.
- Keep writing. Accept the challenge of your task. Keep writing.
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MODULE 5:
SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting
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