The Spontaneity of a Road Map (ep.3)
I’m not that creative.
That’s right, I’ll be the first to admit it. When sitting down to write I have a hard time seeing the forest for the trees or the trees through the forest or the deep woods of individual trees of spruce and such with pine and maybe evergreens or a random maple thrown in . . . yeah, you get the point. In other words, I tend to get lost in the woods a lot. I’ll just stumble from tree to tree, meandering aimlessly until I realize I’ve just wasted hours wandering in a giant circle.
So how do I equate being lost in a circle to writing this particular horror-thriller? Simply put, if I don’t have some type of plan or at the very least a compass showing me which direction to go, I’ll flounder around writing page after page without really advancing any type of plot. With past experiences, I’ve attempted to freeform it, but I would usually end up on page sixty with characters who have spent the last thirty pages ordering coffee. So while some people have fallen in love with the idea they can just let the characters breathe and have the scene unfold like some beautiful flower, I’m not one of them. If I did that, my flower would be called the Edsel. It would theoretically have everything you could possibly want, but still end up looking like a piece of crap. And I’ve since learned nobody loves coffee that much.
By the time I sit down to write, I need to know the beginning, middle and end. That’s not to say what I first write is set in stone, I just need that initial blueprint to see what the end result will be. And when it’s one o’clock in the morning, you’ve been writing for a few hours and you’re feeling like you’ll never see daybreak, it’s nice to know if you at least follow your original plan you’ll be able to cut through the fog and make it out okay. It may be rigid and more than a little unkempt, but that’s what the rewrite is for.
With this script, I’m sticking to the three-step, pre-script process. Note card, scene cards, outline. Simple as that. This isn’t anything new, but it’s the way I learned to write a screenplay. And if anyone out there is as undisciplined and scattered as I am, then you already know the benefit of this process.
Since I’ve already spent a few days (weeks actually) thinking about this script, I’m ready for the note card step. Essentially, what I do is take one 5×8 note card, draw one solitary line lengthwise and start jotting down plot points. I don’t necessarily write in order as I’ll just jot down cool thoughts or scenes as they come, but I do write them on the line in the order they’ll be in the script. In other words, I may have my entire ending plotted out before I even have a solid beginning.
I learned early on that I wasn’t content to just make it a simple one line structure with a few thistle-looking barbs sticking out of it, but rather my plotpoints birthed branches and those branches gave way to snippets of dialogue, action, etc. What I end up with is a rough, ROUGH, outline of the entire script. Beginning-middle-end (or Act I, II, III if you will.) And it’s all right there on one note card. 
Sure, it ends up looking like something John Doe in the film “Seven” would write with fonts that you could only read with a magnifying glass, but for me it’s not really meant as something I go back to and read ad nauseum. It’s just to get the film in my head. In reality, the three “pre-script” steps are designed to cement the film so I can just write it out without worrying about what’s coming next.
Once I completed the note card, which in this case took me about a week, I took each of those plot points and scenes and gave them one scene card apiece. This is pretty basic Screenwriting 101. This step usually goes a little quicker than the one note card as the ideas are already there, but I can now expand on them a little more if need be. Once I’ve completed this phase, I usually end up with anywhere from 80 to 200 scene cards. In this case, I have a rough 85. It’s definitely a low number, but I’m writing with a low budget in mind, so my locations are already at a minimum.
It’s after I’ve completed the scene cards that I input each one, card by card, into the computer where I end up with a more traditional outline. With this little script, I ended up with an eighteen page outline when it was all said and done.
It’s this outline I’ll have sitting next to me (not next to me in a little chair of its own like I’m some kind of freak, but rather on the desk beside the keyboard) and I’ll sporadically reference it as I head into the next step which is writing the actual script.
A few friends have criticized my three-step process by saying they can easily do the same steps with any number of screenwriting programs out there. This is true, but for me, the joy of the note cards is I can carry them anywhere. Stuff ‘em into a pocket or a backpack and whip ‘em out while I’m standing in line or looking to kill some time at a day gig. However I do it though, by the time I’ve completed each of the steps, I’ve essentially cemented in my head the beginning, middle and end of what I’m going to write.
And there you have it. Whew! Man, what a wordy passage. Anyway, enough of that rambling. Next time . . . writing the damn thing.
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