DEVELOP YOUR PROJECT FROM HOME
How to take advantage of teleworking
During many years, the writer’s figure has always been seen as a lonely job, for introverted people with a special personality. Later on, the great Writers Room arrived and the screenwriter’s figure started to change. Writing scripts, especially on series, it’s already collaborative. Relating and sharing ideas with more screenwriters in the same room is almost mandatory and, actually, the creative process itself is pretty cool.
Nevertheless, although the screenwriter has changed his attitude or, finally, has some facilities and advantages to open up, he or she has always had his own inner world to develop his imagination. The screenwriter may be a little bit introverted and has a special character indeed but that’s an asset. If there’s something that the screenwriter knows about solitude is to take advantage of it. Yeah exactly, burning the keyboard and writing stories non-stop.
Now it’s time to work from home and make good use of the break to invest time in developing your project. Whatever development stage your project is in, we provide you with some guidelines or routines to be productive during these days and keep working in its development without leaving home. The show must go on!
1. CONCEPT
As you all know, this step is key in the process. First, because there’s no project without it. Second, because it establishes the basis of your project and it will help you to write the screenplay itself. Third and lastly, because if your project’s concept is not bulletproof, it won’t be attractive and your project will be forgotten. Therefore, it’s very important to invest time developing its concept and reinforcing it to make it stand out.
The first base is to have a solid and very specific idea of what is your project about. In order to be appealing, it has to be original and has to offer something different. For example, making a zombies film is not original and it’s not even an idea. But if the idea turns out to be about a sheriff that wakes up from a coma and realizes that the world is in the middle of a zombie attack things change. There you have “The Walking Dead”. The challenge is creating a premise that makes producers want to know more about your story. That is what they mean by the so-called “high concept”. Truth is that many screenwriters build their stories based on hypotheses or ironies to make an idea funny. So picturing ridiculous or contradictory situations could help you to come up with a great idea for a movie or series. Actually, it’s pretty common between some screenwriters to joke about “we could make a movie about this” when something strange or funny happens to them.
Equally specific must be a film or series theme, whatever its area is. What the screenwriter wants to say with his project, the message he wants to convey and what he wants the public to reflect on will determine everything that happens in the story. The screenwriter never has to lose sight of his main message and it has to be clear and easy to identify. For example, on the political and social field, we have the TV series “Years and Years” whose theme is “The decisions we make today will affect our tomorrow”. It’s a completely call to action to a society that seems passive in front of things that, they think, doesn’t directly affect them. Everything that happens in the series is determined by its theme.
One of the elements that many screenwriters tend to forget more is the creation of a world that makes sense and answers to its own rules. It seems obvious that if you have a sci-fi, fantasy or dystopic project you have to know how characters communicate to each other, which kind of government it has (if it has), the type of technology that they use (if they use), social hierarchies, religions, education, etc. You will have to write every single detail so you can subtly introduce all those aspects in your screenplay to make people understand the rules of your fictional universe.
But be careful, because if your script is not about any dystopia but, for example, about the current world, it works exactly the same way and that’s something many screenwriters tend to ignore because: “¿Why should I describe the world where my characters live if it’s the same one where we all live in?”. Because it just isn’t. Let’s not forget that we’re talking about fiction and every single fiction has its own rules. For example, “Girls” and “Gossip Girl” universes do not work the same way. The city still is the New York we know, but it behaves differently in each of these series and, therefore, the perception is not the same.
Another of the elements to take into account the concept of your project is the characters. As you already know, it’s about creating distinctive characters, with their peculiarities and with which people can identify with. But it’s not only about that. They must have interesting internal conflicts to make us care about them. Each character must undergo changes (motivated by these conflicts) throughout a series or a feature film. It doesn’t matter if, in the end, a character remains the same as in the beginning but there must be a reason why it remains the same. Yes, we’re talking about the character arcs. It’s also very relevant to define how each character relates to the others because that creates the subplots that will weave and drive the main plot. In the end, it’s all about knowing how to pull the strings for the puppet to dance.
Each of these elements must be controlled and developed with a lot of preciseness. It’s what will make you have a fully armoured concept that will help you in the writing process. There’s always space for changes but you must have the basis of your project crystal clear. So take your time to do it.
2. STRUCTURE
Whether you’ve finished writing your script or haven’t started yet, the structure is one of the most important things in your script content. It’s what indicates the rhythm and pace of a script and even the attention of the public. We won’t stop to explain Syd Field paradigm since you’re probably familiarized with it by now. However, I would like to talk about two tools that I consider extremely useful to plan or review your script structure and are quite similar actually: outline and beat sheets. Assuming that most screenwriters use the Syd Field paradigm as a structure model, both tools help make that structure easier for the writer to visualize.
An outline is a schematic summary of the script. It’s somewhere in between a synopsis and a treatment. The key to making a good outline is to synthesize as much as possible. To write an outline, you must sum up each scene of the script in a short sentence that contains the essential information of it. In a blank document on your laptop, you have to write a sentence per each scene. This way, the final result will be a bunch of brief sentences that will indicate the core of the dramatic action of each scene of your script. Thus, you can better define and visualize the turning points, the acts of your script, etc. It also allows you to see which scenes fit and which ones would work best elsewhere. In short, it’s a simple and very useful tool to get a general idea of your project.
Probably, one of the things that Blake Snyder convinced me in his popular book “Save the Cat!” is the utility of the beat sheet. The beat sheet is basically an outline but more visual and dramatically developed. The basic elements to fill the beat sheet are:
- A bunch of blank cards: each blank card represents one scene of our script. There we’ll write the scene heading and the principal action of the scene, that’s similar to the outline. Synder recommends having forty cards in total which I find reasonable for a feature film but, of course, for a TV series should be less.
- A board: you need a cork, a blackboard or whatever to put those cards in, move them around and go crazy. This board must be divided into four sections (Act I, Act II, Act II, and Act III).
- Turning points: the first cards you must put in on the board are the most complex and correspond to the first turning point, second turning point and midpoint. Synder recommends beginning with the midpoint since solving it will unlock some other scenes.
- Colour codes: with different colour markers you can mark the different plots of the story and see how they relate between them.
- +/- for emotional changes and > < for conflicts: the emotional change that a character suffers is marked on the cards as well as a conflict. This way, you make sure that each scene is necessary and interesting to the audience.
These are tools that are generally used before writing a script to make the writing process easier. However, if you already have written your script and you keep the cards on your board take a look at it again because chances are that it has suffered some changes or some things work best elsewhere. And if you had not created the beat sheet before writing your script, what are you waiting for?! Do it, because I assure you that your script is not finished at all. Now that it’s time to work from home you have all the time in the world to spend assembling and reinforcing the great puzzle of the structure. Deep down, it’s a logic game.
3. REWRITING
This is a vital step in the development of your project that many screenwriters don’t take as seriously as they should. This is where you have to be humble, sincere and stop treating your script as if it were your baby. This time, you have to put yourself in the role of the analyst.
Make sure your script is in the right format. That’s something you should have already made sure before writing the script but still check it carefully. Nowadays, it costs absolutely nothing to write your script in the correct format because there is a lot of free software that allows you to do it. Like for example, Celtx or Fade In and other paying ones that are quite effective such as Movie Magic Screenwriter or Final Draft. So please, don’t do strange things such as write your script from Word or Pages because I assure you that the result is not professional and the reader easily notices it.
Avoid writing large paragraphs on the action lines of your script. Don’t forget that the script has to be easy to read and thick descriptions are never welcome. If you see a paragraph that is too large, highlight it and try to say the same but with fewer words. I’m sure you will be able to reduce some pages of your script and make it more dynamic. If you are concerned about falling short of pages, the problem doesn’t come from reducing the descriptions but rather that your script already lacked scenes. Go back to the beat sheet and try to find out what’s missing. Speaking of scenes, check them out and see if there are any of them that are unnecessary or don’t quite fit together. If you have doubts about it, you should discard the scene because it’s probably not necessary.
Another thing that is very important to do when you’re rewriting your script is to read it out loud. You can even try to put different voices to each character even if you find it ridiculous. That’s how you can listen to those parts or that dialogue that urgently asks for a change. And please, I don’t want to insist a lot but proofread your work.
Attention, the rewriting process is not something you do when you finish the script but something you do daily before starting to write. Ideally, when you get up from your bed and before you start writing, read what you wrote the day before and rewrite it. This way, you will improve what you had previously written and you could also come up with some ideas that did not occur to you yesterday.
4. PLAN
Probably, your plans have drastically changed but don’t cancel the development of your project. You still have options to move your project forward! With teleworking more fashionable than ever, online courses are offering discounts and receiving a lot of attention. These courses are a good option to acquire knowledge about those subjects in which you falter. It may be a good moment to start learning that thing about production that you left for later. Every screenwriter should have production notions, you must understand the industry to move your project forward.
Ask for feedback on your script. As you know, we strongly recommend hiring a Script Analysis service. This way, an industry professional reads your script and provides you with constructive and useful feedback to improve it. However, now that people are isolated at home, you also have the option to send it to your acquaintances and see what they think about it or you can even have a video call and have a conversation about that scene that is giving you some troubles. All feedback is valuable, but be careful and always follow your intuition.
Last but not least, move your project submitting it to different screenwriting contests. They never close! Create a list and mark each contest deadlines. Now you have the chance to submit to that contest that you thought you wouldn’t be able to due time. As we mentioned in a previous post, screenplay competitions are a great option to consider when developing your project.
Other things that will help to develop your project are reading other scripts or watching relevant series or feature films. After all, every screenwriter and filmmaker learns from other great screenwriters and filmmakers. You cannot be a screenwriter without having read many scripts. You can even practice your skills to create concepts and identify structures from other works. It’s fun and productive at the same time. I mean, whoever gets bored will not be because they have nothing to do.
We hope that these tips help you to keep developing your project these days. At Filmarket Hub, we’re always looking to discover new talent, we encourage you to be up to the challenge and keep writing. We want to see your projects happen!
