My Five Day Screenwriting Fever Dream

Day One: Turning an Idea into a Treatment

Steve Tornello

Published in

Mission.org

6 min readNov 28, 2017

This isn’t my best idea.

This all started when I was listening to Tim Ferriss’ podcast interview of Darren Aronofsky, who revealed that he wrote the screenplay of “mother!” in five days during what he called a “fever dream”.

The very thought of that shocked me to my core. I’m someone who puts a lot of effort into thinking about what I write, and after that, I spend even more time rewriting and rewriting. Some might say it’s because a script has no finish line. That someone is me, by the way. It’s something I’ve always battled with. I see a screenplay as a multileveled puzzle that needs to be figured out meticulously while anxiety creeps in like a termite, slowly destroying each word and idea, and then restarting it again.

Which is why the idea of writing a screenplay in five days completely baffled me. Five days? Really? (Of course, he’s Darren Aronofsky and I am not).

So I thought more about it. And being a process person, I tried to figure out how I would go about it.

And now, I’ve decided to do just that.

Over the next five days, I’ll be writing and finishing a full-length screenplay. Having already completed one and being close to finishing some others, and having worked my entire career writing ideas and scripts in the ridiculously deadline-driven world of advertising, I’ve planned out a process that will work for me, and I’m gonna stick to it to see if it can bear some worthwhile fruit.

Please note that this isn’t a steadfast guide for everyone. I’m sure Darren Aronofsky would laugh at this. And as always, results may vary. But I know that this works for me, so I’m going to roll with it.

My Process

Today, I wrote out a simple three-page treatment of the entire story (see below). I’ll be staying away from dialogue and just thinking in broad strokes. I’ll sketch out the big idea, then layer it into three acts, then figure out the character arcs and place them in. It’s not meant to be perfect, but it’s a blueprint.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I’ll be writing the script, trying to stick as close to the treatment as possible. Thirty pages a day is ambitious. I’m usually good for five to six. So this’ll be more quantity over quality. Let’s just get it all down.

Friday is when I’ll fix things. And, honestly, it’s where I usually do my best work. So I’ll rewrite based on what I learned when writing and on any notes I receive from you.

Wait, what notes, you ask? Did I mention that you’ll be reading it too?

You’ll be reading it too.

Everything I write.

Taking an inspiration from Andy Weir’s process during his writing of “The Martian”, I’ll also be publishing my work at the end of each day and opening myself up for feedback. If I get some, great! If not, well, I’ve got a lot of work to do anyway. I’m sure I’ll be doing something wrong, walking down a trap I don’t see. So if you see it, let me know. It’ll be helpful, for sure.

Transparency will both help me and embarrass me. My first drafts are usually a mess, so bare with me.

Look, I’m under no delusion that what I finish up with on Friday will be any good or even tolerable. It will be a mess. But I am interested in testing the limits of what I can accomplish in such a short time span and seeing how close to “good” I can get. Can I follow my game plan? Is the process working? What am I learning? Am I becoming a better writer because of this? How can I control my anxiety throughout all of this? Have I gone completely crazy or just slightly mental?

So here starts a week full of pain, masochism and pushing myself to the limits, mixed with the overwhelming fear of sharing unfinished work to a group of complete strangers.

Day One: Turning an Idea into a Treatment.

Before anything, you need an idea of what you want to write about. It doesn’t have to be completely figured out. It just needs to be something. And let’s be real: Everyone has a flimsy idea for a script rattling around that they haven’t done anything with or given much thought to.

Here’s mine: A hot shot college basketball player falls in love with a co-ed who hates basketball.

After a day full of introspection, coffee and lost sleep, I ended up with this extended logline:

A big-time college basketball player has to deal with the pressures of playing for a national championship, an overbearing dad, an abusive coach, an NBA future, a lack of privacy and providing hope for a tortured fanbase, all while keeping his real identity secret from his basketball-hating girlfriend.

How did I get there?

I just kept asking myself questions. Why would he fall in love with her? What does she offer him? What does he offer her? What’s going on in his life? Is this causing anxiety? What would cause anxiety? What else can provide tension? Is this too much for one person to handle? How can I pile on some more?

And, most importantly, what’s the human truth we can all relate to?

I didn’t stay at my laptop. I walked around and let my mind wander. I’ve easvesdropped. And then, when something useful popped in, I captured it on Evernote. I wrote in small choppy sentences and phrases in the interest of keeping going and not slowing down.

Here’s what I learned while putting together a three-page treatment:

I kept research at a minimum. This story is not autobiographical, but I didn’t have to dig for much information. For example, I wasn’t a big-time basketball recruit, but I know some people who were. I do know the intricacies of basketball very well, having played it competitively, and then working as a Creative Director on Nike Basketball and spend a good deal of time around professional athletes, coaches and trainers. I’ve read countless books and articles about the culture of big-time college basketball. I know personally about how debilitating anxiety can be. I’ve been badly injured, and I’ve had difficult existential conversations with myself because of them. I live in Northern California, near the fires that devastated Sonoma and Napa, and I know how scary that was. My wife volunteered as a go-between for all the different charities and churches to supply victims with what they needed. My point? Everything I wrote about was familiar to me, and I can concentrate on seeing them through.

I thought about pacing. I’m planning on writing my basketball scenes quickly and hectically, and everything else longer and slower. It’s not something I’ve thought about before, but it seemed important to me when putting this together, so I’m running with it.

I didn’t forget about what my supporting characters represented, but I attacked that last. Each one serves a purpose, but they also have their own arc that runs throughout. After I wrote the story, I sprinkled it in and tweaked the main narrative accordingly.

I thought visually. I wanted to turn the two main settings (the campus and the town) into characters of their own right, so when thinking of locations, I wanted them to be extreme in their comparisons.

Here’s the treatment. Names are a work in progress, as is the title. Right now, I’m going with “The Transition Game”. I kinda like that. It has a double meaning. “Transition” speaks to both an existential crisis and a fast break in basketball.