Just curious to know how you all work... After you're done plotting out your script, do you usually write it from beginning to end? Or Do you write your favorite scenes first? Or something else?

38 views and no one can tell me how they prefer to write?

Now you're making me feel bad!

Ok, I'll reply. The reason I did not previously is because it seemed a bit presumptuous on my part. This seems a question better answered by people who've been writing a lot longer than me, and who maybe have had features produced, or at least almost produced.

Ok, here goes: I've completed 4 features, am half done a fifth. For the most part, I write chronologically from beginning to end, but on a couple of occasions I have jumped to an important scene I had in my head and wrote it separately. Also, on one script, I went back and added a second scene that I thought was needed to pick things up.

I currently use the method suggested, I think, by Blake. I have the beginning in mind, the end, and two major turning points: at the end of Act One, and Act two. I also want to know what the character arc of my protag is as well as my theme. Then I start writing.

I don't have things mapped out at all. I wish I did, or could. I have certain things I know I want to do, but the rest is a mystery that I explore while I write. Many days I find myself banging my head wondering what the next scene will be. What will be  the setting? What will happen? Once that falls into place, what they will say is easy, since I usually have the character down.

Outtosea, I hope this helps. I'll tell you one last thing that I try to do, and again, I am an amateur that's been writing 7 months. But you need these things to happen in your first 20 to 30 pages: intro main characters; establish tone; lay the ground work for the protag's character arc; establish a clear antagonist or antagonistic force; have your inciting incident; and lead into your first big turning point at the end of Act One. All this has to be accomplished in that space. Not easy.

And there's one more thing that can be a challenge, depending on your topic: mke sure there's a female AND a male lead. A lot of stories are male oriented, especially sports, or cops, or military. You have to get a female in somehow. Look at Gangs of New York. They clearly had to force C. Diaz's character into the plot. They did a good job with it, but you can see they had a challenge, especially to get her in while they were doing the other stuff.

Hope this helped a little.

I haven't written that many screenplays so I am speaking from limited experience.
I have always started with scene one and finished with the final fade. I'm not saying I won't change it though, especially as you have given me the idea to try it.
Thanks for that.

I write from beginning to end. I always figured that's just the way it was done. I don't think it matters either way and on occasion, I'll jump ahead and write a scene out of chronology. I do like the sense of progress writing chronologically enables though.

Thanks guys. I'm still new at this myself.

I usually have the major beats planned out ahead of time, so I know the scenes (and a lot of the lines ahead of time).

I write out of order, though. Sometimes, my ADD kicks in, and writing the best (or my favorite) parts keep me encouraged, or (more commonly) from starting to doubt myself or what I'm writing. .

I was just curious to see how other folks did it.

For me, it really varies depending on how the story goes. I've written in about every way you described. If the story is solid in my head, I'll just write it out in a finished format beginning to end without any sort of notes. I usually do what amounts to a rough treatment overviewing the plot, but sometimes, about halfway through doing that, I start writing it because I've figured it out. Sometimes, I'll detail out the characters and write the story around them. To be fair, I usually know what my major plot points are before I start, but sometimes, I just let it flow and the plot points write themselves.

My 3 Fempiror screenplays were all written in different ways. The first was plotted out in outline after outline over a period of seven years before I finally wrote the script. The second was written from beginning to end with no outlining or notes at all. I let the characters tell the story when I wasn't sure where it was going, though I had the required plot in my head. I knew where it had to end up, but the journey belonged to them. The third was written after scribbling out a basic plot of what happened during that time period while I was working on the fourth story and decided I needed to tell one more story before I got into that one.

Armor of Belial was written as an exercise using the screenwriting palette, so I built plot and characters from the ground up basing it roughly on a trailer I'd seen for a video game. I had never played the game, but the images stuck with me.

Both No Kind of Life and Jagged were based on extensive character analysis and the plot was built around the event of the characters' lives and how they had to interact. After Last Summer was based on the shredding on another script and the subsequent character analyses and plot reformation.

Most of my OWC entries were written after I pondered the topics long enough to just write it out from end to end.

And for what it's worth, I started a chapter of my 3rd Fempiror book by plotting it out, and then I realized I was writing the full chapter about halfway through, so I just switched to writing it all out and I had to go back and rewrite the beginning from an outline to fully writing it out.

Point is that it doesn't matter how you write the script. Just write it in any way that works best for you. Whatever comes out will have to be rewritten anyway.

So George, you've tried it all, but you didn't say which way you preferred? Or which method produced your best work?

Post-and-fence technique.

I birth an idea for a story.
In my mind I rough-out how to make some sensible story work.
Then start blocking it out on paper, first by acts then by scenes figuring out how the little chess pieces gotta move in proper sequence.
Then just start filling in the gaps, rough editing as I go.
Go back and rework multiple times until good-enough is... good enough (re. upcoming 'Script Club').

Very very good question.  I've been always asking this to myself.  Wondering if there are any writers like me.

I start from the opening sequence.  See, the best part of writing a screenplay is showing off how creative you are in the first 10 pages.  So, it's a must for me to start with that.
Then, my second favorite part of writing a screenplay is to write whatever I feel like to write.  That means I may write the ending right after the opening, or the most anticipated scene of my heart will be written next.  
Later, I will put the scenes together.  I like this method, because, 1 is I will not get tired of writing.  2 is I will get more creative that way.  3 is it's so much fun.

Usually, I'll let an idea bounce around in my head for a couple of weeks or even months (and sometimes even up to a couple years), before I even sit down to write out a single word.

Then, when I know an idea is going to stick with me and after all those weeks and months, i'm still interested, I'll usually write out a brief summary of the scenes in chronological order, then I'll expand on them and expand on then until I think the scene transitions have a nice smooth flow to them and tell the story.  All while doing that, I'll usually write the dialogue and just the dialogue only for every scene, tweaking it here and tweaking it there while I re-read it and speak it outloud to make sure it has a nice ring to it.

(All that writing, by the way, I do long-hand.  I probably haven't even opened up my laptop yet.)

Then, I'll take all those notes and summaries and pages of dialogue, then put them into proper screenplay format.  Well, I shouldn't say 'proper' screenplay format, but with the screenplay format that I feel comfortable with.

So by the time it even gets to my computer, it's probably about the third draft already and it takes me about five days to write it from beginning to end, (chronologically).  I really don't do too much re-writing after that, unless I need to tighten up the logistics or I have a better idea.

And, I should mention, this is how I PREFER to work.  It doesn't always work out that way.  With 'But You Can Learn to Play', I wrote that in a fever rush and without any summary or even notes or any bouncing around in my head, just straight into the word processing program.  'Thistles', however, has been a couple year project, and I'm only on page 30 or so, right now.  I was almost done with it, then decided to start all over about a month or so.  I have almost all the dialogue for every scene finished, though.

Sorry this was so long-winded.

No I think its great. Its funny things like this don't get discussed more often.