Something I've been on the fence about for some time: is it better to write something after sufficient but moderate planning when the idea's still fresh, exciting and inspiring or to hold off a while and really perfect the story?

I think based on the way I've phrased this, people are going to have a knee-jerk reaction to say the latter. But to me, it's a catch 22.

Naturally, rushing into a project has its share of issues. I think the worst is completing a script and finding something is fundamentally wrong with it, resulting in one having to rewrite a major portion from scratch. This happened to me with my script, Complete, in which I ended up rewriting forty pages (by this, I mean chucking the original forty pages completely and inserting completely new content).

Still, writing the script was both easy and fun but more importantly quick and consistent. I wrote it in three weeks without stopping and what it's become is, frankly, one of my most solid scripts thus far. This was after three months or so of outlining.

On the other hand, if too much time goes by planning a script, you can lose interest. I subscribe to the notion that if you start writing anything, you should finish it no matter what. But that's not as easy as it sounds. My script Night Shift and my most recent Love You To Death were both works in progress for two years before they were actually written. The outlines were packed with notes and details but writing them was agony. It's a miracle either got finished. I considered chucking them both numerous times. At other times, I got really lazy, wrote scenes completely half-assed (sometimes without any action lines) and inserted notes on what to add or change later on, rather than actually taking the time to do it on the spot.

But when the rough drafts were finished, as awful as they were, all that was needed to make them better was there and once again, both turned out to be among my best scripts.

Not trying to toot my own horn, BTW. I've written a ton of junk. I'm just trying to make a case for both sides and I'm not afraid to say that I'm proud of my work.

Anyway, I used to write scripts without any notes or outlines whatsoever. I even wrote my first few without any idea where the stories would go. Needless to say, they were crap. With Love You To Death, I took my basic treatment as well as all my notes and combined them into a much beefier treatment. A first for me, which I'm already applying to my next feature. So I suppose I'm leaning toward spending more time on scripts at this point.

Nevertheless, I don't think writing should be a painful process. I also don't think just because you've got every single detail down on paper means you'll write a good screenplay. Your base ideas could still be flawed or misplaced from the getgo. I think that takes a year or two to figure out. Everyone thinks their latest script is the best when they write it but you can't really make that call until you've distanced yourself from it, somewhat. So there's pros and cons to be found in both approaches.

So for myself as well as a means to spark a healthy dose of discussion, I ask how much time should one spend planning a writing project before they actually start writing it? How does one find a happy balance between excitement and preparedness? Can one find a happy balance? Is one path really better than the other?

Hope this gets the ball rolling...

The best way to write a script is to provide yourself with road posts usually in the form of index cards.  Don't put too much on the index card, just a short line about what happens and the characters and setting.  Don't be overly verbose but do this scene by scene.   You should have around sixty of them when you are done.

At that point you should figure out if there are any order changes and cull the scenes you don't need.

Then start with the first card and write the actual scene, next card, next card...  If you feel you need to diverge from the direction of the road posts then do so.  If it's a dead end turn around and come back to the road.  Flip over cards until you finish.

The first script I wrote was doomed to failure. Not only did I know very little on formatting, but I didn't do an outline of the story I wanted to tell. I knew in my head but when I committed it to paper it became a mess. Worse still, when someone pointed out that the story wasn't working I rewrote the entire thing from scratch, still unaware that an outline was critical to the whole proccess. I second what mcornetto says. Cue cards or sticky notes are great. You can physically manipulate the whole story and move it around. I use a small magic board that  put all my notes on.

I have somewhere in the region of 432 million screenplays on my hard drive, none of which have ever gone past page 11 that is  proof to me that no planning = no writing. Even though I am with you on the "wow great idea, I'm so excited I am starting writing now" I always wake up the next day realising my idea is crap.

John August is funny in that he does not appear to enjoy writing much, he certainly calls it a job rather than something fun, especially when the initial excitement is gone and there are 5 drafts to go. I only mention him because he has loads of advice on this sort of thing on his blog and he is a big planner, he always writes a compete run down of his story before writing a script, an then he writes the first draft by hand on a notebook!

I have vowed that I am not going to write anything again until I have the whole thing planned and sketched out, and yes index cards are good for this. I have an index card app for my iPad which is a brilliant way of keeping them all organised. Probably better to find out now that your script sucks ass than spend 3 months writing a script that sucks ass.

  

I might give notecards a try. I have a notebook but I don't use it too often. It has come in helpful at times though. I have a slight aversion to the more tactile elements of writing. The power is in the words rather than the materials (the words are the materials), as opposed to art, music or filmmaking (for this reason, I don't buy writers who think they're holier than thou because they don't use laptops or whatever). I've mentioned before something along the lines that writing longhand feels trudging through a mental bog. My hands simply can't keep up with my thoughts. Notecards don't seem as scary though and I like the idea of being able to take scenes apart and move them around.

BTW, I never meant to imply, at any point, that one should try to write anything cold or that it's something worth discussing. I more so wanted to compare slapping a basic outline together within a short period of time vs. spending months drafting treatments. Both my scenarios involved outlining of some kind. Writing cold is something I haven't done, honestly, since around the time when my writing actually started to get good, haha.

The most useful thing I took from Save the Cat!, something that I've adopted straight away, is the concept of 'The Board'. It's a good technique, and one I'd encourage people to at least try. Please note, I'm making assumptions about people's acceptance of the three-act structure of screenplays, but let's not go off in that tangent.

In Snyder's own words:

"The Board is a way for you to 'see' your movie before you start writing. It is a way to easily test different scenes, story arcs, ideas, bits of dialogue and story rhythms, and decide whether they work - or if they just plain suck. And though it is not really writing, and though your perfect plan may be totally abandoned in the white heat of actually executing your screenplay, it is on The Board where you can work out the kinks of your story before you start. It is your way to visualise a well-plotted movie, the one tool I know of that can help you build the perfect beast."

That's a pretty succinct summary. The basic concept goes like this:

- Buy a cork noticeboard. Hang it on the wall (I have mine directly above my desk).

- Take three long strips of masking tape OR a permanent marker and divide the board into four equal strips. (I actually have five strips, with an extra one at the top for working out what my title and logline is going to be, but that's my own addition to Snyder's technique).

- These strips are for Act One, the first half of Act Two, the second half of Act Two, and Act Three. As Snyder says, "the ends of each row are the hinges of your story. The Break into Two, the midpoint, and the Break into Three". I recommend filling these gaps first, so you have your 'big moments', and probably filling in the catalyst as well.

- Construct your acts using index cards. The basic idea is to have scenes, or at least outlines of scenes, but I chuck on bits of dialogue, character details, ideas for specific moments...just build up what your script is going to look like. Keep going 'til you have a good idea of how everything is going to hang together.

- THERE WILL BE GAPS. Either try to fill these, or accept them and hope that inspiration will come once you actually start writing.

- Don't obsess over making The Board look perfect, but once you think you know your script, then you're ready to start writing. Feel free to move stuff around, add stuff, take stuff out - after all, they're just index cards. And then, when you know you've carved out the path you're going to walk on, go for it.

I'm using this technique for the feature I'm currently working on, and I'm a few days away from actually starting the writing process. I'm really glad I didn't just start typing and hope for the best, because when I started filling out The Board I realised that I had literally no idea what was going to happen in Act Two, particularly after the midpoint. That's why people - or at least I - abandon scripts, because they suddenly find themselves in open water, and just climb out onto the boat rather than thrash around searching for a current.

Your script doesn't have to end up looking exactly like what you've got on The Board, but I really do think it's a great technique. It's very interactive - it's far more fun using index cards and different coloured pens and push pins than just typing stuff out on the keyboard (it also differentiates it from the actual writing process, which I like). It's very visual - you get to see your script build and evolve before your eyes. And also, it's a good way to keep the project on your mind. As I said, my Board hangs above my desk. So even when I'm not working on my script, it's there, just above my field of vision. It's rattling round and developing in my subconscious. So when I decide it's time to crack on with it, I don't have to physically open up a file on my laptop. I just look up, and I'm in.

So yeah. The Board. I reccommend giving it a try.

Usually, I let a story roll around in my head for a few months before I start writing it.  I didn't do so with the last script I posted, Frankincense, and it was a pain in the ass to write.  I wasn't sure where I was going with it and the characters wanted to do their own things.

As I write one script now, my brain is playing with ideas for the next two scripts I'll be working on.  I usually don't write things down but I do develop stories pretty well this way.


Phil

Don't think "The Board" would work for me. It'd be an absolute mess. I generally do follow the three-act structure but that's about the extent of my organization. My timelines, profiles, notes, etc. tend to have a chaos to them that only I can understand. Writing the actual script has, up until now, been the filtration of that chaos for me; after my last script, I've opted to take that step before I start to write.

I write down nearly all my initial ideas for a script until I'm able to build something out of them. It's the same as editing a film. You shoot all you can then cherry pick the best stuff from the footage. It seems like with "The Board," you'd have to be much more meticulous right off the bat.

I also write down a lot of notes about more subjective content such as themes, characters' thoughts, meanings of scenes; stuff that never makes it onscreen. Seems like things that would muddle a board of post-its.

In a perfect world, I believe a great script can be conceived and written in 2-4 months.

By "perfect world", I mean one in which you have all the time you want to plan and then write.  Also, one in which your mind is free to wander, not bogged down by life's shit.

Everyone has a different life going on and that makes the writing process second, third, and further down the totem pole in importance.  If you can make writing a high priority, there's really no reason you can't come up with your subject/story/plot in a couple of weeks...and I'm talking about details..details that make sense and are grounded in reality.

I'm a planner, personally.  But I don't outlines, don't use note cards, etc.  I plan things out in my head and I do it until it's ingrained so deeply that it's almost like a recent memory.  If I couldn't do this, I'd use some other form to keep things clear for me.

I also do alot of research for scripts...locales, names, anything I don't know or am not familiar with.  This takes time, but it also allows time to think about the subject at hand.

For me, the story always changes as the writing process proceeds.  Things that seemed like great ideas are usually replaced with better ideas...well, at least to me, they're better ideas.  

This last 7WC taught me alot about writing. It also taught me alot about myself.  Schedules are made for a reason.  That reason is to be met.  If I was lazy 1 day or week, then I knew I had to kick ass the next day or week.  Everything averages out, in terms of time, and time never changes.  It keeps ticking.  It just comes down to exactly what you do with that time.

For me personally, I'd say my best writing occurs when I don't write an actual single word.  By the time I sit down to write a scene, I already have it down in my head, pretty much exactly as it turns out.

Everyone is different though, and that's the beauty of it all.

The last couple of features, I've used a scene outline.

Write down the slugs of your first, maybe, ten scenes that you have in your head. Then do a couple of lines describing what happens.

I'm in the same boat as the OP.

I have noticed that the more time I spend brainstorming, going through the story plot, talking to characters and trying to make sense of it all, the easier it is to write.

I started the current project I'm working on by just sitting down and writing the actual screenplay. I spent about 5 hours a day (6 days a week) for about a month writing the first three scenes, but then I hit the fourth scene and realized that the first three will never work. Then I asked myself honestly what the story was about and couldn't answer the question without getting a headache .

6 months later, after literally getting to know every single aspect of the world and characters I'm trying to create, I still don't always have great ideas and solutions but I instinctively know the inner workings of any given character. I still have to create and compose the drama and conflict, but the dimensionality of the characters themselves has been pretty much established. For what it's worth, it's a solid foundation.

I'm currently working on the story outline itself. This takes just as much effort as understanding the characters, if not more. It's a tedious but interesting process because it drastically changes and evolves from an abstract idea (which is usually based on movies, books you've experience before) to something really unique.

When the story itself is completely understood in my mind I will sit down and put it into screenplay format. The biggest problem of writing with little planning done ahead of time is that regardless of whether or not I have a solid understanding of my story, I still spend SOOOO much time looking for the right word and trying to write interesting, readable and palatable dialogue. Add plot holes, poorly thought out characters and inconsistencies into the mix and you won't make it past page 1.

I say take your time planning it out. Get to know everything about every aspect of your story, down to the fine details which may or may not make their way into the final script.

Quoted from James McClung Something I've been on the fence about for some time: is it better to write something after sufficient but moderate planning when the idea's still fresh, exciting and inspiring or to hold off a while and really perfect the story?

With structure in mind, you plot it out and then fill in the gaps with those fresh ideas and then carry on filling in the gaps. If you wait until you have the "perfect" story, you'll never get anywhere - it's one of the major blocks. Inspiration comes when you have problems to solve.

Planning is important, believe me... But always have another one ready to go.  The reason why I say this is because I've written tons of scripts over the 9 years I've been doing it.  I mean, TONS!  

Last count was 127 in total... These are shorts (10 to 60 pages) to a handful of features (90 to 154 pages).  And the one thing I've learned is no matter how much you plan, say 10 pages a week, it will always change.  Always.  So the story can move at a brisk pace for 20 or 30 min, then you get caught up, usually in the middle because everyone struggles to keep quality and content flowing, then you put it off for a week... Then your 10 pages becomes 5 pages and 5 pages become 3 pages and so forth and so on.

So plan... Just plan a back-up plan while you're at it.

Quoted from James McClung Something I've been on the fence about for some time: is it better to write something after sufficient but moderate drinking?

Oh yeah...


Phil

I tend to let things roll around in my head for a while.
I do my best brainstorming on my morning walks.
I crank the tunes on the iPhone and let my brain rip.
The first stage usually involves taking scattered notes with the phone app.
After that, it matures and ages and typically more notes get added.
If it still doesn't sound like crap, I'll dedicate time to a treatment.
Walking my neighborhood at dawn immersed in movie scores has been very helpful.

E.D.