I'm just wondering how each one of you guys start writing a script? How does the idea start and develop? what helps you to develop it? and when you develop it, do you write notes on pieces of paper? A digital recorder? Do you talk to yourself all day and drive people crazy? Also, what dirves someone to become a writer in the first place?

got ideas popping out of my head continously,

actually images, visual images

then well, I just start writing, and the words just appear, just like that.

can't explain exactly how it goes

rpedro, don't you start with an outline? or you wirte as you go?

for my shorts, I just write as I go.

which is a pain, and that explains why my writing is so miserable.

for the features, well I write as I go, but also think of some scenes...
I need to learn how to plan more! And prepare a better outline. But I'm working on that for the features.

There are some great screenwriting books out there, would help you in the planning process, you should invest in that, if you think you need it.

For me, it usually springs off of one main idea, the rest is just trying to piece a story around it.

I usually take notes, and combine ideas that fit. Once I feel I have enough notes to create enough scenesa to fill a full length then I begin writing it.

I'm always usually between ideas and scripts, as I usually get bored when I just focus on one, unless I can get it done very quickly.

I usually write as I go. sometimes, if I reallly want to get a scene done that is in say the middle of the script, I'll just write it and fill in the rest later.

The very first draft can be technicaly considered an outline, as it is just the sequence of scenes put together unpolished. The submitted draft is the one that I've gone back and filled in the details and polished it up.

I think I write, because without art and creation, I wouldn't know what else to do. Writing is really only one of the very few things I enjoy doing. And fantasy is better than reality in my opinion. Without writing, life would be extremely boring.

Usually I begin writing and if I don't like it, I stop (but that is just starting to write whatever comes to mind). When I usually come up with a good idea, I continue to think about it until it gets stuck in my head. And if I think of something really good, I write it down on paper so I don't forget to use it.

Sean

My reason for becoming a writer was after watching a movie called Othello (the 1995 version) in my English class. Kenneith Bragangh(can't spell his last name well, sorry) played Iago and Lawerence Fishbourn played Othello. At that moment, I was simply captured by their portrayal of the book version and the flow of the story. That's when I decided to become a writer.

I like to listen to music as I write. The ideas either hit me or I develop it out of experience or what happens around the world. I follow my inspirations at times and other times, I just don't in order to it develop more. I use my mind alot and oddly enough can't jot down notes. I like to experience absolute freedom in my writings and offer these stories I write a chance in deciding how it proceedes. This is my way of expressing my story idea.

Gabriel    

I get an idea in my head, write it down and leave it for awhile.

After I come back to the ideas, I think to myself "Is this something that I and others would be entertained by?" if the answer is yes, 9 times out of 10 I will write it. Selling and Hollywood be damned.

I have so many "ideas" that I am never going to write I could probably just give them away to others who could do something with them. I mean a lot because after five years or so writing books (For myself) and finally arriving at the screenwriting phase my "writing" book is jam packed with partial books/scripts, treatments, snipets of something that could have been and so on.

i have 3 ways of doing it. one is i'll just sit down and just start freewriting a screenplay with the hope maybe i;ll crash into something awesome - i can come back to later and use as an outline/first draft...

another way is i'll come up with an idea... map out the story/plot points - then i'll create the characters...and interweave their stories with the plot...

or i'll do the reverse,create a group of interesting characters,and build a story around that.

most of the time i'm all over the place juggling 4 projects at once cause i cant stay focused on 1 thing. its pretty much organized chaos when i write


do you guys write your screenplays in chronological order?? or do you skip around to scenes that are easiest to write or that you feel inspired to work on?

* do you guys write your screenplays in chronological order?? or do you skip around to scenes that are easiest to write or that you feel inspired to work on? *

I do that! I pick scenes that inspires me, situation I have imagined while outlining the script idea and I start with them.

Usually, the basic idea pops into my while I'm watching a movie (good or bad) or while I'm driving my car or listening to someone I don't want to listen to.  Once the seed is planted, I let it develop on it's own.  

Sometimes it develops quickly (a la A Druid's Guide to the Northeast).  Sometimes, it takes years (a la The Burnout) started with a series of stories I started in 1977.

Once I have the complete story in my head, I start writing it.


Phil

Ideas come in the craziest ways.

the entire script for "Love Bites" simply came from me wanting to use garlic butter sparay as a weapon against vampires in a vampire movie.  The rest was planned around that everytime i walked my dog or tried to fall asleep.  When I thought I had the whole plot figured out, I organized everything in a notebook.  I worked on detailed character developments, possible jokes and quotes that should be said, how each character was introduced, and things of that nature.  Than I just wrote it up.

Quoted from dogglebe ...while I'm driving my car Phil

You drive a car in New York?  Damn you really are crazy.

Usually, I come up with a general idea in my head, and fill in bits and pieces throughout until I actually start writing.  The "in my head" phase usually goes all over the place.  I'll conceive scenes here and there, and then put them in some kind of order once I start writing.

More often than not, I'll come up with an end before I come up with a beginning.

Quoted from Shelton You drive a car in New York?  Damn you really are crazy.

So, what's your point, biotch?

I actually came up with the concept to Price Check on Film Noir while waiting on line at 99 cent store.  I was waiting at the register when I thought I heard someone say, "Price check on film noir."  That's where that came from.

Everyone should read this script.  Just click on it.  You'll be glad you did.


Phil

Quoted from dogglebe So, what's your point, biotch? Phil

It's official, Travis Bickle is on the board.

And they were probably saying "There's rice chex on the floor".  Every $.99 cent store you go into, there's always an abundance of rice chex.  I won't comment on our sociological class difference and how I'm better than you because I shop at the $1.00 store.

Mike & Phil, you guys need to try Costco and get it over with... And what's Rice Chex anyways????

Mike & Phil are just having fun.

Rice Chex is a type of cereal.  Or a snack food if your mom loved you enough to put them in the oven and bake them with other delicious snacks like peanuts and pretzels.

Mine didn't.

ok I never had this stuff! (calling my mother) hey, mom, what's up..do you love me?

Quoted from Shelton Rice Chex is a type of cereal.  Or a snack food if your mom loved you enough to put them in the oven and bake them with other delicious snacks like peanuts and pretzels.

My mother never served Rice Chex at parties.  She served scotch.

It was the fifties!


Phil

Phil, and other members, I need some help here, please. I'm trying to describe a building. The set up must have all the neighbors at a somewhat close proximity to each other, watching each other. And if you put a camera in the front entrance you see all the units. Here's what I came up with so far. Any opinions?

" A two-story Spanish building split in the middle by a brick path. The front section has a front yard and four units, two on each side. Then the path leads to a courtyard, and to the back section, which has six more units, three on each side. "

Well, it seems to be to specific. Why don't you try to aim to be more intermediate between general and specific?  

Gabriel

Gabriel, Because very important part of the story depends on that specific building set up

Well, I guess you could write as so...if you know the specific locaton in which you are decribing and are postive if the owner allows you to film there.

Gabriel

First, to the description. These can be as general or as specific as they need to be. If you see something specific and it is necessary for the plot to work, then be specific. If not, then don't.

As for writing, it depends on the idea for me. Fempiror fermented for about 8 years before a first draft popped out finally. I wrote about 10 snippets and outlines, and I continued to rework the backstory and rules and that sort of thing until the first draft of the first script was done. I continued to rework the history and rules while writing the second script and even the series pilot until it was all where I wanted it. I just kept going back and revising the drafts with the new info.

Most of my writing is 50/50 though. Sometimes I get an idea and write a first draft within a month; other times, I get an idea and sit on it for awhile because I like the idea, but I'm not sure where to go with it.

for me, i get multiple ideas at a time. i write them down in as much detail as ai can, then i think up of a plotline to link them up :D

that's happened many a time now, and so i have 3 full film ideas that i just need to write

My writing process is a little bit more in detail.  When I first started writing I think I just freewrote the entire script from start to finish and didn't even care about plot points, set up, development, etc.  My Mercenary and Quake screenplays are written that way.

After Quake though, I knew something had to be changed.  There had to be some way to plan out a screenplay so that you don't hit any blocks down the line and end up at page 80 and say "screw this".  I have done that many a time.

There are four things that are required in order to write a feature length screenplay, regardless of genre.  That is:  Ending, Beginning, Plot Point #1, and Plot Point #2.  In that order.  If you do not know your ending, you don't know your story.  The beginning can also be created by the genre of your script.  If it's an action/adventure, maybe you want a big action sequence (The Matrix).  If it's a drama, maybe you want a more symbolic and emotional beginning (American Beauty).  It all depends on your style.  Plot Points #1 and Plot Point #2 are the two events your screenplay that switch your screenplay from Act I to Act II and from Act II to Act III.  These usually appear on Page 30 and Page 90 in a 120 page script.  For example in my Slaughter script on Page 30 the group of college kids arrive at the doomed slaughterhouse, throwing them into a new scenario and on page 70 (only a 95 page script)  Rachel, the main character, decides enough is enough and decides to take on the killer head on.  

The rest is just filling in the gaps.  Your first Act should be the attraction to your audience a la explaining the main characters and conflicts.  Act II is the anticipation of the main conflict being taken on by your main character and the obstacles leading up to the final confrontation, and the thrid Act is the resolution.

I used to use index cards as well, 56 total cards that would span throughout Act I to III, but it kills your suspense of the script.  I don't know about other people, but I think one of the joys of writing a script is seeing how you yourself can be surprised at how your characters end up.  Iin every single one of my scripts, my characteres end up telling me what to write, instead of me telling what the characters shoudl do.  A bit wierd I know, but we're writers right?

I suggest you read produced screenplays by some of your favorite writers and see how they mapped out their screenplay.  Many writers like M. Night Shyamalan and Paul Haggis are masters at this.  Sixth Sense and Million Dollar Baby are excellent examples.  It's amazing at how the Acts flow together and keep the screenplay moving.  

Writing a screenplay can be a bitch, believe me I know.  I have been through about 5 different ides and about 200 pages of scripts in the last two months that have all been tossed out because I just didn't like them or they sucked.  You just have to find that one idea that you can really grasp and care about and just let the story flow.
  
That's my piece.  Happy writing.    

That was excellent and very informative. Thanks guy :)

I consider certain scenes in a story as " hurdles " and truly treat them as such. These are usually scenes that I've never written before, and had no idea at the time how to tackle. In my story The Giant Elk, a western, I ran into alot of those hurdles. The geographical location of the story was in Montana, why? because Elks and Grizzlies are there, but I've never been to Montana! and never seen a Grizzly in my life, or an Elk for that matter. So I hit the books. And that's where my subscription to the National Geographic Magazine finally paid off! All of you writer guys should subscribe to it, it really is a great research tool. Through that research I was able to move my characters around comfortably and gracefully, because I knew all these places that I described truly existed, Fort Peck, Fort Benton, the steam boat landing and that came right off of the national geographic articles. and that's, my dear friends, is the secret to my greatness!!... ok. ok stop shaking your heads I was kidding!

Always enjoy reading these types of threads, seeing how other writers go about their work.

As a new writer, my process is still being shaped.

For me, it all starts with one idea. It has to be in some way original, I'll always do research on the idea to see if someone has done it before. The ideas usually come while laying in bed, it's my muse.

First thing I'll do then is write the idea down, just a simple paragraph or so, I need that hard copy or I'll forget it. Then I'll leave it.

My brain then does the work while I do other things. It'll connect dots, come up with characters, and then come up with an ending to the whole thing. Knowing the ending is often what drives me to write the rest.

Then once my brain has snapped the pieces together, I start working on a pitch, getting down all the ideas for my series (or movie). I'll then post the idea (or ask friends online) and see if they like it. If there's interest, and nobody says "dude, that's a rip off of...." I'll cook up an episode outline.

My outlines are not too detailed. I write every scene I want to do, but not too deeply.

Once I'm happy, I write the script. Bingo bango.

Quoted from Ayham " A two-story Spanish building split in the middle by a brick path. The front section has a front yard and four units, two on each side. Then the path leads to a courtyard, and to the back section, which has six more units, three on each side. "

Is the building of Spanish design?  Or is it filled with Spanish people?

You could just say it's a medium-sized partment building with a large court yard.  Unless there's a reason for the specific number of units you're mentioning.  Don't mention it.


Phil

Phil, it's a Spanish design building... I finally came up with the design of the building which has alot to do with my story..here's what I came up with:

THE CONFIGURATION OF FAREED?S BUILDING
A two-story Spanish building split in the middle by a brick path. The front section has a front yard and four units, two on each side. Then the path leads to a courtyard, and to the rear section, which has eight more units, four on each side.

Fareed?s apartment is on the second level to the right, and has a small patio looking over the courtyard, next to it is Mrs Goldstein?s unit, across from them is the Kuwan?s, a Korean family, and next to the Kuwan?s is the Jackson?s, a black couple.

Phil, that's how I described the building, even though we haven't really met any of the neighbors yet! Like Mrs Goldstein or the Kuan family...does that make sense at all? to name certain characters before they appear in the story?

Regarding the design of configuration, I'm a real estate appraiser and got lucky recently by finding this building in Compton! I think it would work.

VAUGHN,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It has been a great experience to read how other writers approach the Writing Process, a great learning experience actually. Thank you again.

Ayham

Could someone please tell me how do you guys do this QUOTE thing?? do you highlight a phrase and click quote or what? I'm only able to quote the whole reply but can't figure out how to quote only certain sections! I feel I'm a retard when it comes to these things!

If you mean to quote a small part, respond to it, and then quote another part further down the line, you have to enter the code before and after the section you want to quote further down the line.

Hope that makes sense

Just delete what is in between the code if you don't want it there.

i cant get started on anything... i'd love to come up with a cool series but everything keeps running into dead ends. i'm trying to go back to basics and "write what you know" but still for the last couple days i've spent a painful amount of time staring at a blank page.

it sucks to be unimaginitve.

Quoted from Shelton If you mean to quote a small part, respond to it, and then quote another part further down the line, you have to enter the code before and after the section you want to quote further down the line. Hope that makes sense

Mike, I think I got it, but now that I saw what you " taken just before breakfast " I forgot everything :)  

That was very helpful, thank you.

You're welcome.

And what can I say?  She insisted on spending the night.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14945362/site/newsweek/

I thought you guys might find this article interesting, by the guy who wrote " Basic Instinct " you know, that movie when Sharon Stone does that thing with her legs...? yeah?...remember?...Of course you do!!

I've been really interested in picking that book up actually.  I must say I love the mention of Chayefsky in the beginning of the article.

Paddy Chayefsky was awesome.

Glad you liked it Mike.

Ok, you guys I'm gonna go out on a limb here, so bare with me please. This has to do with the Writing Process and with all the thoughts you shared in this thread.
An idea is developing in my head, and I don't want it, I'm trying to push it away but it keeps coming back ever more forcefully time and time again. I don't want it because I'm in the middle of writing a screenplay and I'm really trying hard with this one because it might see the light of day, and not sit for years in a lost folder in this old computer of mine. And that's how it all started... You see, I'm writing this screenplay with a co-writer...a woman co-writer...a BLOND woman co-writer. So, last week and as I was driving home at night after a stormy writing session, thinking of the best and less painful way to kill myself, an idea, or a thought popped into my head, right before jumping off the freeway. And this thought was: " Women, specifically blond women, are different than us, men. They think and act very different. " End of thought.
So I stopped from killing myself, for a moment, well I actually had to go home and use the restroom, didn't wanna say, excuse me, god, I need to take a leak before you send me to hell.

So once I got that important part out of the way, that same thought came back to me, and this time it was: " We call these creatures, Women. They're built, and packaged differently than us. Sometimes we love them, sometimes we hate them, and most of the times we have no clue what to do with them." end of second thought.

But this time it was different, this time I imagined a person, a man saying this to another man, and from there, the thoughts started jumping into this weird head of mine (cheap hair cut).

And here's what I came up with. Synopsis:
* Two nerds. One from Earth, one from space. Set out to save the planet...and have sex."


A man is sitting at night in his back yard, in a small, rural town, watching a falling star, feeling very romantic as he watches the star getting closer and closer, thinking about a woman who keeps rejecting his advances.
But something very strange happens, the falling star keeps falling...closer...closer...scaring him to death as it finally lands into his own back yard!
The man is scared to death, not sure what to do. He looks at this object and it turns out to be a UFO!
Very strange, very weird looking UFO, armed to the teeth.
The man is not sure what to do, he's freaking out. He turns to run inside to call the police, but he hears something. A door is opening. He looks and finds himself face to face with an ALIEN (this is a comedy by the way)
The alien, dressed in a space suit and has an over-sized head. He looks just like us, well, most us humans, except for the large head.

Now, the alien ( lets imagine him as a young Robin William, when he was funny) and lets imagine the earth man as...um, Jim Cary?...So this alien walks out of the ship, and we can immediately tell this is NOT your typical alien like we see in the movies, think of him as your nerdy-type alien. He trips and fall the second he steps to the ground, and drops his laser weapon. He's clumsy. He forgets things...And here's his story;
The ship was part of an alien invasion; it's a scout ship on a mission that had gone wrong. The ship was supposed to be invisible once it hit Earth atmosphere, but technical problems caused it to fall in the sky. The crew became unconscious and is now in a hibernated state. Only one crewmember made it, Robin, who is actually the cook on that ship, a totally clueless space cook.
So Robin tells Jim about the invasion plan. He tells him that the scouting mission was to determine that conditions are ripe on Earth for the big invasion, and by that he means that if Earth people were not united as one, then it would make the invasion easier, they would take Earth one country after the other. But if they were united as one, then the invasion would be cancelled because the Earth, united, is too pwerful.

Also, we will find out more about those aliens, one part in particular is that their, uh, private parts are extremely tiny! Because they stopped having sex for thousands of years, because sex and the pursuit of sex causes people to lose focus on science and other important things in life. So they eliminated it, and in the process, women were eliminated also from that planet (including my co-writer) and that caused their heads to grow. And their private parts to shrink. So they became smarter (they have babies through artificial injections)

So now, at this point, we have two nerds, one from space, one from earth, going at it. Jim, trying to give Robin an idea about life on Earth. He descibes women to him by telling him that they're built, and packaged differently. But Robin is extremely fascinated with the women species, he had never seen one in his entire life.

Robin develops certain super-human powers since he's on Earth. He tells Jim that the only way to foil the invasion plans is for Earth people to unite. So they both set out to unite Earth. In the mean time, an evil scientist who somehow found out about this whole thing, decides to try and wake up the hibernated aliens and use them for his..uh, evil stuff. He has no use of Robin since he's only a cook!

Other things are happening. Robin will fall in love with a knock-out blond (my co-writer) but his, you know, private part, is so damn tiny, he's embarrassed with himself.

Finally, Robin and Jim will unite the people of earth, and the evil doctor will be defeated, and Robin's tiny private part will finally grow and will have wild sex with my co-writer and GET HER OFF MY BACK!!!

This is it! Now you see how my writing process develops.

You guys should take a look at this;

Friday, September 29, 2006

A FEW PIECES ON DIALOGUE


Leaving our discussion of character for a while, to be returned
to soon.  Thought I'd do a little piece, or a few pieces on
dialogue ? since one of the Million-Dollar Screenwriting gang
just requested same by email...

...so...dialogue.  

First, let's dispense w/the idea that it should be
"Natural" ...or "conversational".  

It should SEEM natural and conversational. But it probably
ISN'T that way, if it's any good. Would you send out the
rough draft of screenplay or let anyone else read it?

You shouldn't.  

And ALL day-to-day, real life conversation is a ROUGH DRAFT.  We
don't have the opportunity to edit what we say off the cuff in
conversation.  Ever heard of "l'esprit de l'escalier"?
It's a French expression that translates as "the spirit of
the staircase", that thought that occurs to you after the
argument inside, when you're leaving, on the staircase, an
idea comes to you, where you think "THAT'S what I SHOULD
have said!"  

Well, that's a REWRITE, my friend.  

A dialogue polish in real life.  And THAT'S the line that goes
in the screenplay.  Our characters are a little better than we
are, they speak a little better, get to the point quicker,
distill it more eloquently than we do.  We can have a three-hour
pointless conversation, but we shouldn't film it.

So, it sounds like real conversation, but it's really
conversation DISTILLED.  Just as drama is life w/the boring
parts removed, so dialogue is talk with the bad lines removed
and the good lines heightened, ok?  Trust me, no one's going
to say "This dialogue's just too good, I don't believe
it."  They're going to say "This is great."  You should
have such problems.  

Ok then.

Let's begin a dialogue about?dialogue.

What's it got to do?  What is dialogue for?  I'd say it has
two purposes:

A. To advance story
B. To reveal character

And by the way, great when you can do both at once.  One of my
last passes for a dialogue polish is always to say "Well, this
line is already advancing story, how can it also reveal
character?"  Or vice-versa, but personally my problem is
usually the former.  

And let me share with you, at this juncture, my first rule of
writing dialogue, or the first pointer I give my students:

"Don't."

That is, when you can avoid it, when you've got a way to SHOW
rather than tell, do that, do that, DO THAT.  

Remember, dialogue is the icing on the cake. Make sure that you
have a cake first, which, in this analogy, is a great story with
great characters.  And then, apply icing ? it would serve at
this point to say that they DID make great movies WITHOUT any
dialogue back in the silent era, but they never made any without
good stories or good characters, did they?  So, you don't need
dialogue to be great, do you?

That said, we don't make silent movies anymore...so you're
probably going to have to the characters say something,
sometime.  But remember, you can tell an entire story without it
and it CAN be almost all character...if you see Reservoir Dogs
for instance, Quentin Tarantino goes wild with the pop culture
references and the story is mainly carried in the actions of the
characters ?-

-- when Mr. Blonde is preparing to torture the hostage police
officer, he doesn't SAY:  "I'm going to torture you.
First I'll douse you gasoline, which will scare you, but
what's even worse is, I'm going to cut off your ear."

No.

He turns up the radio and he talks about what's playing
on the radio and dances around the warehouse with a jerry can of
gasoline and a straight-razor. And it's all the scarier
thereby.  If you watch the DVD, QT's commentary talks a lot
about how the characters don't talk about the story.  

Another great study in dialogue to me, is David Mamet's HEIST.
You virtually can't discern the story if you're only
listening to the dialogue.  It's a caper film ? there's a
whole plan, but it's virtually never mentioned...then it goes
off and various factions fight each other for the loot, but that
too, is never said.

So, in those two, the dialogue is virtually ALL character.  

But, a word of caution.  Heist, directed by David Mamet from his
own script, almost certainly set up with financing and all
beforehand, perhaps with Gene Hackman attached.  Reservoir Dogs,
self-financed by QT till the eleventh hour when his agents got
him more cash, Harvey Keitel and bunch of other goodies.

Neither one was set up as a spec script.  They didn't come in
from unknown writers and get the quick "once-over" from some
agent's assistant who ONLY READS the dialogue (if that).  

So, I might urge you to have your characters talk a little bit
more about the story as it goes on ? or at least not to bury
the most important story details in narration, where they risk
being missed.  You'll want to strike a balance where, yes, we
can get the gist of the story from the dialogue alone ? and
the story's a powerhouse when we read every word ? which
we'll do, because the dialogue will make us WANT to do.  

So...dialogue so far:

Distill and intensify it.  Show, don't tell when possible.
Balance it between story and character.  

More coming...

Thanks "A Million",

Chris Soth
http://www.getresponse.com/t/3008291/556840/156856012/
http://www.MillionDollarScreenwriting.com/blog
http://www.getresponse.com/t/3008292/556840/156856012/

Chris Soth

" There are a handful of members, here, who know English as a second language, Helio, Michel and Bert are a few of them.  We learn to overlook the 'mistranslations' for these people.  For those of us who know English, we are not as forgiving. "


Phil


Phil, I quoted you on this one from Helio's post of his short script, didn't wanna comment on it there, so I wouldn't fill that section with unrelated materials.

Regarding members who know English as a second language, which includes me as well. I don't think we should learn to overlook their mistranslations. I think when a foreign writer decides to use the English language as a medium to convey his thoughts to others, he or she must be in good, or acceptable command of this medium, or this language, or at least try hard to be, otherwise what's the point of writing in English? And I must add here that it takes me twice as long to produce a screenplay, that's acceptable in terms of English, than it would take a native speaker, because I truly put alot of effort in proofing it for proper English, and I think everyone else should do the same.

Bert's English is a second language??!!! geez! He's better than my English teacher!!

Quoted from Ayham Bert's English is a second language??!!!

Fortunately, Inuktitut is very close to English, so it wasn't much of a challenge.

Those who know English as a second language should know it enough if they wish to participate here...including Bert.  I'm just saying that I won't jump on their cases as much as I would an English-speaking member (English as a first language).

I've seen scripts here that were filled with typos, misspellings (there is a difference between the two), and text messaging.  Unless you're writing your script on a blackberry, you shouldn't abbreviate every word.

And that goes double for Bert!


Phil

Quoted from bert Fortunately, Inuktitut is very close to English, so it wasn't much of a challenge.

Just learned something new!

Bert rides a little yellow bus on the information super highway....


Phil

One thing I've learned, the hard way, for those who speak or write in English as a second language, during the writing process do NOT think in your native language and then translate, that's where most mistranslations come from. Train yourself to think in English, straight, on the rocks!...And life would be a little easier from there on.

Quoted from dogglebe Bert rides a little yellow bus on the information super highway....

We like to call it the Magic Bus, thank you.  Too much, that Magic Bus.

Hey, Ayham -- I am so NOT an Eskimo, OK?

But even without Eskimo heritage, I can be about 99.9% sure Inuktitut isn't anything like English.  They've got, like, 40 words for snow.  And I don't even know what blubber looks like.  Unless it looks like Phil.

I have no idea what Phil is talking about.

Not the first time that's happened, frankly.  Won't be the last.

So Inuktitut is an Eskimo's language? I learned something new as well.

:D

I actually had to look up Inuktitut to know what it is!...So, now we know it's a language...spoken in a cold area...And Bert, is that Robin Williams? In a mask and orange hair??

I'll have to say I learned something new as well. I thought when I read English was not Bert's first language, someone was being facetious, but hey, maybe not. Interesting.

Oh well, it doesn't mean you're getting any more slack.

And anyone who would type a script on a Blackberry probably drinks their own bath water too.

If there'd been a choice, I'd have picked something more outgoing than writing. Like acting and singing, as a profession.

Since everything I observe hits a button to express my version of it, certain scenes jump in my mind. They don't leave till I get them on paper. It's exhausting, and often unwanted. It's happened since I was a kid.

The process keeps changing. I used to fall in love with my characters, and write plots to accomodate them. Now, it's more open to strange events, with suitable characters to play out those events. Then, back to character love. Mix and match. Take it as it comes.  Guess my heart really lies with characters and dialogue overall.

I've never used outlines, because the first draft spits out the essence I'm after. The big fun is seeing life spring from the keyboard. If there wasn't sheer magic in that, I'd find an easier occupation.

Quoted from George Willson And anyone who would type a script on a Blackberry probably drinks their own bath water too.

Laugh all you want, Jordan, but I can lift a car clean off the ground with my thumbs!


Phil

Quoted from MonetteBooks The process keeps changing. I used to fall in love with my characters, and write plots to accomodate them. Now, it's more open to strange events, with suitable characters to play out those events. Then, back to character love. Mix and match. Take it as it comes.  Guess my heart really lies with characters and dialogue overall.

I'm always developing characters which wait to be placed in a story somewhere.  I have a couple a dozen fully-developed one in my head now (the doctors call the 'voices').  When I'm ready to write something about them, I come up with a story.


Phil

I have a 7 minute comedy short that should post pretty soon, featuring 12 obnoxious characters for you to love/hate. Title: "Parody High School".

So. When it does, y'all come over and see if our humor clashes or jives. I'd like to get to know some of you better. Humor's a good ice-breaker, as this piece intends.

Put some of your own characters in comedy shorts, guys. See how they hold up to the bouquets and brickbats. Gee, this feels almost like a stand-up comic tryout. That's pretty scary. But I gotta have fun, don't you?

I've written three comedy shorts, one of which is in production.  I'm concentrating on feature-length scripts right now and am juggling two as we speak...er, type.


Phil

Hey, Monette, Have you tried your hands at stand-up comedy at all?

I've done alot of improvisation work. Mostly private, but some onstage at an theater workshop on Melrose in Hollywood years ago. I was having a high old time with it, till my purse was stolen at a rehearsal. That made me so furious I never went back. It took me a year to replace all my stolen stuff.

Stand up comedy takes more brass than I've accumulated, thus far.

I'm not even sure if anyone on this site wrote a stand up comedy, but it always sounded like fun to me, writing your own script and performing it to live audience.

Question to members:

I was reading earlier that the movie * My Big Fat Greek Wedding " started out as a one woman play. What is a one woman play? Or a one man play? Is it a play performed by one person on stage? Does she perform all the roles by herself?

Quoted from Ayham Question to members: I was reading earlier that the movie * My Big Fat Greek Wedding " started out as a one woman play. What is a one woman play? Or a one man play? Is it a play performed by one person on stage? Does she perform all the roles by herself?

Yep.  That's correct.  I still think the funiest one man play/show was John Leguizamo's Freak.  It was directed by Spike Lee and perforned in New York.  He played the roles of his family, friends, girlfriends, everyone.  It was fracking hilarious.  It was so good you almost forget your are only watching one person.

But yeah a one person play/show is just one person on stage performing multiple roles, but usually returns to a somewhat "narrarator" voice which usually is their own.

Just think of a screenplay.  The dialogue would be spoken in the "tone" of the character and all of the subtext and description would be spoken by the actor's own voice in narration.

Guy, that's very interesting and thank you for the info! I never really watched a one person play. I'm not really much of a live theatre person. I took a date once to the Phantom of The Opera, I fell asleep, I woke up and she was gone.

Quoted from guyjackson Yep.  That's correct.  I still think the funiest one man play/show was John Leguizamo's Freak.  It was directed by Spike Lee and perforned in New York.  He played the roles of his family, friends, girlfriends, everyone.  It was fracking hilarious.  It was so good you almost forget your are only watching one person.

Patrick Stewart did a one man show of Dickens' A Christmas Carol in New york for a couple of seasons.  I didn't see it myself but heard he was fantastic in it.  Supposedly, he developed thirty-six different voices for his show.


Phil

Thank you for the inputs, Phil and Guy.

My hot blond co-writer asked me the other day for a "tagline" for the story we're working on. I laughed at her and said, tagline is a logline. And I came up with a logline. She felt dumb.

But this stuck on my mind, and this morning I researched and found out, painfully, that the two are different!!! And I feel dumb! Am I the only one, I wonder?

So, for any member who doesn't know the difference, let me and I'll post some good samples.

Don't be shy...come on... just raise your hand and I'll post it up...just one finger.

Please?

OK! any writer who doesn't know the difference and raises his/her hand, will get FIVE BUCKS, plus the info!!

i just bought David Trottier's Screenwriters Bible... and it is fantastic. it answers pretty much any question you could possibly have about writing a script.

Swap, even the Bible wouldn't spare me her laughter when I tell her...or maybe I shouldn't tell her!

But let me ask you though, isn't a tagline something that's picked by a producer, as a promo for the movie? and the writer only puts up a logline?

Quoted from Ayham But let me ask you though, isn't a tagline something that's picked by a producer, as a promo for the movie? and the writer only puts up a logline?

A logline describes the throughline of the story. A tagline is little more than a marketing slogan; movie poster fodder e.g "In space no one can hear you scream."

Check out http://www.twoadverbs.com/loglinearticle.htm for everything you need to know about loglines.

It's all about making that P-L-A-N-N-I-N-G...

Plan for a while. For example: webs, jot down ideas, etc. I always look at news on msn to see if it will spark an idea. After obtaining an idea, and working with it. I start an outline. After doing one outline or two I start the rough draft. After a rough draft I revise... Rewrite it... Rewrite it... Revise... Let it sit... Revise... And walah!

That's how I do it.

http://www.bigbreakcontest.com

This is a list of the winners from the Final Draft contest...I went over the loglines of the first and second place winners, wasn't too impressed, especially with the first place...

One of these days, I'll stop missing this thread. It gets posted and then buried before I catch it, and I'm on a lot. I want to briefly follow up on the log/tag line question. Martin's answer is spot on, but I want to expound just a little bit.

A logline is a sentence that describes the core of your story. It contains the protagonist, major conflict and antagonist or antagonistic force at the very least. This is written to pitch the story to producers and used in TV Guide venues to describe the story quickly and concisely. A good limit to set here is 30 words.

A tagline, by contrast, is just a blurb intended to intrigue a potential audience and entice them to coming in to see the movie. Martin's example: "In space, no one can hear you scream" is now readily identifiable with Alien, but tells us absolutely nothing about the story. A logline might be: "A mining crew struggles to defeat an almost invincible alien before it kills them."

Hope that helps as well.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15641336/


This is about stealing ideas.

Ayham

Some quite disturbing stories of writers being ripped off in the article you provided the link for. And I can see how the pain of this happening to writers could feel like their world has fallen apart after all the hard work they put into their original scripts. Screenplays, even though you copyright them with the U.S. Copyright Office and or the W.G.A. they can be subject to plagiarism or the basic story premise ripped off by unscrupulous producers, production companies and studios.

Unfortunately this is the nature of the beast. It shouldn't be but I'm afraid it is.

Many more people will get ripped off every day.

I'd lay a bet that some writers on here have been ripped off in some way or another. I know I have.

There's more than one way to get ripped off in this game.. The root of it is pure greed I'm sorry to say..


Kevan

Kevan, I totally agree.

Also, how do we know that some producer out in some country like India or whatever is not skimming off some products off this site and turning them into movies? ...So, yeah, it's really not safe out there at all and I don't think there's anything that we can do about it.

Ayham

The fact that no single idea is "original" means every script is ripping something off.

My feature that I finished back in august is a very original IDEA and that is all I care about. Nobody can dispute that claim (At least those who know what I'm talking about)

People are so paranoid about "You stole this" and all that when they should look at themselves and the work they write and say "Damn, I stole this, this and that" because it is hard to write a good script without borrowed elements.

Wes

There are only so many stories out there and variations on a theme, I agree and these are all based on something whether this be your own or somebody elses experiences, something you've read or whatever... I think I know where you're coming from with what you're saying...

I think what the argument refers to however, is outright stealing of somebody's script concept. George Willson's "The Fempiror Chronicles" is a good example here because his characters and stories, although rooted in a vampire history, are George's own take and originality on that theme and if somebody stole these and made them without his permission or monetary compensation then this would be stealing his work. I think the article suggested some screenwriters had submitted work tro certain producers and studios and these scripts had been ripped off. The original authors, even though they had registered their work with the U.S. Copyright Office and W.G.A., they still had their script somehow ripped off and re-written into something which still resembled their work but they were not financialy compensated for this or even given credit.

A lot of wannabe screenwriters would give a feature screenplay for nothing just for the screen credit if this got them an agent and the possibility of future work in this industry. To blantantly steal somebody's work goes on in Hollywood, this was what the original article was asserting by using real life examples of writers who this has happened to..

For example, just an idiot, desordered mind, a f**k mad or a utter fool will steal any idea from me!

This has been discussed to death in many other threads. Keep this thread on topic.

If you want to shoot the shit, use your PM inbox.

Ideas cannot be copyrighted, and rightly so. There is a lot of paranoia among writers who fear that their ideas will be stolen when they should be more concerned about becoming better writers.

Fact is, ideas are a dime a dozen, and it's the execution of the idea that really counts.

If you're a newbie writer and you write a fantastic script based on a fantastic idea, then it's much cheaper for a prodco to buy your script and sign you on for rewrites than it is for them to "steal" the idea and hire someone else to rewrite your concept, risking potential lawsuits futher down the line.

If you write a terrible script based on a great concept, then it's easy for someone to steal your idea and hire a competent writer to turn it into gold. The script, however, will be different enough to be considered original.

If you have a great idea, write a great script and no-one will feel the need to steal it.

That's my 2 cents.

Quoted from Old Time Wesley This has been discussed to death in many other threads. Keep this thread on topic. If you want to shoot the shit, use your PM inbox.

I was posting a reply to a previous post by Ayham and if you read my text you'll see I was actually agreeing with you Wesley..

In addition, I was paraphrasing the article which Ayham also read about the writing process and what happens to some writers afterwards. I thought this was on topic myself..

There appears to be a lot of previous posts in this thread that are definately not on topic.

I've finished with this thread anyway..

Martin,

Thanks for your opinion on this. I've posted the link to the article just to show other writers what's going on in the world of writing and production, and things that we might not know about. I, too, believe that a writer should concern him or herself with advancing their craft and coming up with unique ideas that would benefit the writer and the viewer, and hopefully make some money in the process.

But it doesn't hurt to learn more about the ins and outs of this business.

Again, thanks for the input.

Ayham

" There are a handful of members, here, who know English as a second language, Helio, Michel and Bert are a few of them.  We learn to overlook the 'mistranslations' for these people.  For those of us who know English, we are not as forgiving. "


Phil


Phil, I quoted you on this one from Helio's post of his short script, didn't wanna comment on it there, so I wouldn't fill that section with unrelated materials.

Regarding members who know English as a second language, which includes me as well. I don't think we should learn to overlook their mistranslations. I think when a foreign writer decides to use the English language as a medium to convey his thoughts to others, he or she must be in good, or acceptable command of this medium, or this language, or at least try hard to be, otherwise what's the point of writing in English? And I must add here that it takes me twice as long to produce a screenplay, that's acceptable in terms of English, than it would take a native speaker, because I truly put alot of effort in proofing it for proper English, and I think everyone else should do the same.

Bert's English is a second language??!!! geez! He's better than my English teacher!!"



Regarding to alll! About inglix to be my second language, yes it is very much and I'm proud and I'm here until ther day Don Boose says "Helio stay out for ever, sucker!" I'll write with my unic way I know write inglix. Final point!

I'm just wondering why my last post to Helio has been deleted. It's not important, but I'm just curious.


Ayham

Quoted from Ayham I'm just wondering why my last post to Helio has been deleted. It's not important, but I'm just curious.

I didn't do it -- it could have been any number of people -- but I can probably tell you why it was done.

Quoted from Wesley If you want to shoot the shit, use your PM inbox.

The original question here -- about "The Writing Process" -- has long since been asked and answered.

This thread has now devolved into chatter -- not a big deal, really -- but the thread itself has kind of outlived its usefulness, if you know what I mean.

I am pretty sure Wesley's point was that if you've got a new question, Ayham -- or a new point to make, or a new "conversation" you would like to start -- then you should begin a new thread instead of endlessly resurrecting this one.

But you can stick a fork in this one because it is done haha.

I actually deleted it because it was one word followed by a smiley face and someone responded in kind so it went as well.

Quoted Text 6. Post in the correct forum.  and 9. Respond with more than just one or two words.

Seacrest out!

Thanks guys, like I said, it's no big deal at all.

*packing and walking out of the thread*

* Turning the key to Bert & Wesley, they shake their heads and roll their eyes as I sadly turn and walk away *