- How I Ideate - Ideation is the funnest part for me, I use this method in all of the subsequent steps when I need to get the creative juices going, and so I decided to start with it. So how do I come up with a good idea? I write 25 bad ones. Say I have a scene that involves a hero getting ready to go surf and i need a joke. I go into my word processor; write something like "jokes for scene 2"; push my trusty numbered list icon; think about anything related to the subject of surfing; and write any joke good, bad, or mediocre that comes to my mind without judging it at the moment. In the back of my head, I'll have an idea of which ones are stronger than the other, but I don't worry about that until I've met my joke count of 25. The reason for continuing without looking back is to ignore the bad jokes and the good ones. Ignoring the bad ones prevents me from getting discouraged about myself or frustrated with my writing. Ignoring the good ones prevents me from settling on something when there may be something better if I keep going. Otherwise, it's like going to a restaurant, choosing the first sequential thing on the menu that sounds tasty, and not continuing to read what else the restaurant offers.
- Theme - Theme is something I think I'm still trying to fully understand. I tend to think it comes automatically to a story that's interesting. Basically, my understanding of theme is: what is the subject you want to explore? I was tempted to instead explain it as what's the moral to the story? but some of the best stories have no moral, they simply explore ideas and allow us to draw the conclusion. Using one of my favorite movies, Blade Runner, as an example, it explores the moral implications of creating androids, referred to as "replicants," which are almost totally indistinguishable from humans. Blade Runner never really makes a clear judgments on the subject of mankind creating artificial humans... I never walked away from the film thinking "dude, making androids is bad!" even though the replicants are mistreated and multiple humans in the film were attacked by them. Instead, while the film is rightfully critical of slavery, its primarily theme questions what it is that defines our humanity without giving an answer. At least, that's what I took away from it. I wish I could give credit to the person that originally made this point, but some anonymous person pointed out that the androids in the film are more caring for one another than the humans are to their fellow men.
Comedies seem more forgiving, but they can have themes too! One of my favorite comedies is Anchorman. The film clearly mocks the values of the 1970's, in particular, the struggle of women to be given a fair chance in the workplace. Airplane! is about a guy overcoming his war failures and redeeming himself, even though we don't take his struggle seriously and laugh at his mental anguish. In my series concept, Totally Awesome Dude, I very loosely made the theme the fickleness, foolishness, and irresponsibility of childhood; I thought it'd be fun and fresh to be different from other adult-animated sitcoms with precocious kids such as South Park and The Simpsons. The pilot, Tad Saves the Arcade, maintains that theme with a satire of the cliched "evil businessman trying to shut down our favorite childhood hangout" story. I try to have a theme in mind at least by the time I get to the Treatment phase.
For a serious dramatic film or short story, I would have the theme in mind in the structure phase; hence, theme is #2 on my list between the those two subjects. - Structure - Different mediums have different act structure and there's even different structures within the same medium (for example, a serialized drama differs from an episodic drama). All stories have a beginning middle end, but the middle can be divided into multiple acts. Made-for-TV movies have many more acts than a feature film because producers want to give viewers a reason to stay tuned in through commercial breaks for 2 hours. A sitcom seem to have 4 acts for one primary storyline, or 3 acts for stories that involve multiple characters (Friends is a good example of the latter). I have not seen more than 3 simultaneous storylines in a sitcom, more often I see two. I notice Friends also tends to finalize one of the less important storylines during the ending credits, which I assume is how they cram so much into one episode.
Keeping structure because it helps me to find out what I need to fill in the blanks when I get to the treatment phase. So, for example, I'm writing a 22 minute sitcom with 4 acts. Act 1 starts and ends before the first commercial break, Act 2 starts and ends before the second commercial break, act 3 and 4 occur in the last segment of the show. Again, using my example script, Tad Saves the Arcade, as an example (mostly because it's already completed, registered and copyrighted, and been pitched), my structure would be an outline like this:
Act 1 - Tad's favorite arcade located within the local pizza place is going to go out of business unless the owner pays the rent.
[Commercial]
Act 2 - Tad tries to raise money for the restaurant by doing odd jobs and asking friends for help. He not only fails, but he and his brother accidentally launches a missile at the restaurant.
[Commercial]
Act 3 - Tad and friends stop the missile. His friends, thankful of the odd jobs he did earlier, generously grant him the money to help save the restaurant .
Act 4 - Realizing he can just buy his own arcade machines with all the money he was given, he selfishly lets the pizza shop go out of business.
Ideation here came from considering funny setup plots as well as "how can I make it more difficult in act 3?" I probably had some other ideas, (I think one with the restaurant owner having a comical heroin overdose), but for whatever reason at the time, I thought the missile plot had the most potential. Missiles are cool. They did it though computer hacking which is also cool. Ideation for Act 4 was deciding whether or not the protagonist will prevail or fail and figuring out how.
When I first considered structure, I wondered why stories are structured in such a way that the conclusion is shorter than everything else rather than symmetrical. If I had to guess, I think it's because humans are most interested in the struggle when it comes to storytelling; act 2 and 3 are the the conflict where where we get from the problem to solution. Act 1 is the second longest part because the struggle needs a proper and plausible introduction as to why our protagonist is struggling, and what the stakes are if he fails. Act 4 is the shortest because it terminates the most interesting part, the conflict. - Treatment - A Treatment is different from a series treatment/mini-bible. What I'm referring to is a sheet that plots out each scene and what's to be accomplished. Treatment bridges the gap between structure and writing converging into a map for my characters. If I don't have a solid treatment in mind when I start writing scenes, I tend to write irrelevant scenes or worse, go on a tangent! My characters literally go to locations they're not supposed to and get lost in my imaginary world!
Ideation here comes in me trying to fill in the acts with scenes and plot point. I write down every idea I have even if it's inconsistent with a previous one (again, maybe I'll find something better if I go a different direction). After I have a huge list of ideas for scenes, I duplicate my act structure list and pull stuff into that new structure list from the scene list to keep things clean without erasing my old ideas.
This ideation list is fluid; as I come up with one idea, I'll ideate more based on that idea (even though I may never use either). I'm constantly going between acts when I realize something would make a good ending or middle and try to think of a way to set it up in a previous act. The purpose for me is to get my mind firing up its neural pathways. One idea opens up multiple related ideas because of an associated memory or thought, and it just exponentially grows.
In Act 1, I'm looking at the headings and wondering things like "why is the pizza place shutting down?", "what's the place like?" "how can I show that it's Tad's favorite place"? I also look ahead to act 2 knowing Act 1 has to set it up so I think "why would anyone help Tad?"
Act 2 has me wondering what would Tad try to save the pizza place. What works, what sets him back and what finally sets up Act 3, things getting worse with the missile. Why does his brother get involved?
Act 3, I'm wondering how can I resolve these two problems.
Act 4, Simple: epilogue and conclusion. It's a comedy, so i try to end it on a funny note. This act is so short it's really only one gag over two scenes: Tad receives the money, Tad spends the money. - Act 1 - Tad's favorite arcade is apart of the local pizza place, which he discovers is going to go out of business unless the owner pays the rent to a greedy landlord.
- The landlord is in the Illuminati conspiracy and needs the place to perform occult rituals
- The landlord's wife is a gold digger and needs new boobs
- The tenant is a drug addict and spent all his money on speedballs
- Aliens came and attacked the pizza place
- Two gangsters from the 1920's traveled through time to rob this one store and create and inter-dimensional protection racket.
- The arcade has animtronic animal puppets like Chuck-E-Cheese, but they're really terminator robots in disguise searching for Sarah Conner.
- The arcade has funny games:
- A spoof of the ridiculously violent and propagandist game, NARC.
- Kid Oedipus
- etc. all the way up to 25.
- Jokes about those ball pits at restaurant playgrounds
- It's endless and goes to Atlantis
- there's a bunch of hypodermic needles in it.
- There's a shark in it
- etc.
- Etc. all the way to 25 whatever...
- Act 2 - Tad tries to raise money for the restaurant by doing odd jobs and asking friends for help. He not only fails, but he and his brother accidentally launches a missile at the restaurant.
- What does Tad try that doesn't work?
- Sells candy bars
- Trys to get the city to bailout the pizza place
- etc. to 25
- How does the missile get launched?
- They were going to steal the money from the government, but they accidentally hacked the DOD rather than the treasury.
- Tad threatens the president to pay for the pizza restaurant or he'll be a terrorist, and the president instead launches a strike on the pizza place.
- Why does Johnny get involved with Tad resulting in the missile launch?
- Johnny is a genius and conceited. Tad plays to this and eggs Johnny on to hack the computers betting he can't do it.
- Johnny just demonstrates how to do it, but Tad actually does it.
- Act 3 - Tad and friends stop the missile. His friends, thankful of the odd jobs he did earlier, generously grant him the money to help save the restaurant.
- How do they stop the missile?
- They enlist the help of the resident explosive expert, Ricky to blow it up
- They call the pentegon and ask to borrow a jet
- They rewind history and recall the missile in reverse.
- etc. to 25
- etc. to 25
- Act 4 - Realizing he can just buy his own arcade machines with all the money he was given, he selfishly lets the pizza shop go out of business.
- Tad gets the money in a big ceremony. What's the scene like?
- Everyone gathers around to witness Tad handing over a giant check to save the shop.
- etc. to 25
- Tad spends the money on arcade games.
- People that helped him are mad that he lied to them about saving the arcade.
- The pizza store owner is homeless
- etc. to 25
- etc. to 25
- Writing the "Shit Draft" - An early professional screenwriting mentor of mine explained the "Shit Draft" to me. It was essentially explained to me something like "no matter how good of a writer you are, your first draft is going to to be shit. The best thing you can do is get it out as fast as you can because rewriting is going to be the most tedious step and the purpose of it is to make your draft not be shit." Not wanting to write something that sucks is instinctive to me. Maybe I subconsciously worry someone will see it, or I'll get discouraged that I don't have a natural talent be a writer. I got over this by just forcing myself to complete screenplays and seeing how much the story improves from the first draft. I force myself by just writing out scenes I liked using the outlines in the the finalized (widdled down) version of the treatment outline that I settled on in the previous step. I challenge myself to get it done as fast as I can.
I also force myself to overwrite. In my treatment ideation phase, I will usually find more than one way to write progress the story. I'll find multiple gags that are really funny in concept, but I will only have room for one. Without seeing these things written out, I can't tell if the flow of the scene or the joke will work. It may be that I have a really funny concept, but I'm unable to execute it. I may have a concept that seems to be not as funny as others, but ends up working really well. The point is, anything that seems worth exploring in my treatment, I write out because I can always cut it later. It would be more difficult for me to add missing parts than cut unnecessary parts. - Rewriting and Rereading - The most tedious part for me, but also an unavoidable part. It also doesn't help that I'm my most harshest critic. To help me progress through the tedium, I look for the things in the list below, and when I've amassed enough of them, I rewrite. I reread after I rewrite looking for them again, and repeat this process until I'm happy.
- Cutting - When I'm looking for scenes to remove for time, I look for scenes that don't advance the story or characters. There's always exceptions to any rule in art, and a major exception here is something memorable or entertaining such as a great gag for a comedy or the cool factor for an action movie.
- Pacing - Here, I look to see if the story or characters are constantly progressing and that I'm giving the audience what they want. If I'm writing an action movie, I want to keep the action going as much as possible. If I'm writing a comedy, I want a be a gag to be present in certain intervals (I shoot for at least 1 gag per page). To figure out pace, I read my script and for the most part it's instinct. If there are parts where I feel like I'm slightly losing interest, I figure the audience will have a greater negative reaction since it's not as personal to them. There's also page counts to consider. Again, I don't want to be bound by rules, but industry standards like "Act 1 should be X number of pages" is at least a good rule of thumb.
- Unnatural Dialog - I read dialog aloud. I'm looking to see if it flows off the tongue clearly; if it's easily comprehensible; and to see if it's something the character,with its unique personality would really say. In my first animated pilot I produced, I did the voice acting and want to change multiple lines while recording because they didn't sound right when spoken. I would constantly rewrite it right there in the sound booth. This is an okay approach for something I'm doing on my own, but what if I have to give these lines to an actor? Shouldn't I be happy with the line before I ask someone else to pour their artistic talents (and reputation as an actor) into speaking it? It also isn't an efficient way to work if I'm figuring out a clever way to change the dialog while an audio engineer is being paid to just wait to record it.
- Preachy - I'm strongly libertarian and somewhat of a deist. When looking for themes I do pour my politics and philosophy into my work. Like Orwell said, I think all works of art are political. I tend to go overboard and watch to cut back when it's not entertaining.
- Inside Gags/Esoteric plots - I have a tendency to want to make really obscure jokes without concern if someone else will get them. For the most part that's okay, unless they're too obscure. My attitude used to be "I'm making this art to express myself, not be popular", which is a good one to have, but it goes too far if I'm making something where I'm the only person on Earth that would understand and appreciate. If I were aiming for that, I would be happy just keeping journals and painting pictures for the rooms in my home.
- Saying rather than showing/Saying rather than implying - This is a common rule of thumb. I think it's because audiences likes to infer stuff out on their own. I think it's human nature to enjoy discovering things on our own rather than having them figured out for us. So, I try to avoid filling in more detail than necessary in hopes the audience will say "why did he...? oh yeah I just remembered..." It's also valuable in visual mediums because... They're visual. It conveys the information more vividly and sometimes faster.
- Acting without explanation - This sounds almost converse to the last rule and almost related enough to #3 that they could be put together, but I'd like to make it separate. Recently, I had a tough, but good-hearted character named Max in a scene where he is totally belligerent to another guy, Priest, almost immediately after they just met. Max was also on Priest's property and technically trespassing. It was out of character and didn't make sense for Max. The thought hadn't occurred to me when I wrote it because I was so focused on getting Max and Priest into the next necessary scene where Max is recovering from being beaten by Priest.
- Inconsistencies, useless characters, continuity errors, etc. -These are things that take the audience out of your universe and put them back in the theater making them conscious of the fact that they're watching, rather than experiencing. They should be obvious, so I'll be brief. Inconsistencies are plot points that counter another plot point (e.g.: a super rich guy in one scene struggling to make a ends meet in another with no rationale in between). Useless characters are characters that don't add anything to the story, don't interact significantly with the protagonists, or maybe a character that is very similar to another character to the point where they can be combined into one without a problem,. Continuity errors are things like a scene where a family is having dinner one moment, then they're described as having breakfast in the next.
- Proof reading - I try to proofread myself before I ask someone else. It's inconsiderate to have someone else catch a mistake I could've seen if I just read my work. In order not to forget the errors, I print my whole draft and mark it with a colored pen. I learned not to proof read in front of my computer because I will endlessly make tiny trivial adjustments.
After that, I have my friends and family read my work. It's human nature that my brain will trick me into thinking a word exists or doesn't exist on a page after reading rewriting a script over and over. Having a free third party such as a friend of family member read it helps alleviate this.
After that, I hire professional proofreaders. I want to present the best possible work I can to studios that review several scripts per week. The last thing I want is to look unprofessional. I consider myself fairly good with grammar, but concede that I would never make it as a professional proofreader, nor do I want that career, so why not just hire one? They're not that expensive either. There are companies online that charge a small fee per word count and I can start and finish the process with them without having to leave my desk. - Feeback - It's invaluable getting feedback about the actual story from friends, professional script readers, and screenwriters. For the same reason as proof-reading yourself first, get the script as good as you can get it yourself before you ask for someone else's advice. I've only used script readers that have credits or have relevant industry experience. I ask about any parts they didn't get and any parts they thought were boring. I decided to get at least 3 professional readers to look at my stuff if I'm going to try to sell it or put it in a competition. The reason for this is that I've often had one script reader tell me he didn't like a part of a story, while another say it was his absolute favorite part. Obviously, this stuff is subjective and I figure if I get a mixed reaction then I can just rely on my gut at that point.
Professionals also helped me typographically format my script to conform to industry standards. For example, early in my writing, I was putting "CUT TO:" transitions before every scene and my script was way too long. I learned that this is unnecessary and taking it out reduced the page count significantly. There are many other writing no-no's I learned that I help make me look like less of an amateur in the eyes of producers and agents.
I'd love any feedback and comments on any improvement or if you want to share your own tips about your own methods.