I haven’t posted anything in a while so I thought I’d offer a couple of (three) scene comp entries for you to have a look at. I find scene challenges a lot of fun and a great little exercise. The fourth snippet is a teaser for my current feature.

‘Fork’ is a scene challenge I did for John August. We could write any scene so long as it included a fork, a phobia and a flashlight:

The second scene was a challenge done for FilmmakerIQ. Very similar rules, we had to write a scene that involved a phone, a phobia and a torch.

This third scene, also done for John August, was actually the first challenge I ever did. It’s awful haha! I’m not sure what I was doing but the rules were evil. We could write any scene at all explaining financial derivatives, bearing in mind film is a visual medium:

Finally, a teaser for my current feature. This is something I flashed out when trying to gather ideas (so it doesn’t necessarily make a lot of sense, well not to you anyway =P ). It’s the initial inspiration for everything I’ve done over the last few months and, I have to say, I’m fucking over the moon about the whole thing. His name wasn’t originally Julius… but it feels only right to give him his proper name here now:

I’ve been struggling with the outline on my latest project for quite some time now. It’s an in-depth character study and, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t seem to fully manifest the guy floating around in my head.

His story is complex and round, but no matter how many intricacies I added to him, it’s been like chasing a shadow. The problem may lie in the fact that, as a person, he’s very surreal in the first place. I’m having to imagine someone smarter and stranger than anyone I’ve ever met, someone more intense and, frankly, quite odd. I haven’t even been able to give him a decent name because of the disconnect.

I liken it to my problem with geography: If you lead me somewhere and tell me to make my way back, it’s almost like I’ve been blindfolded and spun round and round. I may as well be in a fog. Unlike many people who seem to naturally notice where they came from, I need to plan my way out on the way in; I need to have tangible markers and make a concerted effort to note them.

I thought it would be helpful to have something tangible for my guy, something that dragged him from the geography of my mind and made him more real, enabling me to map him out well enough for others to follow.

Actors are already out there for the mental-borrowing so I set my sights on finding someone that had both the physical traits I’ve been imagining and the capacity for my guy’s ‘isms’. Basically, someone I could use to turn my surreal shadow into a working canvas.

Well, I found my muse! And within hours of the choice I had a name in the bag. I can hear his voice when he ‘talks’ to me and I can see the way he moves. In fact, I picked such an awesome actor, that it’s added whole new dimensions for me to explore.

Alas, I fear he is my Melpomene, which makes me feel slightly cruel for picking him out…

I think if you’re like me, and having trouble imagining a whole person in your head, finding someone to aid that visually is a fantastic way to go.

Charlie Kaufman’s directorial début “Synecdoche, New York” opens in America on the 24th. I can’t wait for it to get here…

When I first grew some bollocks and showed some of my work to a few people, they all commented on my writing style. The fact that I even had a style was news to me… I was ecstatic: my own voice!

This glee was swiftly stolen by one friend, a screenwriter, who told me my writing was “minimal” and “like Kaufman”.

Who was this Kaufman chap and why must he exist? In my naivety I had to look him up… I’d definitely seen the films but I’d never read his screenplays.

I was reluctant at first. What if I did write a bit like this guy and in reading his stuff, lost my new-found voice, inadvertently picking up more Kaufman?

MOAR KAUFMAN

If only…

If my style is anything near similar (one can dream,) my content certainly differs somewhat. Kaufman’s mind is utterly unique.

Maybe I should write a screenplay about a girl who writes a screenplay, channelling Kaufman via osmosis by merely holding one of his screenplays. Now we’re getting somewhere…

Anyway, I fell in love… and because he holds my screenwritery heart in his sickeningly talented hands, he now goes down as my first recommended writer.

If you haven’t already: read him and weep.

Okay… let’s get dirty.

Although screenplay format is the first thing people usually want to learn, it’s probably one of the last things they’re going to need.

By the time you sit down to write formatted script, you really want to know where you’re headed, otherwise you can shit-out fairly early on in the game.

For instance: your characters, who are they and where are they going? Character arcs are extremely important in getting your audience to care. Characters CHANGE.

What’s your inciting incident and when does it happen: In other words, what makes the shit hit the fan, and when will you be wreaking this havoc on your unsuspecting new friends?

How will you resolve every piece of your set-up by the time you get to ‘FADE OUT’? And, uh, how are you setting it all up again?

In which way does your narrative (plot) unravel your story… and what about pacing?

It’s already beginning to sound complicated…

Planning and outlining will help answer all of the above questions and more, so when you finally get down to that first draft, you’re all mapped out.

For pacing it helps to know stuff like page count. The general rule of thumb is one page of script per minute of screen time, and for a spec script, you’re looking at hitting around 120 pages maximum — the golden number is often cited as 110.

The legends also state that if you haven’t hit your inciting incident by page 10, you’re moving too slow.

Unlike formatting, outlining doesn’t have a set of rules, it’s all about whatever works best for you. Some people follow one of the many paradigms available, and if you’re new to writing, you may want to look them up so you can get a greater sense of story elements.

Some people find they only need a page or two to know where they’re going.

Not me.

I’m an extensive outliner. Writing straight to script can spark some brilliant ideas for me — but trying to write an entire screenplay, straight from brain to page — that would be like chewing tin foil whilst being beaten by belligerent, old ladies.

My own planning process works something like this:

Story & Narrative
Writing out my basic story, and how I plan to structure it. Is it linear? Perhaps I’ll start with the end and then scoot back to the beginning. Subplots, subplots, subplots.

Characters
Things I might ask myself about a character, depending on how important they are:

Goals
Fears
Dreams
Inner Conflict/Struggle
Outer Conflict/Struggle
Positive Traits
Negative Traits
Motivation
Achilles Heel
Opponent
Differences/Similarities to Opponent
Small Details
Where do they start and where do they end — their arc.

What do they look like? How do they move? How do they speak?

Beat Outline
This is a simple list of scenes that I use to see my story. I tend to write the beats on cards and pin them to my noticeboard, that way I can move them around until it feels right.

The Outline
The full outline is my scene by scene run down, ready to use as the blueprint for the first draft. It includes notes on scene length to keep track of over-all page count and pacing; notes on characters; and notes on other important aspects, such as tone and setting.

Once I have a complete outline, I can move onto the final planning stage…

Log Line & Synopsis
These two things are art forms in their own right. If I can condense my outline into a fantastic log line and synopsis, I’ve done something right.

Log Line:
A single line, possibly two, that sums up the story… yet leaves a sense of intrigue.

Synopsis:
A summary of the plot that fits into a single paragraph. A synopsis can be up to a page or so long but short is good!

So that’s my process, more or less.

When I sit down to write the actual screenplay I’ve probably done 90% of the work, but that’s me. I’m incredibly anal; I get some sort of sick pleasure from writing out cards, lists and sticky notes. Yes, I do colour code my Post-Its for rewrites, but that’s another story…

It makes sense to begin a screenwriting blog with the basic question I see asked countless times on forums and websites: How do you format a screenplay?

Using the correct format is drummed into every screenwriter’s skull (or should be, consider yourself told…) but where can this elusive blueprint be found? I bought every book I could get my hands on, I read screenwriting blogs religiously, and the answer seemed confusingly vague or different every time.

That was back in the days I couldn’t afford Final Draft… so when I came across the Nicholl Fellowships’ formatting guide and PDF, I felt like I had found the solution to an ancient riddle. I strongly recommend reading their information and advice.

I still can’t afford Final Draft, but some nice people created celtx. Go get it, it’s free!

Finally, I’ll point you in the direction of John August. John has been asked numerous, tricky, formatting questions, the answers to which you can find directly here.