I am a total rule breaker, a rebel, Dottie, a loner. I cut in line when I don’t feel like I should have to wait (that’s the entitled New Yorker in me). I write my emails in all lower-case because I know, somewhere in writer heaven, William Strunk and E. B. White are sharing a drink and would approve of my minor rebellion. And I live in a special Eden reserved only for those who can stomach / thrive in the smoggy entertainment industry that is Los Angeles. Nothing about me is commonplace or pedestrian; everything about me is wild, edgy and unexpected… especially my writing.

I realized, after a heated debate during last night’s #scriptchat on twitter, some writers are flat out refusing to outline and I was shocked. I am no hobbyist. Writing is my profession, and as such, when I sell my work, people expect my scripts to not only be correct, ground-breaking, and unexcelled, it also has to be worth paying for. So, how do I make sure that I not only deliver a solid product that is exactly what the story editor / producer / client wants and still get to run free through the fields of creativity?  I OUTLINE EVERYTHING!

Don’t get me wrong. Outlining sucks. I hate doing what feels like extra work for free. HATE! Outlining is boring and hard and annoying and not as fun as running through the fields of creativity untethered to such banalities as a plan. Who needs a plan when it feels so good just to write? Well, writing for pay, or any writing really is not about the masturbatory feeling of creation. If you’re lucky, sometimes you get a happy ending and that’s awesome, but that’s not usually the end goal. It’s about getting the work done correctly and excellently. And the way to ensure that happens is to outline.

I can hear all of you non-outlining writers and your myriad of excuses like a Greek Chorus: it “hinders my creativity,” “forces me into a box,” “doesn’t allow me to find new angles with my story…” Yeah, I totally get it. But without an outline, the fields of creativity turn into a hall of mirrors and you will get lost in the reflection of what your story was supposed to be, not what it actually is. It is the very rare writer who is able to wing it and churn out a salable product at the end. So, basically, not you. Not me. Not 99% of working or aspiring writers. We all must outline, so we have a basic road map of the story we’re trying to communicate or your story will literally get lost in translation.

Outlining does not, in fact, hinder anything. It in no way hampers your ability to fantasize and create inventive scenarios for your characters to live out. It forces you to do all that awesome “thinking-it-through” before you ever hit page 1. It’s a twisted version of instant gratification. Outlining affords you the chance to play with your characters without spending tedious hours churning out pages that suck and eventually get deleted. In reality, outlining will help you and your story stay focused, and if you follow a few of my tips, you’ll discover that you’re in fact freer to do all the fun writing because your foundation is solid.

There’s a few ways / steps to tackle outlining:

I generally will have the client start by writing a simple beat sheet. Just a basic shopping list of story beats: this happens, then this happens, and then that happens, etc. It’s never more than a page, but it helps them see what their story really is, the important beats, the basic ideas and characters and helps them discover plot holes, lacking character arcs, and story misfires. The simple act of “thinking-it-through” always helps the writers see what is working and what still needs work.

Then, once we’ve gone over the 1-page and talked through the story they want to tell, versus what I’ve read, and they’re at a place where I feel like their barest skeleton is solid, I ask them to expand that simple 1-page into 5. It’s then, they can add more flourish, but not too much… this is an outline, not a short story, some important or funny snippets of dialogue they don’t want to forget, and flesh out the story a bit more.

After we review that, see how it’s working, discuss tweaks if necessary, I send them back to expand their 5-page outline further to 30-ish pages. I say “ish” because this isn’t an exact science. Some writers who are honed and in practice can deliver a solid feature outline in 20-pages, some are gabbier and need 40-pages. But 30-pages is a good number to shoot for. In this pass, I ask the writer to really tell the whole story (without florid language), scene by scene. 30-pages is enough to develop your characters’ emotional pathos, embellish your sub-plots, and still allow for dialogue quips, etc.

Then (and here’s my trick) what I do, and what I instruct my clients to do, is take that solid 30-page outline, and pop it into the script. Since you’ve been so painstaking in setting forth your story, you can use your outline as the basis of your first draft, building out your script from there. It always seems to the clients “God! Why is she such a sadist?!” until they realize, that they never have to stare at a blank screen. You’ve immediately got 30-pages of your script done, just by popping in the outline. It removes the pressure of facing that white page, with only FADE IN:. It’s a cheap trick, but it’s a good one. By then, you’ve already got a leg up on expanding your 30-pages into 90 or 120, but no more, because my bladder can’t take anymore 3-hour movies.

When you write from within the outline, you know which scene is next, where to plant the misdirection and how to heighten the tension, because you’ve already planned for it. But let’s say, now you’re into draft 1 and you think, “Eh, this isn’t working.” You’ve at least got your 1-page list of scenes, your 5-page outline and your notes to reference, which makes plot changes way easier to implement and keep track of, especially if it’s a major shift. You need to remember all the stuff that builds around it, and fix whatever is impacted by it. How are you supposed to keep track of all those balls in the air, if you forget one? Outlining will help keep your writing on the ball.

Writing without an outline can be fun and dangerous, but rarely yields successful results. Why not expend that same level of effort and enthusiasm by furiously typing in a constructive manner? Then, you will be free to run through the fields of creativity untethered by banalities… you’ll be able to have your script and write it too.

Photo courtesy of regrifters.com / Photo Credit – Jon Shaivitz