Choosing the next step when writing.

Members of Story and Plot Pro work at different paces. Some are moving through their outline, some have chosen to write detailed treatments, while others are writing pages and have even finished first drafts.

At each stage there is the question, “Should I move on, or rework what I just finished?”

The answer is always the same… “Well, that depends.”

Which is, of course, absolutely useless as a general rule, but the right answer.

Until you have a set process that you have been successful with for years, I encourage you to stay flexible.

The goal is to keep moving the project forward in a way that balances quality and efficiency so you can protect your own energy and enthusiasm.

You’ve got both tangible factors and intangible factors that determine the answer.

Your creative energy is crucial.

Your writing career is a mental battle, every project is a mental battle, and sometimes just writing a scene can be a mental battle.

That’s not meant to be a downer, only to remind you that it’s normal, and just because there is a mental battle, that doesn’t mean anything is wrong.

It’s the norm.

Your enthusiasm for a project matters.

It’s what gets you through the inevitable resistance. So protect your writing time and the physical and creative energy required to take advantage of it.

This means a process that is efficient, wastes as little of your time as possible, and keeps you moving ahead feeling creative and productive.

The longer a process lingers, the longer we fidget, the more we start to question, and the less confident we feel.

The earlier in our writing we are, the more vulnerable we are to this. If you haven’t finished a competent screenplay yet, it’s very easy to tell yourself you never will.

Even later, after we’ve written numerous screenplays, we can start to think all this energy is better spent on something different.

After all, every project has the opportunity cost of something else.

And sure, sometimes it’s appropriate to switch gears, but we never want this to be because we ran out of energy or enthusiasm for a viable project.

Win the mental battle.

I can’t remember the last time I wrote a screenplay where at one point I did not think, “This is terrible. This isn’t working.”

It’s usually somewhere after page 30. This is every project, mind you.

And that voice has not been right for a very long time.

Nor was it correct in 1994 when it told me, “This is going to be the greatest screenplay ever written.”

Where that optimism went, I can’t tell you! But its penchant for the dramatic should tell you not to trust it either way.

That voice is not your friend.

It thinks it is. But its way of protecting you is to encourage you not to take risks. That voice would be perfectly happy if you stayed in bed every morning.

The voice lives life scared.

But scared is no way to write. We want to be fearless when we write. Writing and that voice don’t get along well with each other, and we need to make a choice between them.

So keep moving forward. Nurture your confidence. Don’t abandon projects that deserve your attention, and don’t let fear freeze you up.

Don’t get too excited about pages either.

Sure, we need to celebrate the wins when they come, and knowing we can produce pages builds confidence…

But typing is not always writing. It’s intentional pages that matter, and pages that lack intention may feel good, but they can create more problems later on.

We write ourselves right out of the story. We spend creative energy on a narrative goose chase, and it kills our enthusiasm for our own project.

We end up farther away from finishing than when we first started.

Don’t stay married to one process.

This may sound odd coming from someone who teaches process, but everyone is different, and sometimes we can get stubborn.

That voice suddenly has an opinion on what your “creative process” is too.

I was a professional screenwriter for 18 years before I settled on a genuine process, and even that remains flexible for each project and what new things I learn.

I used to hate loglines, outlines, and treatments.

I hated them because they didn’t come easily for me, and so I insisted that my own process was different.

But really, I was just uncomfortable. I wasn’t used to doing them.

I was more comfortable writing scenes, so I did that.

Once I was forced to write outlines and treatments because of writing jobs, suddenly I got comfortable doing them!

Apparently, if you keep doing something, it gets easier! Amazing!

My refusal to do these things had nothing to do with my “creative process.” It was just me avoiding discomfort and ultimately avoiding better work.

I didn’t have a process. I had habits. These things are easily mistaken, but they are not the same thing.

Keep growing, adjusting, and improving. Always.

My own process.

I have written before about the five steps of my process. Those steps are:

1. Pre-outline.
2. Outline.
3. Treatment.
4. First draft.
5. Polish.

For today, I want to focus on 4: how I write that first draft.

This only works if you have at least a rough outline.

And it works best if you have a detailed one or even a treatment.

I write in eight sequences. Eight sequences is how I break the story and how I outline.

But I rewrite in four acts.

I usually have some kind of general page count goal.

I base it on genre, density of the story, and a general desire to keep the page count low.

This battle plan rarely survives first contact with the enemy, but it’s a goal. Say, 104 pages for this example.

I am unnecessarily mathematical and anal about all this, so I will divide that number by four, and that is my target for each act.

In this case, that is 26 pages per act.

The first sequence is probably the only sequence that I give serious early effort to keep on a specific schedule. This is because I want the inciting incident as early as possible.

Any effort I put into that now is effort I save later.

Here is where the inciting incident landed in my last few screenplays:

BACK UP - Page 24
ANOTHER LIFE - Page 12
THE GOOD TEACHER - Page 10
MOST WANTED - Page 13

In every first pass, it was 3 to 5 pages later than where it ended up.

My first goal is to write up until the inciting incident.

Because I am working off a treatment, every scene has its intention already.

I will make discoveries inside the scene, but I know what needs to happen, what needs to change, and what the drama is.

So I write the scene, then rewrite the scene, and I don’t usually move on until I feel good about it.

I write all the scenes through the inciting incident and then…

I rewrite what I wrote again.

Whatever those pages are, I polish, trim, and cut.

I then write Sequence 2 through the same process, and that will complete Act 1.

And then I rewrite Act 1.

I don’t move on to Act 2A until I’m happy with Act 1.

I rewrite to complete everything I know to do at this stage. If I know something will have to be done later, I do it now. Why wait?

The only thing I’m not really doing here is fighting over every word and every line. That pass is a grind, and I don’t want to spend energy on it right now.

I will then write Act 2A.

I will take careful note of where the midpoint falls. Again, I am WAY overly attentive to page numbers than anyone needs to be or should be.

Dramatic momentum and emotional resonance are all that really matter, and that’s how structure should be judged.

But I feel good enough about my writing and structure skills that things falling into place as planned is a good positive metric.

I then rewrite Act 2A before going on to Act 2B.

This process is followed when I write Act 2B and then Act 3.

I write an act and rewrite that act before moving on to the next one.

The result of this is that when I am done with my true first draft, I am usually only a polish away from a draft I can show others.

I do this to preserve my own energy.

And it’s based on how I think and my own emotional reactions to certain steps.

Which is why it isn’t right for everyone.

I don’t like to leave things unfinished.

And while the acts are relatively arbitrary in this context, they are big building blocks for how I’ve looked at the story.

I see them very clearly. And knowing I have work to do behind me makes it challenging to move forward.

I also hate finishing a first draft and realizing there is so much more work left to do.

I have been through it too many times. I have all the excitement of writing the last scene, and I want to celebrate, only to realize I am nowhere near done.

I always found that deflating.

But not everyone does.

Which is why I don’t teach this aspect of my process.

Understand your own tendencies.

Should you write a detailed outline or just a rough one?

Do you write a treatment?

If so, how detailed should it be?

Should you rewrite as you go, or make a mad dash to finish a first draft?

If you do rewrite, at what intervals? Sequences? Acts? Halves?

The answers all depend on your situation and your personality.

If you’re working with producers, execs, or reps, some of these questions are answered for you.

My experience is that you will reap significant benefits from detailed treatments, and they’re worth doing.

But it’s very possible that your energy is better served with a rough outline and attacking pages right away.

In this case, denying the energy to write may not be worth the advantages of a treatment.

The key is to know the difference between creative energy and avoiding resistance.

Resistance is not a bad thing. It’s normal, and it’s not how we judge what is worth doing.

And, to be honest, early on, there is no such thing as wasted effort either, not as long as you’re learning. There is some wiggle room there, too.

Follow your energy.

Just avoid being stubborn.

There are no additional bonuses for working harder than you need to in any contract. There’s no extra credit for doing it the exact same way you always did.

Ask yourself, “Am I avoiding this because it’s best for the project? Or am I avoiding it because it seems like less fun?”

In other words, keep looking for ways to improve.

This isn’t just about the quality of what ends up on the page. It’s about the energy and time you spend on those pages, too.

That's a wrap for this week!

I hope you’re making progress on your current project and these Weekly Emails help in some way.

If you know someone who might be interested in The Story and Plot Weekly Email, share this personalized link:

[RH_REFLINK GOES HERE]​

If they use it to subscribe, I'll send you a free screenwriting video and other cool stuff, the more people who sign up!

Until next week…

All the best,

Tom

PS. Go Coogs!