“Breaking your story”

There’s a phrase professional screenwriters and TV writers use: “break the story.” Sounds like a bad thing, but in actuality it’s one of the biggest keys to being a successful writer.

Breaking the story is the part of the writing process where you figure it out, nail it down, wrangle it to the ground. I can’t swear to its derivation, but it probably has some connection to the idea of ‘breaking a horse’ wherein a trainer takes a wild horse and trains them: A writer takes a wild story [undeveloped content] and trains it [figures it out].

Some writers prefer to type FADE IN and find the story over their course of their meanderings in the page-writing process. That’s all well and good if you have endless time and no pressure to actually produce content at the end. However if you work as a writer in Hollywood or some other entertainment center, when you land a gig you have a matter of weeks to turn in a draft, therefore hoping to find your story while writing it can be problematic.

Many if not most professional screenwriters break their story before they move into writing pages. This provides them the maximum amount of confidence because they have already done the heavy lifting by the time they type FADE IN.

At Screenwriting Master Class, we offer an online workshop called “Prep: From Concept to Outline,” featuring a six-part approach to help steer writers through this critical part of the process.

Six lectures, six writing exercises, six teleconferences, six weeks to break your story. What’s more, once you learn Prep, you can use it on any future writing project.

Here are some reflections on the workshop from some recent writers who participated in the class:

‘Prep: From Concept to Outline’ is a course I wish I had known about a couple of years ago. I would recommend this wholeheartedly for anyone who is about to embark on their first script or ANY script. This lays the foundation stone to your story.

— Camilla Castree

This has been an outstanding class. I’ve taken a few from other sources and most don’t live up to their promises (they shall remain nameless). But here, I’ve learned so much and gotten way more than my money’s worth.

— Daniel O’Donahue

The next session of Prep: From Concept to Outline begins Monday, August 5 and will be led by Tom Benedek.

Learn how to break your story in prep.

If you are interested, go here.

As always, Tom and I look forward to the opportunity to work with you!

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