Go On Your Own Quest, Week 9: Prep
Several readers emailed me about aggregating the entire series of posts we have been running in association with the Go On Your Own Quest initiative.
Here is Week 9: Prep.
What are the key areas you focus on during the prep-writing phase?
How many weeks do you spend prepping your story before typing FADE IN?
What techniques do you use to develop characters?
How do you know when you are ready to type FADE IN?
I can not emphasize enough the importance of prep-writing. It’s the one area to which most aspiring screenwriters devote insufficient time. You have to know your characters, know your story universe. Whether you work out a complete scene-by-scene outline or rough out the story, then jam through a vomit draft, the goal is to engage you with your story fully. Anything short of that will almost assuredly result in an average to poor script.
The Quest devotes 6 weeks to Prep: The first two weeks exploring the story, starting with the Protagonist then brainstorming; the next two weeks shaping Plotline and Themeline; the last two weeks building the structure of the narrative into an outline. It’s one approach to prep-writing. There are countless others. But again, the point is to immerse yourself in your story, so the characters come alive and the narrative structure reveals itself to you.
For more information on the Prep 6-week workshop, go here.
For more information on The Quest, an individualized 24-week screenwriting workshop, go here.
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