Go On Your Own Quest, Week 9: Prep

“The Quest” has entered Week 9! And so did Go On Your Own Quest, an opportunity for anyone to follow the structure of “The Quest” to dig into screenwriting theory [Core — 8 weeks], figure out your story [Prep — 6 weeks], and write a first draft [Pages — 10 weeks]. It’s a 24-week immersion in the screenwriting process and you can do it here — for free!

I like to think of the drafting of a screenplay as having two parts: Prep-Writing and Page-Writing. While most aspiring writers like to jump into the latter, almost all professional writers know the time to figure out your story is in prep.

For those of you who plan to Go On Your Own Quest, we began our week-long discussion on prep-writing Monday with this question: What are the key areas you focus on during the prep-writing phase? Discussion here. Tuesday’s question: How many weeks do you spend prepping your story before typing FADE IN? Discussion here. Yesterday’s question: Outline: Yes or no? Discussion here. Today’s question:

* What techniques do you use to develop characters?

I encourage you to Go On Your Own Quest. First off, you can’t sell a script unless you write it. Second, you can’t get better as a writer unless you write. Third, if you don’t write that script now, when are you going to write it?

So consider this your very own Call To Adventure. Will you heed the call?

I will be teaching the 6-week online writing workshop Prep: From Concept To Outline beginning October 15th.

For background on “Go Into The Story: The Quest,” go here and here.

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