“What you seek is seeking you”

One of the groovy things about hosting a blog, a Twitter account, and a Facebook group is folks are always sending stuff my way. Like this yesterday on the Zero Draft Facebook Group page from Paula Redlefsen:

Here’s what I posted in response:

Reminds me of that quote from Colin Higgins: “On a metaphysical level, I do believe the story’s already written in some other dimension. So all I have to do is get out of the way.”

I also blogged about this with a post called “Believing is Seeing,” again that the Story we seek to write already exists, and if we believe it, we will see it.

What the image you posted — “What you seek is seeking you” — goes one step further. Not only that the Story exists… not only if you have belief that it does, you will see it… but also that it is actively seeking you out to TELL the Story.

In my Prep: From Concept to Outline workshop, I push writers to fully embrace this idea by focusing on their story’s characters. So instead of “what” you seek, the creative process becomes about “who” you seek.

Who you seek is seeking you.

The way I put it: Your characters WANT you to tell THEIR story. So if you actively engage them in a deep and ongoing dialogue, they will unveil the story to you. Which lies at the heart of the idea we talked about yesterday: How Plot is best served when it arises from Character.

Seek out your characters… for they are seeking you.

Screenwriting Master Class offers my 6-week online Prep: From Concept to Outline writing workshop, a unique approach to develop your story, enabling you to crack it before you type FADE IN.

The beauty of this approach is three-fold:

• You can go into the page-writing part of the process with confidence because you’ve already broken the story.
• Since you won’t be overwhelmed with finding the story when writing pages, you can focus your creativity where it should be — characters, dialogue, themes, mood, pace, etc.
• By devoting six weeks to prep, you will almost assuredly cut the overall amount of time you spend writing your script and increase the odds you will finish your draft.

Here is what Dawn LeFever wrote to me about her experience taking the Prep workshop:

Since taking the course last year at this time, I not only wrote the script I prepped in class, but have written three more since then, having just completed the first draft of the third one yesterday. I LOVE this process and it feels really organic to me.

In the nearly six years I’ve been teaching through Screenwriting Master Class, I’ve led multiple Prep workshops as it has proved to be one of the most popular classes we offer. Why? Because it works! If you fully engage yourself in the six stages of this process, you will end up with an outline you can use as a springboard for writing your screenplay.

Moreover I hear from writers frequently who have taken the workshop, how they continue to adapt and use it on other stories. I’m not saying it’s the way to break a story, however it has proved to be a viable approach for many writers.

In fact, Christian Contreras whose script “LAbyrinth” made the 2015 Black List is a Screenwriting Master Class alumnus, having taken this same Prep class with me back in 2014.

I will be leading the next session starting January 11. For those of you thinking about taking up the Zero Draft Thirty Challenge in March, if you take my Prep workshop, you will have a scene-by-scene outline in hand and ready to go on March 1, there to guide you through your Zero Draft process. In other words, perfect timing!

For more information Prep: From Concept to Outline, go here.

Who knows. The Prep workshop may be seeking you out!

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