Early this morning I broke the story for Project Echo. I’d been writing scenes without an outline or an endgame in place, so it’s nice to finally have a destination in sight.
For some of you it might seem crazy to write without an outline. How do you know what the story is? How do you know where you’re going? How do know if any of it is going to make sense? Aren’t you supposed to come up with an outline first thing?
Well, yes and no. In my personal experience, outlines paralyze me. They’re dull, tedious, and sap all the creative energy out of my soul, leaving a withered husk that keeps wondering why it wants to write screenplays. It was a revalation when I realized I didn’t need an outline; that I could make it up as I went along. That might seem kind of obvious, but to me it was a thunderbolt. It also made writing fun. When I sat down at the keyboard, it was an adventure, not a tedious exercise in filling in the blanks.
So, this morning I managed to solve my endgame. I don’t have an outline, but I do have a destination now. I have no idea what will happen in the middle - the exciting part of writing is figuring that out - but I know where I’m going.
This all comes with a caveat, of course. In writing this way, my first draft is likely to be a bit hodge-podge, a Frankenstein monster who’s deformities are quite obvious. That is OK. Once I have the story down on paper, I can go back through and see which scenes work, which ones need retooling, and which ones are pure tripe (I expect a lot of those).
15/06/2009 at 2:12 pm Permalink
This is really the way that a lot of people are teaching prewriting in writing workshops these days, freewriting. There are a lot of good things about freewriting. The outline and all of that is just a way to make students show their thoughts.
The process of revision is where you make your Frankenstein come alive. Revision is the key to making it work.
15/06/2009 at 2:24 pm Permalink
Dude, I’m totally cutting edge and I didn’t even know it! So far the technique is working really well for me, although I’ve actually skimmed some of the scenes I wrote first and they don’t mesh with the rest of the script at all. For example, early on my character had a beat-up seafoam green Honda, but then the car magically disappeared and he had to start taking the bus. I didn’t even remember writing the car in.
But, like you said, REVISION is where you make it all work.
15/06/2009 at 5:09 pm Permalink
This is refreshing. I always hated outlines too, although just making a list of your random thoughts can be helpful (like we did yesterday).