Thursday, August 2, 2007

Outlining

I. Hate. Outlines.

Always have. I'd get a big fat zero whenever a teacher asked me to write an outline cause I'd never do it. Of course then I'd write a really kick ass paper and get an A anyways, so things would work out.

Unfortunately an essay and a screenplay are two very different beasts. My outline phobia may have been fine back in the day, but it's a huge liability now.

Case in point. I'm currently working on a fun little spy pilot. Came up with some great characters, an awesome 'A' plot and a decent 'B' and 'C'. Did the relevant research and then I started to outline the episode.

And then my brain got in the way. Don't you just hate it when that happens?

Started the outline and just kept rewriting, reworking it, adding more and more detail, never getting past the teaser, until I finally realize that I'm just writing the damn thing. Figure "what the hell!" I'll just keep going.

Big mistake. The end result could charitably be called a big, steaming, puddle of vomit. A veritable train wreck. And you can be damn sure that an outline would've saved me from a lot of the problems I have now.

That's okay though. It highlighted some story problems I hadn't considered. And I've got some good thoughts for how to solve them. Just a damn shame that I didn't work them out before spending all this time writing a first draft.

Lesson learned. Next time I write the damn outline.
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3 comments:

brenderlin said...

I always outlined papers in school (listen to me, talking like it was so. long. ago.), it helped me to get an idea of where I was going, and how I needed to get there. But I would often only outline the beginning and middle of the paper, then just start writing, figuring I would get the conclusion by the time I got there. And guess what? I usually did. And I got an A on the paper that I wrote the night before.

Unfortunately, that logic doesn't really apply to screenwriting. I made an outline for my original BSG spec idea, but when I actually wrote it out, months later (it took me a while), I realized all the problems that I thought would go away as I was writing, were still just as bad. The motivations of the characters still didn’t make sense, and it relied way too much on cool space battles.

So what did I do? I threw out everything but the teaser and the C plot, made the C plot the new A plot, and worked it out from there. It ended up working a lot better, and I wrote it a lot faster, too. Maybe I’ll show you that old script someday, if you want.

August 3, 2007 at 6:54 AM
Peter said...

I'd love to see your old BSG (I'd love to read the new draft too!).

As far as outlining goes, it's a weakness of mine. I'm doing my best to move past it, this latest pilot fiasco was just the latest impetus to do it.

August 3, 2007 at 3:12 PM
L Theo. said...

Outlines are pure ebil. Ebil, I tell you.

I *know* how to write up a nice, thorough one, but my trend lately is to go more broad strokes. And they work for me. If I ever get on staff and have to go back to long, detailed-ass outline, I'll be a sad, sad girl. (Though thrilled to be a working writer, heh!)

I have in my possession the staff outline from the forthcoming second episode of Pushing Daisies. The thing's SO detailed, it scared me. *shivers*

August 21, 2007 at 8:22 PM

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