At the first draft starting gate: the spontaneity factor

If you've faithfully done your due diligence with your pre-draft exploratory work on character backstories, discovering their voices, and working out an initial plot outline for your whole story, there comes a point when you find yourself as prepared as you'll ever be to make the initial plunge into draft.

When that's where you find yourself in the process, there are a number of things to keep in mind as you face page one.  And one of the most important is what I call "the spontaneity factor."

The benefit of having done thorough pre-draft work, including a rather detailed plot outline or treatment of your story, is that you have gotten to know your traveling companions quite well and you'll be departing with them on your journey with a road map beside you that guarantees a route to the final destination.  And this gives you the freedom--the permission--to let your characters talk you into getting off the pre-planned route and explore any number of side roads that may materialize.

There's no law that says you have to adhere to the route you've charted out.  If and when your characters prompt a change in your course, let them have their way.  Welcome the unexpected and explore every impulse.  You want things to happen that are total surprises.  Your people may do things that will shock you.  And you should always be encouraged when they seemingly take over, leading the story in a new direction.  This shows that they have life and vitality in the world you've placed them in.

The beauty is that your road map is still there on the seat beside you when and if you do get lost.  It's   still available when your traveling companions agree with you that it's time to push on toward your final destination.  It'll help show you how to get your party back to the main road or figure out an alternate route that will still get the group where it eventually needs to go.  The point is that writing the first draft should be an adventure and spontaneity is a key factor in allowing it to come fully to life.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our last residency just ended, running from January 6-15, and we are currently accepting applications for starting the program with our June 2017 residency running from June 23-July 2.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter) a professional script consultant, and the author of The Playwright's Process.

You can follow me on Twitter @eitherorfilms or @mfastagescreen.  I’m also on Facebook at buzzmclaughlinscriptconsulting. 

How to avoid a script collapse...

When working with writers, I find myself saying countless times that the actual writing of a script begins long before you reach page one.  And that it's critical to convince yourself that all your pre-draft exploratory work--initial testing your story idea, character backstory development, and plot invention and outlining--is all part of the writing process of creating a solid draft that will have legs.

I like to use the analogy of the process of building a house because it so nicely illustrates this point.
The builder begins by securing the land and selecting the site for the house.  Then stakes are put in the ground where the house will stand.  Then the hole is dug for the basement or footings, concrete forms are put in place and the cement truck arrives to pour the foundation.  Then on top of the foundation framers construct the floor girders and erect the studs forming the walls and rafters and sheath the whole structure in plywood.  Window and door openings are cut in and installed, shingles put on, siding is added to the outside walls, everything gets painted or stained, etc. etc.  Then the interior is finished off--wiring, plumbing, drywall, floors, more painting, the landscaping, etc.  And finally you're looking at a completed house ready to be lived in.

But what happens if you skip or short change any of the early steps in the construction process? What if the framers, for example, cheated and put the studs and rafters 30 inches apart instead of the necessary 16 inches?  Or the concrete mixture was short on concrete and overloaded with sand or the holes for the footings were not dug below the frost line?  The house might still look beautiful when first completed (with all those shortcuts and mistakes hidden from view), but it won't stand a chance of surviving the harsh realities of time and weather.  And then you're left with something like this:

Or this:

And my contention is that this happens way too often with scripts when the entire building process is not respected and writers are in way too big a hurry to get that completed "house" up and running.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our last residency just ended, running from January 6-15, and we are currently accepting applications for starting the program with our June 2017 residency running from June 23-July 2.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter) a professional script consultant, and the author of The Playwright's Process.  You can follow me on Twitter @eitherorfilms or @mfastagescreen.  I’m also on Facebook at buzzmclaughlinscriptconsulting. 

Your Act 3 determines your Act 1...

One of the danger areas I've come across with the writers I work with is the understandable urge to get into draft as quickly as possible.  As storytellers this is a natural inclination--"let's get on with it already; enough backstory prep work and plot outlining; I want to start turning out pages."

Unfortunately what often happens when this urge is embraced is that an extraordinary amount of time is spent working and reworking Act 1 without having a clear and consistent focus on the overall structure of the story being told.  And what happens is that there is not the full awareness of what needs to be established in Act 1 that must later pay off in Act 2 and especially in Act 3. In other words, what I often see happening is that the entire story is not kept front and center as the writer immerses him/herself in those opening 25-30 pages, getting lost in trying to perfect the beginning of a script while losing sight of the whole.

Developing organic story structure...

As you're working on developing a new story idea it's fun to get totally consumed in your research and pre-draft character backstory work.  This is as it should be of course.  You find yourself accumulating a mountain of information that you think somehow, one way or another, could be directly or indirectly related to the story you want to end up telling in your finished script.  For many writers this is one of the most enjoyable phases of creating a new work.  And the amount of material gathered can often be extensive.

However, if you work this way (and I hope you do if your endgame is to write a script that pops off the page with characters that have a genuine life of their own operating in a world that has depth and rings authentic) then here's a little tip that will help you process all that pre-draft work and have it pay generous dividends.

Simply put, from the very early stages of developing your idea, begin setting out your plot structure for your story--as simple and basic as it might be at first--and periodically go back to it as you explore your characters backstories, their voices, and research the world your story is set in.

What makes a good dramaturg...?

In one way or another I've worked as a dramaturg or script consultant for over three decades.  I love partnering with writers on developing their stories and getting their scripts to really lift off the page. And throughout the many years I've worked in this capacity there has been one rule that I've always honored and tried to put into practice.

Simply put, I consider my primary responsibility in working with a writer is to make sure I understand what he or she is trying to accomplish with a project in terms of premise or what they hope to leave in the collective heart and mind of the audience--and then help the writer achieve that goal.  In other words, my job is always to aid the writer in arriving at the end result they envision.

Analyzing your new story idea...

The first thing I do with writers I work with who have a new story idea they want to explore is to have them do a preliminary analysis of the idea to see if it at least has the potential to contain the basic dramatic ingredients any good script possesses.

 

This involves a simple process of breaking down the idea into the various essential components, all of which will "test" the viability of the idea.  I explain this in detail in my book The Playwright's Process, presenting what I call the Story Idea Worksheet and how to use it.  It's a simple tool that allows you to begin taking a serious look at your new idea, to discover if it is something that deserves further development.

The worksheet asks that you tackle your idea by first landing on a working title, briefly describing the story's central character, and then stating simply both the dominant conscious or external want of the character and his/her dominant conscious or unconscious internal need.  This sets up the major dilemma or issue inherent in the idea.  The worksheet then asks you to list other possible characters who could possibly populate your story--characters who champion or could come against the want and need of your central character thereby setting up conflict.  Next it asks you to suggest a setting and possible special occasion that might surround the unfolding of your story--choices that might further raise the stakes for your central character and his/her dilemma.

The worksheet goes on by asking you to state in very simple terms how the major conflict/dilemma manifests itself in action and how that dilemma is ultimately resolved.  And finally it asks you to state how the central character is changed by the end of the story--a critical part of any test of an idea--and what you think the dramatic premise might be--what you're leaving with your audience at the final fade out.

This exercise has proven to be invaluable for the writers I work with.  It allows for lots of flexibility and trying things on for size.  Some writers end up doing several versions of the worksheet before committing to developing an idea further, finally settling on the one that feels strongest.

The whole point is that you have to start somewhere and analyzing a new idea in terms of seeing just how potent it might be is a good and logical starting point.  Because a story idea's potency is always dependent on how solidly it contains the essential dramatic ingredients--a good thing to discover very early in the development process and not half way through the writing of your first draft.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our last residency just ended, running from January 6-15, and we are currently accepting applications for starting the program with our June 2017 residency running from June 22-July 2.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter) a professional script consultant, and the author of The Playwright's Process.

 

     

Our bi-annual gathering of scriptwriters...

It's that time again.  Every January and June, there is this special gathering of playwrights and screenwriters in the quaint mountain village of Peterborough, NH for a ten-day marathon of sharing new work and participating in intensive workshops on our craft and our industry.  Our next get together launches this Friday, January 6.

Of course what I'm talking about is our low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Talented student writers from all over the country--from New Mexico to Florida, from Texas to Michigan and from New York City to Dallas--as well as San Juan, Puerto Rico and Wabasca, Canada will all gather together to celebrate our art form with a distinquished professional faculty drawn from various aspects of our profession.

There will be intensive pitch sessions of new story ideas, craft classes in dialogue and rewriting and career oriented workshops on submission tactics and the national new play development arena. And central to the residency will be ten readings of new work written by our students this past semester, all of which are cast with professional actors and are followed by extensive feedback sessions.

To top off this residency, we've invited our alumni back for the opening weekend to share their adventures in the scriptwriting trade and to help further expand our growing networking apparatus on a national level.

Overall, these residencies are a time and place for emerging writers to share their passion for their art and expand their skill and their horizons as artists.  And all student writers leave the experience renewed and ready to go to work during the semester on their next project with their assigned professional mentor--developing a new script they'll share with the whole group at the next residency.

It's quite special.  Come join us if you can.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our last residency ran July 21-31, 2016 and we are about to start our next residency that runs January 6-15.  We are currently accepting applications for starting the program with our June residency running from June 22-July 2.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter) a professional script consultant, and the author of The Playwright's Process.