Patterns Of Screen Writing/Planning

Planning Patterns

Hollywood folklore is rife with stories about a professional writers pressured by an impossible deadlines into writing a screenplay for an award-winning movie. In reality, professional screenwriters require between three months to a year to write a quality screenplay. If you are not yet making a living from writing you will need to spend more time to polish and tighten your stories.

What Are Planning Patterns?

The common denominator of planning patterns is an aim to manage your project in a way that minimizes risks. These risks include commercial issues related to marketing, missing deadlines, creating an untenable structure, improving story quality.

Reducing Risks

The risk involved in writing a screenplay are manyfold. A writer will have to invest time and effort in researching, planning and writing. It might be done as a speculation or under contract for a client. So once the writing the writer needs to sell it, and a success will mean further requirements and further rewrites.

By taking professional attitude it is possible to that reduce the above risks so that the efforts will turn out to concrete results. You will get a second round of benefits once you close a deal that requires work with a development or production team.

For each hour spent planning, you will save tenfold on unproductive activities. With a fully planed story on the drawing board, the second and third acts will write themselves.

You will still need great tenacity and rewrite several drafts. The difference is that you will have the confidence to shape the story, improve structure, strengthen characters, and intensify conflict, deepen emotional impact and send the viewers a coherent and meaningful statement.

Finally, it is superior planning which will enable you to unleash your full creative potential.

Focus

• How to tap into your creative potential for original ideas; fresh points of view and understand breakthrough in genre. (Brainstorming)
• Succinctly define a dramatic premise in such a way that it can permeate all levels of story crystallizing them into a coherent structure. (Logline; Moral Premise)
• Work out the narrative and the necessary back-story.(The Board; Storyboard )
• Build up interest by a rhythmically varying their perspective between suspense mystery and dramatic irony.(Viewer's Perspective)
• Enhance your creative output. (Concept of Artistic Limitation;Law of Variation)

Patterns in later sections such as structure, character, conflict, and dialogue will also collaborate with these planning patterns by contributing much detail to the plan, subsequently reducing the scope of later planning tasks. However, it is the patterns in this section, which form the foundation of the story structure. Why are they so important?

Essentially, planning patterns assist you to reduce the risk of ending up with partial project or an unsalable-draft. They will allow you organize your work logically; Break up big daunting task into easily managed ones; economize your time and maximize the impact of you effort. Finally planning is a part of establishing a routine of disciplined writing.

The Patterns

• Brainstorming
• Logline
• Moral Premise
• Viewer's Perspective
• Concept Of Artistic Limitation
• Law Of Variation
• The Board
• Storyboard