New Writing Experiences//New Methods

Hey all you CCMers! (past, present, and future.)

Nathan here, (graduated CCM August 2008) and I just wanted to share a recent experience with you all for a few reasons: 1) It might be beneficial to you , and, 2) You might have some feed back that is beneficial to me! 'Cause thats what this blog is all about right?

So, if you've been following my twitter or rapidly updating facebook status (via twitter) then you know that last week I wrote a movie script for a start up company in Michigan called Atlas Films. Go ahead, google them, but like I said they're start up and in the process of getting scripts for their first couple of movies so you probably won't find much. Anyways, I sent them my resume as a writer and they took a look at the volume of stuff I was able to handle, told me that since I didn't have a movie under my belt they couldn't pay me in advance for a script but if I turned in a script to them and they decided to take it off my hands it'd be worth at least $3,000, maybe up to $7,000. So I was like, sure! Why not right? I figure, worst case scenario I'll learn a lot about myself, my writing, and I'll always be able to say, "Yes, I can and have written a full length movie script." And then best case scenario, they buy my script and I come on board with them to make a movie I wrote! So yeah, I did it.

After talking with Doug yesterday I told him I'd write a blog up about my writing experience and tell you guys how I pumped out a 99 page rough draft in five days. Here is the rundown of days:

Monday: Established premise. Revisited some characters I had taken notes on in an old journal. Freewrite for 33 pages. (I downloaded the Dark Knight script a week or so before, studied how it was formatted and did my best to stick as close to Final Draft formatting with Word.)

Tuesday: Brianfart day. I had killer writing block. I didn't write a page that day. I went to a friend's house and we stayed up really late talking the story over and I started making some note card "story blocks". <--talk more about that later.

Wednesday: I went home and got out a huge stack of note cards. I revisited my premise, streamlined my characters based on my freewrite, added a few needed characters, and then wrote appoximately 25 what I'll call "story blocks" with bulletpointed story beats/scenes. One story block per note card. Around 6pm I started re-writing the script and hit the sack around 6:30am with 51 pages finished.

Thursday: After about six hours sleep I popped out of bed, jumped on the computer with coffee in hand and wrote from about 12:00pm to 6:30am all over again. 91 pages total at this point.

Friday: Not so much sleep this time, work up a few hours later and started my one and only shot at a readthrough/edit. So from like 10:30am-10:00pm I re-read/re-wrote/edited my script, finishing with 99 pages and a few notes for expansion along the way that I didn't have time to do. At approximately 10pm I sent the script off to the email I had been given.

Brutal? Yeah, you bet! But I still remember thinking even as I wrote it, "Wow, I'm writing more and probably better content than I ever wrote at CCM! How is this happening?" Well, I knew the answer but it was just hard to believe because I'd never tried my "story block" method before and as soon as I used it (out of desperation I might add) something clicked in my brain and I was able to knock out an enormous task in a fairly ridiculous time frame...sound familiar CCM?

Anways, the main purpose of this post is to tell you guys about "story blocking". That's my name for it so if it has an official name that I don't know feel free to correct me. Oh, and just by way of disclaimer this may not work for everyone. It worked really well for me but that's all I can really vouch for it.

So! Here we go. Story Blocking: mapping out an entire story using note cards.

Growing up reading books, comic books, and listening to crazy music that always has some clever title for each chapter or section of the story it was telling, it made sense to me to think ahead in the story and name large chunks of it with one phrase that might include several story beats and even more scenes. Sometimes the story block was more vivid in my mind and needed less note card description and sometimes I needed to map out specifically front and back with bulletpoints guiding me through the scene to make sure it was going to work and accomplish what it needed to accomplish. Below is an example:

In this way I was able to name a block of the story, "Prom Plans" and then knock out that section of the script, beat by beat, scene by scene, with important details noted. Sometimes a good line would come to me and I'd write it or an abreviation of that line down as a bullet point since I knew in my head where I wanted it to go and what I wanted it to accomplish. I guess the real important thing about "method" is that it WORKS! If something doens't work for you don't do it. If something does work, then screw what your "supposed" to do and do your thing.

*Quick tangent: Every great writer and artist has learned the rules and then uniquely broke them to let loose their genius. So yes, learn all the rules you can...but when it comes down to GETTING SOMETHING DONE, do what you have to.

By the time I was finished with my story blocking I had about 25 usable story blocks...


And a whole pile of blocks I was able to re-word, re-work, or cut out to make the story work better...


All in all, my movie was this big...


5 THINGS TO THINK ABOUT CONCERNING THIS METHOD:

1) We don't edit linearly so why should we assume to write and think linearly when it comes to a story? Story blocking allows you to take the initial inspiration for a story, craft that block, craft another block that you think might work well with the first one...and then later realize that you need to put about 5-10 blocks of story in-between those. But what you haven't done is gotten caught up on "the next detail" and therefore stopped your overall story from developing. Huge time saver!

2) Allows you to see what works, what doesn't work, what has to happen, and what can be cut before you ever sit down in front of a blank document.

3) You never have to worry about where you're going. It's like google maps for your story. All your twists and turns are mapped out ahead of time and you just have to write your way through them. Or imagine it like this: You've made a mold and now you have to fill it up with words. All the boundaries are set in place, do whatever you want in the middle, just fill up the mold.

4) With well crafted note-card-story-blocks you could architect an entire story or stories and then pass them off to someone else to write. A CCM producer's dream ;) Oh, and p.s. I later found out that this is what Christopher Nolan did, passing off an enormous stack of note cards to his brother Jonathan Nolan to pen The Dark Knight. So I'm reassured to find out that this isn't some half-baked thing that worked on a fluke. These guys arguably made the best movie this year using this method to collaborate.

5) It's fun!


I'm pretty sure I don't have to tell you guys about all-nighters but I will say that knowing where you going in a script when it's 3am is a lot more fun than not knowing where your going in a script at 3am and staring blankly at your screen, frustrated and tired, a deadline bearing down on you.

Well, that about sums up this ginormous post. Hit me up with comments yo!

Nathan

Oh! and before people ask: If the script gets picked up and I do a final draft, yes of course you can read it. If not then I'm going to chalk this whole thing up as a great learning experience and tuck that bad boy away.