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New to writing

a.p

a.p

New to writing, help please :/

Right, so I'm new to this kinda thing and I'm really excited to start filming short films.
First I was wondering how to write. I get that you need an idea to write and I've got quite a few, but as for the actual writing, I've no idea how to start.
Any help?
 
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Put it down on paper. Until you have it in black and white you really can't see it.

Here are some ideas:

Describe the location, the time of day, the season, inside, outside, a house, a business, a street, a pasture....

Describe the character: Age, short, tall, weight, age, ethnicity, education, morality, fashion sense.

While the idea of putting it down on paper seems a no-brainer, this is where I find clarity. What made perfect sense in my head requires far more detail to capture it on paper. And if I can describe it on paper, I can't shoot it. It's really that simple.

I focus on the characters. As the story develops, I create more and more backstory to solidify the character's motivation. It's not enough for me to have the character do something, I have to understand why they're doing it. Even if I don't tell the audience why they're doing it, by me understanding WHY they do something, it will drive HOW they do something, and it's in the action of HOW that the audience can get at least an taste for WHO this character is.

a.p said:
Right, so I'm new to this kinda thing and I'm really excited to start filming short films.
First I was wondering how to write. I get that you need an idea to write and I've got quite a few, but as for the actual writing, I've no idea how to start.
Any help?
Click to expand...
 
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That's pretty good advice. I've occasionally written out the different ideas kicking around in my head for a specific story (images, moments and the like) in bullet form. That can help me get a sense of what I already have, and where I need to fill in the blanks.

More often than not though I just plow right through on the strength of whatever might be kicking around in my head. I don't think that would work for everybody though.
 
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I start by just puking all my thoughts onto paper into one big long-stream-of-consciousness story and typing it out. No outline, no format, no grammar, just get the story out of your head any way you can.

Here's an example for like a boy meets girl story:
"So this dude that's a really huge cynical jerk meets this chick that hates how cynical he is and at first he hates her too but they are forced to work together on a very stressful project and when the project is done some jealous co-worker makes it look like the dude's trying to take all the credit and so even though she was starting to develop feelings for him now she's super mad and quits the job and is moving back to her hometown to start over and he has to go down there to get her back...."


So you see it's one big run on sentence and things are left out. Not pretty at all. But once it's all out on paper, THEN you can start to put structure around it. Make an outline of what each scene will be, and write character biographies if you wish, and then finally start writing a 1st draft.

Think of it as legos. Before you build something out of legos, the first step is to dump your bucket of pieces all out onto the floor.
 
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yea, that's all really good advice. since i posted it two days ago, i already have a story, detailed characters, i've written at least 10 minutes of filmtime, and i have about 6 people all working on this with me.
thanks for all the good advice guys.
-Austin P
 
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