Writing the great Screenplay?

First off welcome to the board!

For me it comes down to my charachters. I have developed several characters that have in depth characterization. If I can get them right I can put them in any situation and that is where I find out where I want to go with the story.

I have a girl that has some superpowers. She is a very confident person that can take on many things. She also has her weaknesses, which I explore in different scenarios. Some of these Ideas I use; some of them I don't. In one scenario I put her in one of my non-sci fi screenplays. She was able to handle the ordeal fine until she blew up the dinner party, which made for some great slapstick, but she would have never been there anyway, at least that is what I determined.

No matter what, I found that taking your characters and developing them gives you the option to put them in any situation to see what they do. If the scene holds up, I write it down.

I take a buch of these scenes and formulate my story within the main arch.

This is what I have found that helps me get through those times when I have writer's block or I am even stumped on plot outline.

My suggestion is to take one of those great characters and write out her story. Where is she from, how did she become to be and why is that mole on her nose talking to her?

Good luck and happy writing.

Welcome Luke.

Yep - all writers experience this. And each writer has a slightly
different way of dealing with it. For me, if I wake up thinking
the idea sucks then I move on to the next one. Because if I think
it sucks, others will think it sucks.

I just keep going until that morning when I wake up and the idea
seems even better than it did the day before. When that happens
three or four days in a row, that’s the script I write.

Dude, you're making a classic baby screenwriter mistake of thinking that ideas arrive fully formed and perfect... and that the process is about searching for the "perfect" idea.

Thing is ideas need development as much as characters and plots.

So, you take an idea you think isn't good enough and ask yourself... how could I change this to make it bigger, wilder, more dangerous, sexier, funnier... and then just play with it until you've got something that genuinely interests you.

The other thing is, it maybe that you can combine two less promising ideas into one good one...

One of the most common causes of writer's block is when a writer gets into a cycle of rejecting their ideas, instead of developing them... this is because the part of the mind that throws out ideas starts to preempt the rejection by not producing new ideas... the more you demand "good" ideas the more blocked you'll become.

There's an exercise you can do... get a blank piece of paper and give yourself three minutes to write a genius idea for a movie... then take a new piece of paper and give yourself three minutes to come up with as many bad ideas for movies as you can... the worse they are the better

After you've done this you'll find the genius page is blank and the bad ideas is full of stuff... not only that the genius idea minutes were depressing and tedious ... but the bad ideas time was loads and loads of fun, my guess is you probably managed to make yourself laugh.

OK, what this tells is a couple things... generating ideas needs to be a process without pressure... and that you get more ideas when you're having fun.

You probably love to hear this. Your situation isn't unique. Everyone goes through this. I'm probably among the most blocked you'll ever meet. I've been working on ideas for screenplay #2 for 15 years now. During that time, I've come up with what I feel are several good ideas, one of which I've been developing for the last few months. I don't think this process ever stops. I love Californication because Hank Moody reminds me that I'm not alone, either.

You have permission to write badly. Just write. Even sculpters start out with a very rough looking hunk and chisel it as a whole down to a work of art. They don't start by creating a perfect eye.

VPTurner said:

Even sculpters start out with a very rough looking hunk and chisel it as a whole down to a work of art. They don't start by creating a perfect eye.

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I Like your way of thinking.

I found a good friend and tend to Collaborate most of my Ideas and Script. The only thing is she's just got too many things to do nowadays and we barely even have time to talk theses days. I actually met her on a CTA Bus here in Chicago, the funny thing was I thought she was "Hot" and liked her, I mean Liked her, but she only saw me as a friend. Anyway, Its kinda tough for me also, I dont want anyone seeing my script for me or even showing anyone my ideas, thats just me. My script has a coffee shop seen in it, so tend to visit coffee shops and see characters view point. I recently started putting several different scenes on paper and just played with until I see something I like.

This happens ALL. THE. TIME. with me. I wish my inner critic will just shut up once in a while.

You see, here's the beauty about writing: you can suck as much as you want, but it can ALWAYS get better.

You're in the baby stage. That's the thing: the first will always suck. It will get better, hopefully, but when you're still in the developing stage it will suck. And by suck, I mean, it'll be so horrible you'll stupidly delete the file (okay, that's what I did, I don't recommend that, honestly).

But that's okay! As you progress with the story, you will get more experienced, more into your script, finding solutions- but trust me, you'll run into some problems, of course.

My advice: keep writing. That's the main thing. Just keep writing. It WILL change, trust me, for the better. I've been working on the same script for nearly 2-3 years (and compared to a lot of screenwriters, this isn't enough time!), and I can't tell you how much the story changed. Shoot, only my main character kept his original name. The personalities changed, the plot, setting, everything changed, and there will be some changes. But that's the good part.

Don't stop. It will suck. You will cry. You will want to burn the thing in the fire. That is the worse you can do with a screenplay is to stop because it sucks now, but every screenplay will suck now. Might as well make it suck first until it get better and not vise versa. It's not going to come out great now, so why not suck now and get better later, instead of waiting to suck a lot longer and get better longer?

Also, this may not help others, but I think it works for me so far:

-Planning is good. However, it should be used as a reference sheet, not a complete guide. You don't have to be totally stringent with the story, otherwise, it to me at lease, sucks the fun out of things. The story will change paths sometimes- that is okay. It's okay, and rather good, if the story takes unexpected turns YOU didn't even expect. So, have something to look off of when you get stuck, but don't be afraid to take a change with the work. Changes are fun.

-I personally take notes as I write. I tend to leave out parts I deemed important, or some little things that come to my mind as I write. The beauty of Celtx- the scratchpad feature allows you to do this without popping up a different file every time.

-Read A LOT. When I read something good, I get inspired to write my own piece- it's a great boaster.

In all:
Just write the damn thing.

Will Write For Latte said:

I Like your way of thinking.

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Thanks.

Just don't ask me anything about politics.