your appraoch to scripting

[Tiff]

do you just start scripting without preparation (eg character profiles, narrative scaffold, etc), or do you take each conventional step?

[RegularKarate]

The one I'm on right now, I went and make character profiles and an outline and everything... next time, however, I think I'm just gonna take PT's advise and start to people talking in a coffee shop and see where it takes me.

[sphinx]

for me, it depends on what i'm writing.  don't ever let anyone tell you that you must or musn't write plot maps/character profiles.  do what helps you

usually i just write and write and write, and then go back and start reading again until i find something i want to change, and then change the rest accordingly, and just keep going over it

that sometimes means i might have to change the story entierly, but that's what works for me

[Ghostboy]

I've never done any preparation, for better or for worse -- I just have an idea and then I start writing and see where it goes. With most of my scripts, the ending comes to me first, but I always start at the beginning. Writing the beginning is the easiest part, and then from there I just try to head in a direction that is a.) natural and b.) possibly going to end up at my original idea for the ending. Usually, I end up somewhere completely different, but it's usually better that way.

[Alethia]

i just start writing, then i stop for a while without reading it, and i modify everything in my head (also taking notes, doing outlines, etc) then i go back and i modify my first draft with all of that stuff, then about three drafts later i am done. well, i'm never really done, i always go back to my "finished" scripts and nitpick even the smallest things, be it a word here or a word there, or add or detract.  

last night i went to work on my screenplay (i'm about 83 pages into it) and the fucking computer wouldn't open it, ive tried it on several computers and they won't open it either.  its on a disk, and every other document on the fuckin disk will open except that one, so now i have to start all over.  im pretty strung out.

[Cecil]

last night i went to work on my screenplay (i'm about 83 pages into it) and the fucking computer wouldn't open it, ive tried it on several computers and they won't open it either.  its on a disk, and every other document on the fuckin disk will open except that one, so now i have to start all over.  im pretty strung out.

im sorry to hear that. but cheer up, cause im sure that what youll write from memory will be better, since youll only remember the most important/best parts. isnt that what hitchcock (or tarantino) did when adapting books? they didnt consult the book when writing the first draft?

[Jeremy Blackman]

My approach is to start something, only to be distracted by college, and then start something new, etc.

[MacGuffin]

I like to start a journal for each separate screenplay and start by brainstorming. Ideas for story, character, shots, dialogue; no matter how big or small. Details I want to get across; questions I need to answer to get the plot across. Pages of listing just random thoughts related to this particular story. After I feel I have enough to start (the ideas will never stop during the writing), for me it's just like connect the dots. Never been one to do the whole note card thing. I usually find the structure linking the ideas together. I like to write out the first draft long hand (deleting on a computer equals lost forever, plus I'm a poor typist).

[Pastor Parsley]

i keep a few loose note cards in my pocket at all times...if i see something during the course of my day that i think might be good, i write it down.  it may be an incident, or a character sketch from a guy i saw walking down the street, or just a scene that really touched me.  when i get home i toss the card into a card catalog box and try to forget it.  whenever i have writers block, i begin at the front of the box and just read each card...sometimes these random ideas, read in a series, will spark another idea which i write down and add to the box.  when i'm done i shuffle the cards and will repeat.  few of these ideas ever take off by themselves but they often trigger other, completely unrelated, ideas.  these tend to be the best ideas i come up with.

i began this experiment by writing down my most vivid memories, no matter how insignificant.  they turned out to be the high and low points in my life....both sides of the emotional spectrum.  i also found that i had a lot of cards with moments that i knew were important, but i didn't know why.

i have never used the note card technique to layout a script...i prefer to just write one lined sentences down a page so i can see the progression all at once.

[The Silver Bullet]

For me it depends entirely on what I am doing. If I am writing something that I know I will be writing for over, say, six months, I will probably have a heap of things floating around the place in folders and such. Sometimes I just write cold based on one image, or line of dialogue, or character, or idea [my novel, which I never completed and will probably wind up adaptating for screen, was written entirely out of the line, "Imagine life in the tic tac factory."]

The piece I am writing now came out of the sole idea that I wanted to make a film noir. Then that became a quest for the right story, and that became a quest for structure, and imagery, and plot twists and turns, and then ultimately it became less about a noir and more about a guy returning to his home after having left it six years earlier, and experiencing the changes and the like. The only thing I ever wrote down off the computer for that was on a napkin at my grandmother's 80th birthday party, a very simple timeline, that I have since lost. It is all in my head, and has been for about eight or nine months now.

[chainsmoking insomniac]

The one I'm on right now, I went and make character profiles and an outline and everything... next time, however, I think I'm just gonna take PT's advise and start to people talking in a coffee shop and see where it takes me.

This is the method I'm most comfortable with.  And I also, when starting out, try to mimick a movie or movies that I'd seen recently (right now I'm working on something inspired by Hard Eight)...Another thing that helps is imagining actors and actresses that I really admire (in the case of this script, it's Morgan Freeman and Asia Argento-not taking her clothes off!!! lol--in a sort of noirish tale of revenge and paternal love....)

Does that make any sense? Do any of you find it useful?

[The Silver Bullet]

And I also, when starting out, try to mimick a movie or movies that I'd seen recently.

Call me crazy, but that sounds so dangerous in terms of you never being even nearly remotely original.

[EL__SCORCHO]

I usually start out by writing a scene with 2 or more characters. I'll be writing it until the scene turns out to be something that I wasn't expecting it to be, I love it when that happens. I'll then look at it and see if it has any possibilities to go anywhere. Then I'll start thinking about a premise, other possible scenes, anything that can help me get the ball rolling.

[chainsmoking insomniac]

And I also, when starting out, try to mimick a movie or movies that I'd seen recently.

Call me crazy, but that sounds so dangerous in terms of you never being even nearly remotely original.

Hey buddy, I'm not saying copy word for word or use the same characters; but it always helps when I have something to give me a little direction...and I hate to use cliches, but this one is so useful--art is derivative.  Also, if you listen to director's commentaries, you'll hear writers and directors say where they got ideas for scenes or what movies influenced them (i.e. P.T. Anderson said he stole the "Spill the Wine" pool scene from a movie called "I Am Cuba"...)

Anything else?

[ReelHotGames]

And I also, when starting out, try to mimick a movie or movies that I'd seen recently.

Sometimes I'm the same way, a movie will hit me and inspire me to do something in the style or in the theme, currently I am writing an anime style live action flick, my inspiration was going to see Cowboy BeBop the Movie.

I'm not a huge anime beast, I like it, I like what the do with story in an animated film, so I decided to write a story based live action - scifi action flick. But then again I was a huge fan of Joss Whedon's Firefly, so it owes a little something to that as well.

I spent a year playing poker for a living and when I saw Hard Eight (Sydney) I was struck by how realistic it was to the world it was set in, and it inspired me to write about the stories I heard at the tables, and the experiences I was actually involved in, so I have three gambling themed scripts all stemming from incidents I was told, or was part of, and all of them owe a debt to Hard Eight for spurring me to pen them.

So being inspired to do original work is great, as long as you keep your own ideas and nurture them, from wherever they may have spawned.