Good article.
Just as some advice, warning I’ve yet to finish a screenplay, but have high hopes for the one I’m working on now.
I tried about everything, and I think what I realized (hope what I realized), is that I’ll start with an idea develope several obsticals/jokes/scenes, and I’ll think to myself “these parts are perfect, I’ll toss them aside if I think of something better, but until then they are in the scene.” And in the past I worked around those. Keep in mind all oof these are very non-linear, beginning(first 5 mins) scenes in the middle (2 or three that are about 5 mins long) and ending (10 mins, such a great ending), I’ll also have alot of secondary ideas to but I’ve used the 5 or 6 scenes to build a script out of. Even though I don’t intend to give up on the first 3 scripts I’ve started and the one script in my head(let’s just leave it at that), I’m trying another approach.
I had a few preconcieved ideas on my new one, but I’ve pretty much gone throught them within the first 10 pages, I have a vague idea of direction but am not going to sit aroun thinking up hoops for the main character to jump through until I get him to a place he can jump. I pretty much based the beginning off of itself, leaving little empty spaces (I mean, "How am I gonna get so and so here, when he’s all the way over here, or “How am I going to link these events plotted out in my head”). I also found that by have these preconcieved ideas( which every outline I’ve ever done is filled with them) I tend to make the story way to complicated.
Just a few thoughts, like I said I’m just stating what didn’t seem to work for me, and I don’t know if my new approach will yield anything better, but damn am I hopeful.
