FREE WOKSHOP - 03 3x5 Cards Shedule

THIS is where the REAL work is done.

Look, Stephen King will tell you to just write your story until it's finsihed, and then fix it in rewrites. M. Night Shamalan and Joss Whedon learned to write by just writing drafts upon drafts upon drafts of a screenplay until they were ready to move on. If you're reading the free advice of a screenwriter who has sold nothing and has no credentials AT ALL, then you don't havethe patience and/or dedication those guys do.

Neither do I.

And that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Screenwriters have to be able to write FAST. And the secret to writing fast is KNOWING WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO WRITE BEFORE YOU WRITE IT.

So put away your keyboard and rip open a fresh pack of 3x5 index cards. This is where the REAL work begins.

Now, the entire reason for me writing this section of my bog is my frustration with professional screemwriters and/or professional screenwriting gurus and what they DON'T tell us. They give us wondeful information about how to make a bad screenplay good, but they tell us shamefully little about how to get the bad screenplay written in the first place!

THIS is why you're reading this blog! You've got an idea for a movie and you want to know what comes next.

Okay, well what comes next is you make your 3x5 cards. THEY tell you what comes next. And if it's not GREAT (rmember what I said about being your own Bullshit Meter?) then YOU CHNAGE THEM. If the story beat is great, then you move it. If it's weak, you replace it with a better one.

Here's the deal: Writing books tell you to set a peson goal for how much work you're going to do everyday, and then stick with it. If you're like me (and if you've read this far you probably are) you're having difficulty with that so-called "Discipline" thing, but you're dedicated enough to seek out my advice. (Hopeing against hope that SOMEONE will show you another way! Well, here's you Other Way...)

Okay, J. J. Abrams utilizes a techique of filling up 40 3x5 cards for feature-length stories. 10 for every half-hour. (If you can't do the math yourslef, that's 10 cards each for Acts I & III and 20 cards for Act II.) Despite what Syd Field says, you can pack those cards as full as you want to, but you have to have 40 GOOD ONES before you can start writing your screenplay pages.

The point is this: How much does it suck to be joyfully writing dialogue and description, t=and then suddenly curse and explain "What the fuck happens next?!!" Ever have to write an article or email or even sign a birthday card and just be startled catatonic because you don't know what to say?

This stpe prevents that from happening while you're writing pages.

I mean think about it: You LOVE writing! There are few greater thrills for you IN THIS LIFE than allowing words to trip cleverrly off your fingertips onto the keyboard! So why DEFILE that joy with multiple memories wherein the words simply wouldn't trip?!!

You want to be a writer? Then hold sacred the memories of writing. Allow that ALWAYS to be a joy for you!

And the answer to "What the cuck happens next?!!" is simple: Plan it out first.

See, the reason I'm even bothering to write this sction of my blog is that books and teachers have told me how to schedule my time as I write -- 5 pages a day, or 10 pages a day, or 2 hours a day, or however-much-time-I-can spare a day -- and THEN told me that Preparation Time is invaluable... But they never defined what Preparation Time was. Then I'd hear Creative Screenwriting Magazine interviews wherein professional screenwriters would tell me that if they had 6 weeks to deliver a draft, 4 of those were spent in Preparation Time. (OR, in the very EXTREME case of the main screenwriting team for X3, they were given 6 DAYS to complete a draft, but were able to do it because they had "an extensive outline" of the movie to work from...)

But they NEVER elaborate on the preparation Time schedule!!! Obviously THAT'S where the "magic" happens! How about sharing some of that Magic Fairie Dust with THE REST OF US? And letting US fly, too?!!

So I made up my own 3x5 card schedule.

Like I've said in previous entries, I have all the tools a professional screenwriter has (all but the MOST IMPORTANT one, EXPERIENCE) and I know that because I recently wrote a short script that I KNEW (remember what I said about your Bullshit Meter?) before we submited it to a CSM short screenwriting competition is GREAT. (Best Short Ever? We'll see after it's made... But it's GOOD, and I KNOW that.) I observed the process of writing that with my brother and one of our director/producer best friend/collaborators, and I saw how that came together -- with an amazing ammount of ease and effortlessness -- and I know the tools I used and how I used them.

But since it was a short, it didn't have the inevitable weight and cumbersonme-ness of a feature film.

So, if you trust me -- and if you don't stop reading, because the fact that this workshop is free necessitates a certain degree of trust in me for you to get more anything more than your money's worth from it -- then you'll trust that I've developed some proficiancy with my own Bullshit Meter, and have at least SOME basis for my judgement calls.

So anyway here it is...

Based on what I've read/heard about professional screenwriters' habit, I came up with the following 3x5 Card schedule:

Create or Alter 5 3x5 cards a day.

You want to do this until you have 40 GREAT 3x5 cards.

Now, if you don't know "What comes next?" then simply thing about it in the time you have alloted for writing, and give your best guess. The cards you create don't have to be in order. Just think about what Story Moments or Story Moves you need and write them on a 3x45 card. "Hero gets taken" is a perfectly acceptable card.

And here's why...

You won't be able to write the pages until you can envision the movie. And YOU KNOW when you can envision the movie well enough to write the scene/sequence.

So until you can write the scene for EVERY SINGLE CARD, you "alter" it. You think about HOW it will play until you can write a new card with more detail, or -- if you see every beat of the scene already -- you rearrange it among the other scenes until it plays with the most dramatic impact.

OR... replace it with another scene that both fulfills the story obligation and the emotional Moment the audience needs to FEEL the movie.

The point is that with all the detailed thinking you're doing about the movie, you're keeping it in Broad Strokes, which means that you're more willing to sacrifice a scene for the betterment of the WHOLE STORY than you would be if your were writing the pages. ("But how can I cut this scene?! Did you read that LINE?! That line's gonna be in the traikers!!!") You're managing the story from a perspective that makes the whole story more managable.

You feel like you don't know how the sentecne "Hero gets taken" is gonna play precisely? Okay, then write the scene. But DON'T SAVE IT. Write the scene, parse it for the main thrust of it, then create (or alter) your 3x5 card. But don't commit yourself to the specific words and.or s=actions you used to create the scene. You're exploring right now, PLAYING. You're having fun and flexing your creative muscles. Don't marry yourself to the specifics yet... There may be something younger and hotter and more nubile out there when the time comes. Write the pages, captuer the most important parts on the card, then delete the pages.

Look, you're gonna rewrite this script 3 or more times BEFORE you sell it. Then God only knows how many times the Studio/ProdCo will have you rewrite it (for pay), so just GET USED TO the fact that you're gonna be rewriting this thing! (If you can't get use to this idea, then go be a novelist and -- sincercerely -- good luck to you; but don't forget this 3x5 card thing because it can help you out there, too.) Right now the best way for you to envision a scene is to let it play out on the page, and that's fine! (Really!) But don't dellude yourself into thinking that EVERYTHING you write is golden. Some stuff you write is just "warming up" and that's what these pages at this stage in development are.

So write them, create your 3x5 card, and delete them. If you wrote anything that's REALLY genius, you'll remember it. (Hell, make a note of it, if you really want to; Just do it in a notebook or journal, something that doesn't MARRY you to those words/phrases.)

So your schedule is 5 cards created or arranged a day until you have 40 cards that REALLY ROCK all together.

When you have those, join me for the Next Step.

Btw, this is the stage I'm on as I type this, so it may be a while before I join YOU in the Next Step... Just thought I'd let you know. ;P