Numbers
Tomorrow is a special day.
Tomorrow my writing partner and I complete the outline of our next story. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, right? But it is.
I hate outlines. When I broke through my writer’s block of 15 years it was because I abandoned trying to outline. I wrote straight through without a plan. I wrote a script a month, writing about an hour each morning and completed 10 scripts in one year.
But none of them were moving to a second draft. They were a mess and my mind couldn’t organize them.
That’s when I brought in my writing partner. She and I hammered through one of our favourites and sent it out two weeks ago.
When the time came for the new one, I wanted to use Save the Cat by Blake Snyder to make sure we were always on the same page.
We worked in 3 hour sessions that were broken down like this:
- We started from a general idea that popped into my head and used to pitch it my partner. We spent the first session brainstorming about it.
- We did the 15 point beat sheet on pg. 70 of the book.
- We filled in Act 1 of the board.
- Act 2A of the board.
- We did another brainstorming session to figure out what was going to happen next.
- Act 2B of the board.
- Tomorrow, we will complete Act 3.
After that is complete, we begin writing the first draft of the script. I expect each 3 hour session to accomplish roughly 10 pages, so I expect it will take 11 sessions for a 110 minute script.
Add those numbers up. That is 18 sessions at 3 hours each. 54 hours in total.
I used to take 30 hours to write a messy screenplay and now it will take me 54 hours to have an organized one.
Those are numbers I like.
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