On Writing : Playwriting, screenwriting, any sort of creative writing: What are your habits? by Kel Pero

I'm a weird one. I usually have scattered paper around me, filled with paragraphs of 'scenes' and bits of character outlines. Sometimes, I write my scenes/work as short stories, before transferring them to Final Draft and formatting them correctly. Other days, I sit with some coffee, and write my screenplay or musical in one sitting or two sittings. Music helps me focus, most of the time. If I'm writing an action scene, I usually listen to film scores or symphonic metal, for instance. I just left my job, where I work 12 hour shifts, now I devote that time to writing and composing, every other day-it's great. The story usually comes first to me, then I flush out my characters. By the end of the 1st act, most of my characters has changed a bit. My writing process is pretty scattered, just like my brain, I have come to realize, lol.

Here we go.. 1. An idea can spark from ANYWHERE, and be related to any part of the script (character, setting, theme, event, etc.)and once I have that idea, it turns into a paragraph or so... 2. The next step is to splatter ideas onto a page: conflicts I want somewhere on the story, relationships, phrases, etc... 3. Then an outline comes together. Beginning to end rough outline. The progression of the story is present, characters exist, and a few key conflicts are there to move everything forward... 4. Once I have the outline, I start to cover that skeleton with skin, and the organs will fall into place later... 5. Characters develop in ways I didn't expect at the beginning, new events come into my mind, others are thrown away, and so far - the end result has been told in a dramatically different way than originally planned, but the ideas are almost always consistent from start to finish... 6. Get friends, family, gingea pigs, teachers, your neighbors dog, ANYONE to read it and give feed back. From there, the editing, proof reading, expanding and cutting, it's a fun and long process... You can NOT grow without constructive criticism. Hold you ground on your ideas, but everyone has a different perspective, whether they are seasoned critics or not. 7. .. Seven is my favorite number.

These are both interesting, and I'm glad you shared these with me. There seem to be as many approaches and processes as there are writers, which isn't surprising. I hope more people contribute. Thanks!

It just depends for me. It can be my mood, or a certain time of the day. If things come to mind, then I begin to write also.

Writing is a little like working out... find a time and place that works best for you. Sometimes nothing happens, but give it some time and you will find yourself becoming more and more productive. Also take a few moments before you go to sleep and consider what scene(s) or scripting problem(s) you want to work on next. Let your thoughts and question incubate while you sleep.

I find the 1,2,7,14 works really great for me as a screenwriter, if you are not familar with the method you can look it up on Scott Myers website, "Go into the Story" he is the guy who take care of the "Black List" he also wrote the screenplay for the movie K9. Basically (1) Try to read one screenplay a week. (2) watch two movies a week, one at a movie theatre if you can the other at home where you can watch for the beats. (7) stands for writing 7 pages a week of your current screenplay. And (14) stand for the hours you put in research or plotting a new screenplay. That way you always have a project to work on when you finish your current screenplay. This is a very simple method and helps keep you on track to write two screenplays a year.

What did Patrick Stewart say in Dune - "Mood is thing for cattle and love play."

Suzanne, thanks very much for that! Mark, I'd better go bring in those cattle. ;-)

All I can say is, outline outline outline. Write a Total Narrative, I.e. all the important back story for the characters, what happens during the play/ script, and even what will happen afterwards. Fleshing this out you then break this down scene by scene to make sure your story gets from the beginning to the end. My outlines are short, nowhere near like a proper treatment, but 5 pages or so is enough for me to feel like I know the story well and that it works. Trust me, the outlining process can save you SO much time! Imagine if you wrote a play made no sense at the ending, and you realised the central character needed to change or the beginning had to change. You normally catch these problems during the outline stage. Hold off writing "ACT 1 Scene 1" as long as you can!

The only rule is ... there is no rule. What works best for you is the right way to go. Some people like to use formulas ... I don't. Audiences are dead bored with the predictable. IMHO what matters most is ending up with a compelling, transportive, story with powerful characters. Working out who your target audience is early on will make the creative process a lot easier and significantly boost your chances of creating a story people can relate to.