OUTLINING A SCREENPLAY:

Because it interests me, I’ve made a short collection from various interviews about how different screenwriters outline.

Featured in this thread are Michael Ardnt, Aaron Sorkin, Greta Gerwig, Rian Johnson, & more.

#screenplay #screenwriting #writing

Tarantino: Used to try and outline everything, now only plans to the middle with an idea of the ending. By the middle you know the characters, you are the characters, you know things you couldn’t know before writing.

Alex Garland: Opens final draft, writes about a page of story beats in single lines. Goes to the top of the page, writes the first scene then keeps going until he reaches the next story beat, then deletes the beat and keeps going. Creates a crap first draft to get started.

Rian Johnson: Writes very structurally, spends a large chunk of time drawing arcs then splitting them out into beats. Needs to see the whole plot before he can start to write. He plans and plans and plans, but is aware things might change in the first draft.

Greta Gerwing: Does not outline before she starts writing because it kills ideas. It makes everything too real. Will outline after writing when she already has a lot of material.

And I’ll mention here, I am paraphrasing & summarising these writers. These are not direct quotes.

Aaron Sorkin: Has never outlined. Uses index cards to organise his mind. Has never index-carded a whole movie, has never started a screenplay knowing everything about the story. Knows how the script will start, figures out a few things that will happen along the way, then starts.

Michael Ardnt 1/2: Does a very detailed step outline of the story, then breaks it down into every scene and writes the slug lines out (about 50). Where a script takes place over a few days, looks for the rhythm of day and night.

Michael Ardnt 2/2: At Pixar he would write a sequence outline on four pages, one page per 1/4 of the film, 4-6 sequences per page, so you can see the entire film. Easier to manage than index cards. Firmly believes you must know where you’re going before you start the first draft.

Vincent Gilligan: Uses a corkboard, and uses index cards for plot beats not scenes. Might use 3 to 5 cards for a scene. Split the corkboard into four acts so the entire episode is mapped out. This is the hard work, doing the structuring, and the most crucial part of the process.

Larry Wilson 1/2: Goes into a script kind of knowing how it begins, and knowing roughly how it’s going to end, but the stuff in between is the great unknown. Figuring everything out in a beat sheet takes all the fun out of writing it.

Larry Wilson 2/2: Will do outlines if contractually obliged but they quickly become irrelevant when writing. By the time you deliver the script, the studio’s forgotten about the outline.

Danny Strong: Writes meticulous outlines, 25-30 pages.

THE END!