Screen writing techniques

C

CootDog

Two days ago I attended a corporate writing class being put on by Roger Rueff.
Come to find out he has written many stageplays and adapted one into a screenplay which was produced by and stared Kevin Spacy. Danny DeVito was another one of the actors. :yes:

Since we had to introduce ourselves, I mentioned I was a filmmaker. So when he was talking about methods, he mentioned which ones he uses when he writes his stageplays or screenplays.

One method, which I'll be using is the cluster method. This is for brainstorming. It also gives a graphical representation of the links between certain things such as characters, locations, and more. You could pick a location and figure out everything that will happen there.

How it works is like this:
Say you want to brainstorm on the protagonist. In the middle of a page of paper, you write protagonist or their name and put a circle around it. Then what happens to him? He gets thrown in prison. So you write prison, draw a circle around it and connect Prison bubble to the Protagonist bubble. Now what happens in prison? He gets in a fight, so wright Fight in a small bubble connected to Prison.

This will give you a large visual map of the protagonist.

You can do this for acts too. Since he mostly does stageplays, he would do one cluster for each act.


Then after you have these clusters, it's easier to create the story. If you have any questions as you're writing, just look at the cluster. It is also said to use both parts of your brain since there are words and graphics. Actually drawing the circles around the different parts of a cluster helps continue the creative juices flowing.

One program he uses to do this electronically is MindJet. Someone told me another one but I'll post it up once I remember.

So now you have a few pages of clusters. Sit down and write an awesome screenplay, story, or stageplay.

I found this online. It does show a small cluster, so you'll know what I'm talking about:
http://www.lattc.edu/dept/titlev/writing_center/Get Started.PDF


Would this be a valuable method to help you gain a clearer picture in the creation/brainstorming phase of writing?
 
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I've used that technique for years -- it's really great for team efforts.

In the UK we call it "Spider" brainstorming, because you end up with an image that looks like a spider.

Only thing I'd add to your description about brainstorming is, the most important factor in getting it to work is not judging the ideas as they hit the page -- give yourself permission to write the good, bad and indifferent idea -- in fact it helps to prime the pump by putting down the biggest cliche you can think of first and then seeing what else flows.

Then you go back and sift through the ideas - keep the stuff you like and jettison the stuff you don't.
 
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Yeah, I've used a similar technique, which I learned from two great playwrighting teachers, Vincent Cardinal (Miami U) and Milan Stitt (Carnegie Mellon) - but they call it 'kernaling.' It's helpful to discover themes and all sorts of stuff. Simply start with one word (perhaps a word from a speech a character has in your script), say it's 'blood,' and then write down a word following blood that you feel is related to it, perhaps the word, 'heart,' then write a word that's related to 'heart' and so on. It's pretty interesting what comes up sometimes.
 
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This is also a great way to keep track of how the main plot is related to the subplot.

Example:

xppv02.jpg


Of course, it will end up looking like a line of connected bubbles instead of a spider or cluster, but it's the same principle.

Poke
 
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Of course using this kind of mapping for plotting is just a paper/computer version of what screenwriters did and still do with file cards.

One of the advantages a $1 stack of file cards over a programme like Movie Outline is the ability to lay the cards out in a pattern rather than just in a stack.

This means you can organise subplots parallel to the plot, and then only commit to a sequence order once your map is completed.

Done this way your cards end up looking like Poke's mind map, but have the advantage that you can slide them round into new positions without creating a new document.

Of course if you're looking for a software solution this looks pretty good

http://www.nova-mind.com/Screenwriters/
 
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