So… you have ideas and want to write a screenplay. Maybe you’ve already written a few, or at least started them. But you find yourself getting stuck in indecision, second-guessing every choice. Sometimes that means you never quite feel “ready” to start writing. Sometimes the whole process just takes longer than you’d like. Sometimes it takes so long that you abandon the project indefinitely, telling yourself you’ll come back to it… someday.
It doesn’t have to take forever to map out your screenplay so you can start writing pages. You just need to know what you need to know. Then putting those puzzle pieces together becomes a process of small, manageable steps.
So, what do you need to know?
I’m going to lay out a simple plan below. You can count the steps on one hand, each one can be done pretty quickly, and you’ll come away with a lightweight but sturdy roadmap to guide you through writing your screenplay.
The process is concise and focused on just the essential stuff so you can avoid overwhelm and get to writing as quickly as possible. But your outline (or roadmap) will still contain everything it needs to be a solid foundation for your screenplay.
Ready to get started?
1. Tell us what the movie is about
If we can get to the simple, essential stuff at the core of your story then we have a clear starting point and also a North Star to keep an eye on so we can make sure your screenplay is doing what you want it to do.
So start by just telling us what the movie is. Aim for something even more basic than a logline here.
For example, if I were writing Silence of the Lambs:
It’s about an FBI trainee who works with a brilliant psychopath to catch a serial killer.
2. Match the plot to character arc
In any good story, plot and character development are intertwined. Plot events act on a character and force change. The changing character makes choices that drive plot direction.
When plot and character are designed to intertwine effectively, it makes the story feel more meaningful because we can see how those elements are working on each other and effecting change. So we want to think about that now, in the development phase.
For our example:
Working with a brilliant psychopath to catch a serial killer causes her to realize she is smart enough, strong enough, and good enough.
3. Break the story down, but only into its biggest parts
A story itself is composed of parts that all relate in some way to a goal. The story you’re telling, if you want to get really nerdy about it, actually demonstrates the life cycle of a goal:
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- In Act 1 the goal is created.
- In Act 2 the goal is pursued.
- In Act 3 the pursuit of the goal is resolved – the goal is achieved or not.
In our example:
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- Act 1: FBI trainee Clarice gets the chance to work with Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychopath, to catch a serial killer.
- Act 2: Clarice matches wits with Lecter and tries to solve the “puzzle” of identifying the serial killer.
- Act 3: Clarice tracks down the serial killer and single-handedly stops him.
4. Use the parts to find the major plot points
The major plot points are the big turning points that define the shape of the story. If you know these important plot points, you know the story. Not every detail, but a sense of the whole.
What makes these five plot points so important? How do they define the shape of the story?
You get a sense of the whole in these plot points because they relate back to the story goal.
And you can use what you already know about the shape of the story and the character arc (from previous steps) to find some of these major turning points, and then “do the math” of the story to figure out the rest from there.
Our example again:
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- Inciting Incident: Clarice meets Lecter (an opportunity she can’t pass up)
- Break into Act 2: Lecter offers to help Clarice catch the serial killer (which Clarice accepts)
- Midpoint: The prison warden sabotages Clarice’s relationship with Lecter
- Break into Act 3: Even though Lecter has abandoned her, Clarice uses what she’s learned from him to get a break in the case and knows how to solve it now
- Climax: Clarice single-handedly defeats the serial killer (proving she is smart enough, strong enough, and good enough).
5. Go from 40,000-foot view to roadmap
The 3-act breakdown and major plot points give you a 40,000-foot overview of the story. It’s complete, but from some distance. Now we’ll get a little closer so we can see the story in more detail.
But don’t worry – you already have so much of this figured out (as you’ll see in the example below), that this step in the process is about simply expanding on what you already have.
You might think of this as laying out the “chapters” of the story, or teasing out the 3 acts into 8 smaller parts.
For our Silence of the Lambs example, a first pass on it might look like:
1. Clarice is an FBI trainee and the most important thing to her is proving that she is capable (smart enough, strong enough, and good enough). She pursues that by pushing herself at the academy, physically and academically. (Notice in sequence 1 it’s all about the character.)
Inciting Incident: Clarice meets Lecter (an opportunity she can’t pass up).
2. Clarice solves a riddle Lecter has “assigned” her, proving she can hold her own with him.
Break into Act 2: Lecter offers to help Clarice catch the serial killer (which Clarice accepts).
3. When another victim’s body is found, Clarice tags along with her higher-up, Crawford, to investigate.
4. Clarice follows a lead on her own and connects the current victim to one of Lecter’s former patients. News of a new victim comes in – they have 3 days to save her. Clarice makes Lecter a fake offer to try to get the killer’s name.
Midpoint: The prison warden sabotages Clarice’s relationship with Lecter.
5. Lecter’s transferred and when Clarice visits again, he calls her out on her betrayal. Even though she gives him what he wants (her deep, dark secret), he doesn’t give her the killer’s name.
6. Lecter breaks out in gruesome fashion. Clarice knows he won’t come for her, but now she’s on her own to solve the case.
Break into Act 3: Even though Lecter has abandoned her, Clarice uses what she’s learned from him to get a break in the case and knows how to solve it now.
7. Clarice figures out who the killer is and what he’s doing – “He’s making himself a woman suit!” But Crawford’s already leading SWAT there and tells Clarice she’s not needed for the big bust. So Clarice follows one last lead, and we see SWAT show up to an empty house.
8. Clarice realizes she’s at the killer’s house, all alone, and the final battle begins.
Climax: Clarice single-handedly defeats the serial killer and saves the senator’s daughter.
Once you’re happy with the “chapters” of the story, you’ve checked to make sure they advance the main conflict and work in the character’s development (more on that in a future post), that gives you a roadmap of your screenplay.
Now you have an idea of what happens in each section. From here you can focus on how it all plays out, i.e. the scenes that will make up each section.
You could do that by going straight to screenplay pages and working out the scenes as you go, which provides that freedom of discovery that writers sometimes feel is missing when they outline too much. Or, if plotting and thorough outlining is your preference, you could figure out the scenes in outline form before starting to write screenplay pages.
Get ahead of self-doubt and procrastination
You can learn so much by reading everything that’s available in books and online. But that can take dozens or hundreds of hours. If you want to start your next (or first) screenplay quickly, then a simple plan may serve you better.
You just need to know what you need to know, and how to put it together.
You can use this simple screenplay outline plan as a guide to develop your story idea thoroughly without getting overwhelmed by too much theory or detail. That way you can get a good burst of momentum and start writing before you lose that spark of enthusiasm.
And if you want some accountability, feedback, and guidance as you’re putting your roadmap together…
Join us in this month’s (fast, focused) workshop! We’ll be doing all of this (plus a little more) and you’ll have help at every step.