Don’t worry. Scriptshadow has the best outlining method in the business. Even the Outline Haterz are going to love it.
We are in WEEK 4 of our Writing 2 Scripts in 2024 Challenge. It is probably the most controversial week because this week we’re outlining. And, as we all know, there is a contingent of screenwriters who believe that outlining is Satan reincarnated. I’m not here to argue with those people. All I’m here to say is that the more prepared you are, the better your script tends to end up.
Here are the links to the first three Writing A Script posts if you need to catch up:
Week 1 – Concept
Week 2 – Solidifying Your Concept
Week 3 – Building Your Characters
As far as how much time I need from you this week, at the bare minimum, you need to give me an hour a day. But if you want your outline to have real impact, two hours is preferable. And for those of you youngsters who don’t have jobs yet and have all day to write, put in as much time as you’ve got because when it comes to writing a screenplay, your progress will be proportional to your preparation.
The idea here is we want to create CHECKPOINTS. These are key moments in the script where the scenes are of elevated importance. If you can construct a series of script checkpoints, you’ll always have something to write towards.
The more checkpoints you create, the shorter the distance until the next checkpoint, which makes writing easier. For example, if you have a checkpoint on page 10 and then your next checkpoint isn’t until page 50, that’s where you’re going to run into trouble. The amount of space feels too vast, you don’t know how to fill it up, which leads to the dreaded “writer’s block.”
Remember, writer’s block is rarely about your inability to come up with something to write. It’s more about a lack of planning. The more you plan, the more pieces of your screenplay will be in place, and the easier it will be to connect those dots together.
So here’s the first thing I want you to do. I want you to think of three big set-piece scenes. These are the scenes that are going to sell your screenplay. When you came up with your concept, these are often the first scenes you thought of. For example, if we were writing Barbie, a set piece scene would be the big “I’m Just Ken” musical number. In Heat, it’s that iconic bank robbery scene. In Spider-Man: No Way Home, it’s Dr. Octopus attacking Peter Parker on the highway. In Bridesmaids, it’s the dress try-on scene.
And don’t limit yourself to 3 if you want more. What was so cool about Fincher’s The Killer was every single scene was a set-piece. So he had like eight of them in there. Whatever’s right for your movie, come up with that number of set pieces. And if you really want to do this justice, come up with 20 set-piece ideas and whittle it down to the top 3.
Pro Tip: One of the easiest ways to separate yourself from the competition is to NOT SETTLE. If you settle for the first three ideas that come to you, your script is not going to be as good as if you came up with 20 ideas and picked the best three.
From there, open your outline document and place the scenes at the rough page number where you think they’ll work. Just post “Page 45 – I’m Just Ken musical number.” It doesn’t have to be perfect. Again, you just want to create these checkpoints that you’ll be able to move towards. Even if you only create these three checkpoints, you’ll be in better shape than if you went into your script naked.
The next thing I want you to figure out is your first scene. Your first scene is SO IMPORTANT. I could write 5000 words on the importance of the first scene and it wouldn’t be enough to convey just how important that scene is. So just trust me on that.
If I were you, I would not go with a “setup scene” as your opening scene. This is a scene where you’re setting up a character or setting up your plot. You know the opening scene of Die Hard? Where we meet John McClane on a plane? That’s a setup scene. You CAN do that if you really want. But it’s better to start with a dramatic scene that pulls the reader in.
My favorite example of this is Source Code – the spec script not the movie – A dude lands inside someone’s body on a train and is told he has eight minutes to find a bomb or the train blows up. But a more recent, less intense, example is Tuesday’s script I reviewed – The Getaway. A married couple attempts to have sex in an airplane bathroom and get busted for it. Just make something happen in that opening scene. Don’t bore us.
Okay, now we’re going to get into the technical stuff. Most writers don’t like to do these story beats because it’s, well, technical. Screenwriting is supposed to be free-flowing, fun, artistic. It’s art! Art should never be dictated by technicalities! Yeah, keep telling yourself that.
Screenwriting is inherently mathematical. It’s 110 pages. Those pages are divided into four sections – Act 1, Act 2.1, Act 2.2, Act 3. Essentially, each of those sections are going to be 27 pages long, although that will change depending on the length of your script. But the key to remember is that the end of each section will ALSO work as a checkpoint, since a major moment will happen at the end of each section.
Don’t worry. You’re not going to stick to this like a bible. The nature of writing is that you’re constantly generating new details in your story and those details will generate new story ideas. So, much of this is going to change. But we have to start somewhere.
Which leads us to the inciting incident. This is the thing that happens that INTERRUPTS your hero’s world, usually between pages 10-15. You know that moment in body-switch movies where they first switch bodies? That’s an inciting incident – it’s the disruption of your hero’s everyday existence that now forces them to act. In The Killer, it’s when our main character killer tries to assassinate his target but misses.
After this happens, your hero will be in denial. That’s because just like you and me, movie characters don’t like it when they’re forced to change. So they resist, resist, and resist. But then, at the end of Act 1, which will be your next checkpoint, they accept that they need to solve this problem and head off on their journey (usually around page 25).
The next checkpoint I want you to figure out is your midpoint (around pages 50-60). Now, midpoints are one of the trickier parts of a screenplay because every screenplay is so different that by the time you get to the midpoint, there is no “one-size-fits-all” scene you can write, like the inciting incident. Oppenheimer’s midpoint doesn’t have anything in common with Star Wars’s midpoint. The two movies are trying to do something completely different with their stories.
But something you can keep in mind is that you don’t want the second half of your movie to feel exactly like the first half of your movie. So, for example, if you’re writing a contained thriller where our heroine is being held captive in a basement that she’s trying to escape from – if you just have her try to escape for 90 straight minutes, we’re going to get bored. You need something to happen at the midpoint that changes the story up considerably.
Maybe the most obvious example of this is the movie, Room. The first half of that movie is a woman and her kid being held captive in a room. The midpoint is their big escape. And they succeed. The second half of the movie covers the aftermath as our heroine tries to deal with the trauma of what happened. You can’t do this with most movies. But it’s a great example of how the midpoint should affect the second half of your story.
A more subdued version would be The Equalizer 3. The first half is Robert McCall recuperating in this small Italian town, watching as a local gang makes the locals’ lives a living hell. He doesn’t do anything because, if he does, it will bring attention to himself. But at the midpoint, the gang goes too far, and Robert has had enough. So he starts taking them out one by one.
That’s a good example of a midpoint by the way. The midpoint should always make the second half BETTER, if possible. That’s why Room was not the perfect movie. Its first half was more entertaining than its second half. You always want it to be the opposite.
Once you have your midpoint, your next checkpoint will be the end of your second act (between pages 75 and 90). This is when your hero will “die,” – figuratively of course, but sometimes literally (The Princess Bride). They’ll be at their lowest point. They’ll have tried to solve the problem but failed. There are no other options. The audience should truly feel, in this moment, like there is NO WAY our hero can win. That’s when you know you’ve written a great finale to your second act. In Barbie, this is when Barbie comes back to Barbie Land only to realize that the Kens have taken over.
And the final major checkpoint is your climax. This should be easy because, if you set up a clear goal for your hero at the beginning of your story (John McClane – take down the terrorists and save my wife), then this is the scene where they’ll attempt to do that.
Also, the reason we did that character work last week is so that you can match up your character’s transformation with your climax. For example, if your character’s flaw is that they are selfish, your climax should test that selfishness. It should give them an opportunity to become selfless. If you can pull this transformation moment off, it’s the kind of thing that makes your script feel really intelligent and satisfying.
Okay, those are your major checkpoints. If you get all of those down, you should be in a really good place by the time you write “FADE IN.” However, if you want to go deeper, I prefer that you never go more than 12-15 pages without a checkpoint in your outline (12 if your script is 100 pages, 15 if it’s 120 pages). Even if you just have a cool idea for a scene – that’s all you need for a checkpoint. What we want to do here is close the gap between those big empty holes of space in your script so that you’re never writing in a void. That big void of empty space between checkpoints is when you start freaking out and get writer’s block.
Easy, right?
As you can see, I’m not big on these super-detailed outlines that include things like, “The Circular Resistance Modifier To The Protagonist’s Conflict Moment.” Screenplays are too varied for those specific moments to work in every script. My outlining method keeps things loose enough that you don’t feel controlled by your outline, but it’s tight enough that you have confidence when you start writing your script.
If you have any outlining questions, I’ll be dipping in and out of the comments all weekend. If I have time, I’ll answer what I can. Now start outlining! Cause next week, WE BEGIN WRITING!
