And, increasingly, I'm finding a beat sheet ( or similar) is built into the fee structure.
So it really does pay(!) to know your way round one.
Story Question Page 2
Always has been in my case too. Cept for Novels - which is slightly different.
Having that skeleton (or beat sheet) planned out before you write doesn't mean being a slave to it, it can be there as sort of a safety net. I don't go too in-depth, but I'll have a scene skeleton written up with basic details of what's happeneing before I start to actually write.
Skellington*
Did this ever get answered?
I've read a mountain of screenwriting books, and have no idea what particular school of thought this is from (McKee? Field?), but the story question is the thing that drives the story forward, it's what the audience is eager to find out, and once it is resolved there is a natural end to the story:
Will Dorothy get home from Oz?
Who killed Laura Palmer?
Will Luke destroy the Death Star/find out who his father is/learn to be a Jedi over the course of a weekend?
Well that's just another way of saying what is the quest for I guess. And Godot never did turn up.
Thanks all!
Yeah, the "Immersive" writing competition over at Circalit is a real pain in the arse.
I think that I'll go with what some of you have suggested as it being the main thrust of the story--will Luke learn to use the Force and blow up the Deathstar or will he look quite foolish when he turns off the targetting computer and misses the shot.
The competition hasn't been exactly snowed under with entries, and those that have entered seem to have ignored the guidelines completely and turned in a screenplay rather than the "storyworld" the whole bloody thing is about.
Anyway, beat sheet. Fnar fnar...!
Quote: evan rubivellian @ November 1 2011, 4:25 PM BSTAnyway, beat sheet. Fnar fnar...!
Damn! Forgot...
Beat sheet? That's the Sunday Sport isn't it?
Phew, thank f**k for that.
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I too had a look at that immersive writing thing. The annoying thing is it actually looks quite interesting, but it just seems to give you a cryptic remit and then points you toward some courses that you have to pay for in order to understand what the hell is going on.
I've never heard of a beat sheet before. When writing something I make notes of characters, point of story, main scenes etc - would this be a beat sheet?
Pretty much, but possibly more pared down than that even. Perhaps the most well known one is by Blake Snyder which can be found here:
http://www.blakesnyder.com/tools/
But you could make your own up. It's more or less the three act structure outlined with page numbers to give you a rough idea of what should happen where, with a few extra things like reminders of where your subplots should begin and end, and other stuff from the Campbell/Vogler derived type stuff (Dark Night of the Soul, Entering the Cave, Shitting in the Bushes etc).
Some people hate them as stiffling and mechanical, but personally I have to outline things otherwise I cry when I look at a blank page, so think they're quite useful. I sometimes knock a similar thing up for a sketch. Might sound silly, but as anyone whose looked at the few things I've posted in Critique will know, I tend to ramble and get lost - if I fill out a single page with "INTRO...JOKE...JOKE...MIDDLE...JOKE...JOKE...END" then I can use them as waypoints while typing, I've found I produce a much tighter piece.
http://www.k-state.edu/english/baker/english320/cc-dramatic_question.htm
Quote from the above link:
A basic problem of any storyteller or playwright is holding the audience's attention. Suspense is one of the most familiar ways stories and plays can be designed to do this. Suspense engages the audience's interest in finding out whether things will turn out in some particular way or that. If we look closely at the art of generating suspense, we notice that the author proceeds by raising (i.e., prompting the audience to raise) a specific question about how things will return out. Such a specific called-for curiosity is what is termed a dramatic question. Usually this question will sooner or later be resolved by our discovering how in fact things do end up turning out. And at this point it is possible for a new dramatic question to arise, which in turn engages our interest in the sequel.
Hope it helps, good luck.
Quote: jacparov @ November 1 2011, 8:04 PM GMThttp://www.k-state.edu/english/baker/english320/cc-dramatic_question.htm
Quote from the above link:
A basic problem of any storyteller or playwright is holding the audience's attention. Suspense is ... blah blah blah .
Hope it helps, good luck.
Thanks, jacparov. That does help. So, smoke me a kipper, guys, I'll be back for breakfast.