There has to be a blueprint or it's like building a house without plans, you could end up with one bedroom and ten bathrooms.
You need an outline of the whole story [treatment] and then problems to throw at the characters. Then there's a begiining a middle and an end. The end where it all comes together and the problems are resolved, that's all in the last two/three pages.
To me the storyline is the hardest of all to do.
Before writing anything for myself properly, I attended a weekly writing course. The teacher told us that we were not allowed to 1) plan at all. or 2) write about anything we know.
Need I say more?
I'm a fan of planning. It gets me excited. Saying that though, even I use to think writing whole back stories to character was a waste of time, but since actually... ya know, writing, I've realised this is just a useful way to help writers block, and ultimately produces stronger characters. Just knowing who you are writing about completely, knowing what they would do in each situation, and having that come naturally too you, instantly produces more believable characters. I get a bit obsessive about planning though. I've found it's a very useful way to procrastinate.
You should get involved with the marathons like NaNoWriMo or Scriptfrenzy.
They get you writing in quantity rather buggering about with the intricacies too early on. You can then go back and work and rework it once you've got the whole story down.
The quantity bit sounds good, but the no planning bit just wouldn't work for me. If it's just sketches I'm writing, I usually jot them down pretty quickly. But if it's the full sitcom adventure, I need to plan. I'll rewrite later as well of course, but it's a lot easier if I don't have to deal with silly yet major problems which would otherwise have been sorted out before.
... Then again, maybe letting go would be a good learning experience. Hmm. Blah, nope, I couldn't do it. I like planning too much.
Yeah I'm like Rebecca, I have to plan before I write a script and plan lots. I like to know where my storyline is going and want to make sure each character has enough depth to them, it all just makes the script easier to write when it comes to it, I find anyway. 
Hello,
I've tried both but I prefer blank screen....and write! A story is a journey and in this way it is a story for me to.
P.S. Someone earlier mentioned blocking in the scenes, I heard Andrew Collins talk about this on the Not Going Out thread to, what does it mean?
Thanks
I found this, not sure if this makes sense in the context of that thread:
Blocking the Scene the process of arranging the active elements of a shot, including their choreographed movements, in relation to the camera.
A writer I know also talks about "the blank screen", he says that if he knew where the story was going before he'd written it, he'd lose the motivation to actual get there. Part of the joy for him is finding out what happens to the characters as he writes.
PAH! Where's the fun in that? Where's the graphs and pie charts, eh eh? You crazy kids are missing out.
We started out with a strong idea and just wrote a massive meandering plot. The first incarnation was 82 pages long, but we just did it. Then we looked at it and stripped it into two stories, which were then planned as episodes.
It worked really well, however it's taken almost a year.
I am of the opinion that problems for the characters are set up in the first couple of scenes. If one doesn't have a storyline...outlined, how are you going to do that?
Quote: bushbaby @ May 23 2008, 9:21 AM BSTI am of the opinion that problems for the characters are set up in the first couple of scenes. If one doesn't have a storyline...outlined, how are you going to do that?
Agree about setting up a problem in the first few scenes, you need to do that to hook in the reader/viewer and make them think, "how are these characters going to deal with this?"
It is good to be flexible and mix up your methods of writing.
This is a really interesting thread, I've always been told to plan plan PLAN GOD DAMN YOU, but it really rubs me up the wrong way.
I'm extremely far from being a professional writer so ignore my input, but I like to know where I want to start, and where I want to finish, and fill in the middle journey, then revise it and join the dots.
Call it "plotting" then, it sounds more edgy than planning.
Quote: Norton&Wright @ May 23 2008, 12:05 PM BSTCall it "plotting" then, it sounds more edgy than planning.
