December 31, 2023

DZ-106: How do you know if you have enough story?

1 hour 36 minutes

Listen you're not sure whether your idea has enough fuel for 90 pages.

In this episode, Chas, Stu and Mel attempt to answer a listener question: “In your own pre-writing process, how do you know you have enough for a feature? And do you have a specific pre-writing method you're going to?”

Thus we launch into a discussion on our writing processes and the varying usefulness of tools such as log lines, turning points, beat sheets, synopsis, treatments, and scene breakdowns. We also tackle the challenges encountered while developing an idea to first draft, such as balancing the pace of the story, developing distinct character voices, character choices, plot changes, pacing, and thematic clarity.

Is this backmatter? Or is it development tools? You decide! Hahaha.

Thanks so much to Chris Walker for his excellent editing on this episode!

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

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→ Read the transcript for this episode.

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"for me, that's actually in a lot of ways easier to write. You don't need to conclude anything. And you can hopefully if you sell it, then you get a room of people and then it's all of your problems, you know, as opposed to just your problem and you're banging your head up against the wall on page 80 going, Oh my God, what have have I done?" — Mel Killingsworth @ 00:05:41

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CHAPTERS

00:00:00 – Cold Open

00:00:16 – The Listener Question: Do You Have Enough for a Feature?

00:00:30 – › Why features demand a known ending before you start

00:02:38 – Our Development Processes

00:05:20 – › Deciding format before asking if you have enough story

00:09:20 – › Narrative fuel as a concept and when to test it

00:13:42 – › Why the midpoint is the first structural tent pole to find

00:17:35 – › Cards, brainstorming, and capturing scenes before plot

00:20:06 – › How TV bible development differs from feature outlining

00:25:15 – Developing from Concept

00:28:53 – › Mel's four-stage process from voice note to scriptment

00:33:06 – › Theme as the organising principle before you outline

00:38:55 – › Character and plot as mutually dependent in development

00:44:09 – › Loglines from other characters' points of view

00:45:26 – Sponsor: Arc Studio Pro

00:48:12 – Expanding Your Idea

00:51:24 – › Sequence structure as a test for narrative fuel

00:55:34 – › Turning points driven by character decisions, not events

01:00:01 – › When genre dictates how fixed your major beats should be

01:06:19 – › From bullet outline to scriptment: when to move to pages

01:09:36 – › Summarising dialogue scenes before writing them

01:15:29 – Long Short Documents

01:20:34 – › The therefore-and-but test applied to outlines

01:23:07 – › Prose treatments as a low-cost pitch and development tool

01:27:22 – Consistent Problems with First Drafts