Story outlines writing

In the short script, where dialogue is best kept to a minimum, a detailed story outline can occasionally serve the purposes of a first-draft screenplay. There are students who prefer to answer the questions and move directly to a rough draft. If this second method is your choice, you will probably find that writing a bare-bones outline of this draft can help you spot problems in motivation and structure before going on to the next draft. It is much easier to see such difficulties when the scenes are laid out in sequence on a single sheet of paper. 

Now we shall work from the same source material as before (the myth) but in a very different way, using Daedalus as our main character. We ll answer the seven questions briefly, as a step toward writing a bare-bones synopsis of the projected script, which is for a live-action, realistic film of 15 to 18 minutes, set during the time of the American Civil War. The synopsis is a useful tool, one required by many teachers as a first step in writing any screenplay—a kind of trial balloon. It is also useful for an initial class discussion of a student s work. Widely used in the industry, it is often required in applications for foundation grants, and many writers prefer it to a story outline. 

At this point, if you have faithfully done the exercises and assignments laid out in previous chapters, you will have learned, among other things, how to write and revise both character description and location description in format how to use offscreen sound to create mood and evoke offscreen events how to begin to develop a character how to gather and transform material for an adaptation and how to do a story outline for a short screenplay to be written using that material. 

Find yourself at least two good collections of myths or fairy tales, and pick a tale you d like to work on. After you ve located it, make at least two photocopies of several versions of the story—one to keep as a clean copy, the other to mark up as you work on your outline. In addition, photocopy any other material that interests you, such as illustrations or observations by the book s editor. At this point it is better to have too much material rather than too little, as you can t tell which bits and pieces of information may prove useful in writing your outline. 

Now take up pencil and paper, or go to your computer, and write down the steps of your outline, the spine of your story. Revise at least twice before handing it in or showing it to anyone, giving yourself enough time between each revision to develop some sort of detachment about the writing. As for criticism, listen and take note but use only what works for you. 

In early 1958 Fleming was approached once again by an American television network, this time CBS, to write thirty-two episodes for a James Bond television series. The author accepted the offer and worked on the first few outlines until this venture also fell by the wayside. Once again, Fleming retained some of the plot outlines and developed them into Bond short stories that were published in the 1960 anthology For Your Eyes Only. 

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