Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Organization, Baby!

Finished the outline for my screenplay today. I really like how it all came together and am looking forward to cranking on it starting tomorrow.

I use an outlining program called Dramatica Pro. Outlining programs are somewhat controversial in the biz with a few folks crying foul and saying that it's cheating as the program "writes the story" for you. Not true (and I suspect this claim is made almost exclusively by those who have never used an outlining program).

Here's how it works. You come up with the idea. The outlining program asks you questions to help you flesh it out. Every bit of creative data comes out of your mind and all the program does is help you keep track of it. When finished, I ended up with a groovy six page, thirty-two scene outline that I promptly imported into my script writing program (Movie Magic Screenwriter 2000). Sweet.

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