Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Trying a new method


Now that I'm done with the zombies I need a follow-up script, so I'm going to try to use my time off to whip through a first draft of Fear of Clowns, a modern, real-world female superhero story in the vein of Unbreakable. That title will probably change to give a more accurate connotation, but for now I like it.

I'm approaching this script very differently from how I approached every one before it. Normally I carefully plan out all the major beats and write out a thick stack of index cards before I even start to write. This time I'm going to try jumping in without so much preparation. I still index carded, but I only wrote five of them. And what I have right now is not long enough for a feature. I know the beginning, I know the end, and I know a few beats in between but I'm missing large chunks of story I have to fill out as I go.

So we'll see what happens when I have a really developed backstory but not a clear sense of my events. So far it's been easier than I thought. I wrote 15 pages yesterday without batting an eye.

We'll see how long I can keep that up, and if my brain will keep ahead of my fingers on the keyboard.

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:48 AM

    I've never tried the index card approach when writing. At most I've made some bullets that give a rough, rough, rough outline. Do you use index cards strictly for scripts, or for other kinds of fiction writing?

    TylerDurden

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  2. You know I haven't written anything that wasn't a script since I started using index cards. I never really thought about using them for prose, but it's not a bad idea.

    I usually only use them in the beginning to have a written record of my basic plan, then I tack them to the bulletin board and never look at them again.

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  3. Anonymous2:42 PM

    I was wondering mostly because I wasn't sure how much the average writer knows about their story before they actually start typing it up. I guess fleshing out the story with index cards can do a lot to cement some of the story, though, so I'll have to give it a try. Danke sehn.

    TD

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  4. Anonymous3:03 PM

    You adjusted the green-ness of the bamboo a bit -- much better.

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  5. Actually no, that's the same green it's always been.

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  6. I don't use SCENE cards but I occasionally use SEQUENCE cards. Same thing, but instead of notes on a particular scene, i jot down notes on each seq, and then tape the cards to a small board.

    B/c they're seq cards, there's not that many of them... 8-12 cards.

    You might want to try this.

    ReplyDelete

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