Quint

The main roadblock that I've been trying to hurdle in writing -- and in life -- is that I get stuck because I tend to view things as a big overwhelming whole rather than a sum of parts.

I want to write screenplays.

I have ideas (e.g., premises, log lines, experiences that might translate into cute scenes in my film), but once I put them down on paper I don't know what to do with them.

I was in a writing group and I had this idea for a futuristic thriller and I wrote a five-page, single-spaced treatment.

To my surprise, I couldn't go anywhere with said treatment. Once I got all the ideas down on paper, I realized that I didn't have a beginning, middle and end. Rather, I had five pages of loosely connected ideas that I needed to compose into a cohesive story. I didn't know how to unify my thoughts. The whole notion of putting them together into story-form seemed impossible. I haven't touched the treatment since.

I don't necessarily need an answer to my particular dilemma, but I'm wondering if any writers here have faced or still face the same thing?

lin

It's part of learning how to write. And nobody can really teach you how anymore than they can teach you how to balance yourself when riding a bicycle. You learn it by doing it.

Two thing I would suggest is getting a grasp of the shape of a story. You can try reading books about that, but you can also sit down and watch a dozen good DVD's and see how the stories are shaped.

The other suggestion would be to use some sort of pigeonhole system. I used to use a pegboard marked into squares where I could pin up note cards with scenes on them and move them around.

These days I use a Word document with a table of columns and rows where I move around little one/two word tags...click on the tag and it opens the file with that scene in it.

Have you tried just sitting down and writing one of your scenes...not worrying about length of "fit-in" or anything except just getting a scene written down?

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terrib

I don't think it's a part of learning how to write at all. Either you have it or you don't. Yes, I guess you could teach someone how to begin a story and end one but this should come naturally don't you think? If not, I'd say look for a co-author or find another hobby.

Quint

I've thought about doing that (the 'note cards pinned-on-the-wall thing') for years. Maybe it's time to give it a try.

Here's something about my approach, something that just now strikes me as being a hindrance: I feel if I could just type out a beginning, a middle and an end to a story, I'd solve the riddle of trying to complete a screenplay. It'd be so easy to flesh out the acts if I had that beginning, middle and end.

The problem is, I find it so difficult to write a simple beginning, middle and end.

Quint

You might be right.

lin

Learning how to organize your work isn't part of learning to write?!????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Obviously you have little writing experience and don't know anybody who has.

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lin

Worth trying. I find it goes a lot smoother once I have the ending figured out, maybe even written down.

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lin

This is VERY fucked-up, meanspirited, ignorant advice. Ignore it.

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terrib

Calm down lin before you have a heart attack. I wasn't trying to mean-spirited in ANY way. I was just saying what I thought.....there's nothing wrong with finding a co-author to help him with the beginning and the end. He says he has the ideas but can't do anything with them. Well, I gave him an idea...that's all.....jezzz!!!!!!!!!

WriterDude

She knows you, doesn't she?

I often have the same problem as you, Quint. I'd say both professor Lin and professor Terri are on to something, even if they don't see it. They are both right and both wrong. I'm kinda impressed.

There is a big difference in learning how to write and learning how to write. Anyone can teach you the alphabeth. You can learn chinese if you want to. And why not greek and russian while you're at it? This means you can write in several languages, even at once.

The problem is learning how to write. Both Lin and Terri have a good point. Writing a book is far more than just typing down word by word. You certainly need to organize everything, find a good beginning to capture the reader, a better middle to keep him or her reading and an even better ending to make him or her want to read your next book.

And this is the problem. You can learn to organize the story, putting every piece of the puzzle together and finally end up with a story that makes sense. But is it an interesting story? Everyone can learn to write a story like this, but not everyone can write an interesting story other people will enjoy. This is why there are hundreds of thousands of books being sent to publishers every year around the world, but only a very few lucky ones are published, and even less are best-sellers. Writing is just like playing the guitar, singing, being an actor and things like that. Anyone can learn to do it, but only people with a talent for it will be any good at it.

And again, that's the problem. You can learn to write and you can learn how to organize your story, but you can't learn a talent. You either have a talent, or you don't.

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edropus

My only advice would be to just write. I tend to worry too much over how where I'm at in a story connects to the part I want to write. Trying to fill it in while your mind's full of the scene you're trying to connect to is a waste of time. Write that scene or that event or whatever while it's in your head. Once you have these tidbits you can worry about how to connect them, and that's a creative, idea-creating process in and of itself.

The Backward OX

I'm familiar with spreadsheets. Is this different? That clicking on the tag business sounds brilliant. Don't suppose you can link it, can you?

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How Beautiful it is to Do Nothing, and then Rest Afterwards . . . . . Spanish proverb

lin

Not in the biblical sense.

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lin

There's some place in your head where that doesn't suck, Terrib?

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WriterDude

Lin, no offense, but you're an idiot. I'm not even gonna ask why you keep double- and triple-posting all the time, but look at your own posts. First, you have a normal post with some advice. Then when someone disagree with you, you have five posts more without anything useful to say at all. All you do is complain, complain and complain some more in a desperate hope someone will agree with you. You might not realize it yourself, but all you end up doing is make yourself look like an idiot.

Let it go, dude..

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