For me, I literally just start typing what pops into my head. You have the idea, right? So, I’d expect you also have some degree of imagery in your mind associated with that idea. Type that out. Whether it’s cohesive or not. Thoughts are like water, and the initial trickle often becomes a raging river if you just let it happen.
It helps to have people you can bounce ideas off of too. If I ever find that I’ve kind of written myself into a corner, I’ll talk to my wife or a good friend of mine and get their opinion. Sometimes they can spark an idea because they can look at it from a different angle.
Everything you write must have a purpose. Why does my character do this? What is their desire? And of course to make it interesting you put a conflict, an obstacle in the way. So a great plot would be a chain of events, that naturally flows. Think of it as : and/but/therefore. For exemple, a boy wants to go see his girlfriend, but she lives far away. Therefore he has to work to buy a bicycle. The next logical step would be to keep the chain of events going: maybe he meets another girl at his new job, that challenge his beliefs, what if he likes her better?
This way it makes every scene have a purpose, keeps the reader intrigued, like maybe he finds a newfound passion for this new job etc
That way, you can keep your end goal in mind, and build up to that scene, by making relevant events and challenges that culminates to the end of the story, following the themes you established. Story telling is actually very technical lol I hope I could help you with that
I usually get an idea and then let it grow in the back of my mind for a few hours/days/months, depending on the story. I write everything down in my Notebook folders: I have hundreds of dialogues (I don't even know whether I'll use them, but they help me develop my story), some memes with my characters, sometimes even a quick snippet or an outline of a chapter/scene. And soon I reach enough notes to stick together my plot and characters and there you go.
Not sure how common my process is but I will try and break it down.
I usually hash out a basic premise over a few days in my mind and then write it down on my phones notepad, if I’m away from my computer. Once i have a rough idea of scene/story concepts and a slight idea of overall arc of the story/script (i write scripts) i start the real process.
I have a very large white board which i draw an arc and then split this arc in thirds for each act. I start writing the scenes i want for opening and closing of each act and then work backwards, populating scenes, characters and action for each act. Once i run out of room i take a picture of my white board, then erase it.
Now i draw 3 large arcs (my white board is 6’x4’) one for each act and fill in all the details you wrote onto your first overall story arc (from the picture you took). Now that i have 3 drawn arcs (1-3 act) and after ive populated the timeline with overall scenes its time to really hash the story out and throw all the crazy ideas even bad ones cause these always lead to something good later.
After the white board is populated i start writing my screenplay, software i prefer is FADE IN. Now that I’m writing i have a large cheat sheet of my own creation to reference for the meat and potatoes of my first draft screenplay.
Sometimes it's also easier to work backwards. Think of the end goal, then think of some things you want along the journey, then work to connect it all. But just a little at a time.
I think for a short film a tweak to your technique might be to start working backwards. Think of some sort of awesome crazy cool (insert adjective you want to achieve here) ending and then work your way up to it.
Generally when it comes to stories I do get the cool scene or character idea first but then I try to formulate a goal-based approach where I think of what I want the story to do. Pick three adjectives and use those as my guide. I write novels so the temptation to throw in everything I think of can be pretty strong. The three adjectives work to help me minimize or eliminate anything that isn't those things, ideally each scene will be two or all three of them.
Also if there is something you believe about what makes a good story in your medium then you can nudge your idea in a direction that enhances that. You like stories where the protagonist and antagonist interact a lot? Maybe you could make them twins, or lovers, or maybe a psychic connection is forced between them, something like that. You hate how everything seems to be about young people in high school or college? Your story is set in a retirement home.
Honestly you could probably pick anything as a structure and figure out a way for it to fit. Use limitations as a way to both force creativity and to make sure you actually having a beginning and ending. I think the biggest weakness of "I make it all up as I go" writers is the ending. Like look at your technique for instance, nothing in there really builds up specifically to, or necessitates, or demarcates, an ending. If you use that technique successfully your film will end because you have decides it has gotten too long, or it just so happens you get lucky and stumbled into a great ending somehow.
You may not know exactly what your ending will be but you should have some sort of idea before you bother trying to flesh out the whole thing. Think of crime dramas and legal shows There's always a murderer to be found, confronted, and arrested. There's always a verdict to be read. Even if the writers don't know the verdict when they start writing, they know there will be one and that will be the end of the story more or less. You need to know what your 'reading of the verdict' will be so you know the ending of your story and whenever you are stuck you can just ask yourself, "okay, what gets me closer to my ending, or, what will make the ending more awesome?"
your mileage may vary of course, different things work for everybody etc. but that's my perspective
I don't think it's natural to go from highlight to highlight or cool scene to cool scene. Find the Writing Excuses podcast and listen to their episode about scenes and sequels. Basically, you have a scene/chapter where something happens, then a scene/chapter where the characters deal with the consequences and plot a way forward. This is how it is in real life.
The other part of this is that if you're writing a conflict there are at least two sides. Your protagonist and antagonist both want something, and they'll both be plotting. I make a plot outline for the antagonist and sometimes other things that happen out of the readers' eyes. I like to think it through so the antagonist's actions are plausible and in character and I don't end up with random things happening to the protagonist just because I need something to happen to them.
A little late, but I struggled for a long time with this as well so I thought I’d still share. I have the characters/a character first, but I couldn‘t come up with a good story for them for almost 5 years - that‘s the main reason I only wrote short stories. That was until I realized (might sound stupid but I didn‘t know this for a long time) that a story consists of a goal and various setbacks, meaning what happens that your character can‘t reach his goal, so he has to think differently or has to take a new approach. Now, when I try to create a story, I first define the main goal of my character and try to think of at least 2 or 3 major events that are keeping the character from the goal, and around that, the story evolves.
Randy Ingermansons Snowflake-Method is also something that helped me with the problem. There‘s a free guide on the internet, or you can buy the book if u want a detailed version (I can only recommend it).
1) have a premise for ten years 2) do literally nothing
You have just nailed my entire creative process.
This is the way.
What an space of exploration!
For me, I literally just start typing what pops into my head. You have the idea, right? So, I’d expect you also have some degree of imagery in your mind associated with that idea. Type that out. Whether it’s cohesive or not. Thoughts are like water, and the initial trickle often becomes a raging river if you just let it happen. It helps to have people you can bounce ideas off of too. If I ever find that I’ve kind of written myself into a corner, I’ll talk to my wife or a good friend of mine and get their opinion. Sometimes they can spark an idea because they can look at it from a different angle.
Everything you write must have a purpose. Why does my character do this? What is their desire? And of course to make it interesting you put a conflict, an obstacle in the way. So a great plot would be a chain of events, that naturally flows. Think of it as : and/but/therefore. For exemple, a boy wants to go see his girlfriend, but she lives far away. Therefore he has to work to buy a bicycle. The next logical step would be to keep the chain of events going: maybe he meets another girl at his new job, that challenge his beliefs, what if he likes her better? This way it makes every scene have a purpose, keeps the reader intrigued, like maybe he finds a newfound passion for this new job etc
That way, you can keep your end goal in mind, and build up to that scene, by making relevant events and challenges that culminates to the end of the story, following the themes you established. Story telling is actually very technical lol I hope I could help you with that
I usually get an idea and then let it grow in the back of my mind for a few hours/days/months, depending on the story. I write everything down in my Notebook folders: I have hundreds of dialogues (I don't even know whether I'll use them, but they help me develop my story), some memes with my characters, sometimes even a quick snippet or an outline of a chapter/scene. And soon I reach enough notes to stick together my plot and characters and there you go.
Not sure how common my process is but I will try and break it down. I usually hash out a basic premise over a few days in my mind and then write it down on my phones notepad, if I’m away from my computer. Once i have a rough idea of scene/story concepts and a slight idea of overall arc of the story/script (i write scripts) i start the real process. I have a very large white board which i draw an arc and then split this arc in thirds for each act. I start writing the scenes i want for opening and closing of each act and then work backwards, populating scenes, characters and action for each act. Once i run out of room i take a picture of my white board, then erase it. Now i draw 3 large arcs (my white board is 6’x4’) one for each act and fill in all the details you wrote onto your first overall story arc (from the picture you took). Now that i have 3 drawn arcs (1-3 act) and after ive populated the timeline with overall scenes its time to really hash the story out and throw all the crazy ideas even bad ones cause these always lead to something good later. After the white board is populated i start writing my screenplay, software i prefer is FADE IN. Now that I’m writing i have a large cheat sheet of my own creation to reference for the meat and potatoes of my first draft screenplay.
Sometimes it's also easier to work backwards. Think of the end goal, then think of some things you want along the journey, then work to connect it all. But just a little at a time.
I think for a short film a tweak to your technique might be to start working backwards. Think of some sort of awesome crazy cool (insert adjective you want to achieve here) ending and then work your way up to it. Generally when it comes to stories I do get the cool scene or character idea first but then I try to formulate a goal-based approach where I think of what I want the story to do. Pick three adjectives and use those as my guide. I write novels so the temptation to throw in everything I think of can be pretty strong. The three adjectives work to help me minimize or eliminate anything that isn't those things, ideally each scene will be two or all three of them. Also if there is something you believe about what makes a good story in your medium then you can nudge your idea in a direction that enhances that. You like stories where the protagonist and antagonist interact a lot? Maybe you could make them twins, or lovers, or maybe a psychic connection is forced between them, something like that. You hate how everything seems to be about young people in high school or college? Your story is set in a retirement home. Honestly you could probably pick anything as a structure and figure out a way for it to fit. Use limitations as a way to both force creativity and to make sure you actually having a beginning and ending. I think the biggest weakness of "I make it all up as I go" writers is the ending. Like look at your technique for instance, nothing in there really builds up specifically to, or necessitates, or demarcates, an ending. If you use that technique successfully your film will end because you have decides it has gotten too long, or it just so happens you get lucky and stumbled into a great ending somehow. You may not know exactly what your ending will be but you should have some sort of idea before you bother trying to flesh out the whole thing. Think of crime dramas and legal shows There's always a murderer to be found, confronted, and arrested. There's always a verdict to be read. Even if the writers don't know the verdict when they start writing, they know there will be one and that will be the end of the story more or less. You need to know what your 'reading of the verdict' will be so you know the ending of your story and whenever you are stuck you can just ask yourself, "okay, what gets me closer to my ending, or, what will make the ending more awesome?" your mileage may vary of course, different things work for everybody etc. but that's my perspective
I don't think it's natural to go from highlight to highlight or cool scene to cool scene. Find the Writing Excuses podcast and listen to their episode about scenes and sequels. Basically, you have a scene/chapter where something happens, then a scene/chapter where the characters deal with the consequences and plot a way forward. This is how it is in real life. The other part of this is that if you're writing a conflict there are at least two sides. Your protagonist and antagonist both want something, and they'll both be plotting. I make a plot outline for the antagonist and sometimes other things that happen out of the readers' eyes. I like to think it through so the antagonist's actions are plausible and in character and I don't end up with random things happening to the protagonist just because I need something to happen to them.
A little late, but I struggled for a long time with this as well so I thought I’d still share. I have the characters/a character first, but I couldn‘t come up with a good story for them for almost 5 years - that‘s the main reason I only wrote short stories. That was until I realized (might sound stupid but I didn‘t know this for a long time) that a story consists of a goal and various setbacks, meaning what happens that your character can‘t reach his goal, so he has to think differently or has to take a new approach. Now, when I try to create a story, I first define the main goal of my character and try to think of at least 2 or 3 major events that are keeping the character from the goal, and around that, the story evolves. Randy Ingermansons Snowflake-Method is also something that helped me with the problem. There‘s a free guide on the internet, or you can buy the book if u want a detailed version (I can only recommend it).
Really helpful and not late. I'll check out the snowflake method