To plan or not to plan

The question comes up occasionally. Should I plan a screenplay before I start writing or is it okay to make it up as I go?

My answer: Of course it is okay to make it up as you go, but you are in for a lot more rewrites than if you first type a few thoughts about the plot and the characters into a text editor or write them down on paper.

Once you do that you realize how many details have to fit together to make a believable movie character and a plot without logical holes. And once you have done that you will realize how easy it is to put into script what is now in your head. There is so much more to focus on once you sculpt the script. Much, much more than just to come up with the next quirky idea or patch a hole that suddenly yawns at you, just because you didn't think it through that far.

So, in some of the following articles I'll reverse engineer Martina and Ron, whom we met in the opening scene in the article 'Backstory'.

I wrote that scene just off my head and all I wanted was an opening scene with a couple fighting, some conflict that would draw the reader in and make him want to turn to the next page. Did I manage? Go ahead and comment.

I think the scene is okay for the beginning. It's just one candidate for an opening scene in this project - the T.Y.P. Movie project - which deals with a group of fictional, highly diverse characters that all share a particular situation.

As the characters start moving around in movie spacetime they will interact with other characters and the environment. Then their actions, reactions, interactions have to spring from their personalities. If they don't the character will not be believable.

Also, if the writer isn't clear about the character, its behavior might be inconsistent. 100-120 pages of script are a lot of space to fill and inconsistencies are bound to surface when the foundations aren't clear.

So in the next few posts I will reverse engineer the two characters of the opening scene into their biographies. I will do that by making some deductions from their behavior and come up with a list of character traits and a rudimentary account of their past.

Then I'll bring the two characters together again. If their behavior in the opening scene is still consistent with their biographies then great. Otherwise there will be changes to the opening scene. That's because: the plan determines the action - initially.

Actually, the ultimate foundation is the premise, the theme of the movie. Strictly speaking, we should start with that. However, I didn't, because it's such a common, even natural thing to follow an inspiration when it occurs.

We have to do that otherwise they will either cease to come or drive us mad. And because, in spite of all engineering we might apply to it, screenwriting is less of a science than an art.

Like life itself, I might add.