On one hand, you need structure: some kind of scaffolding to prevent the whole story from collapsing in on itself.
On the other hand, too much structure and you risk killing off the spontaneity, surprise, and strange energy that makes a screenplay feel alive.
Famed film editor Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now, The English Patient, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, among others) once described his preferred method of editing film not digitally, but using ten-minute reels arranged in shooting order.
This was his way of managing information: not too linear, not completely random. It gave him, in his own words, “just the right amount of chaos” to work the way he wanted.
This doesn’t mean chaos in the sense of formlessness or disorder, but the right amount of chaos—the kind that provides momentum, novelty, and room for discovery without getting lost.
With this in mind, I aim for a similar balance when writing the rough draft of a screenplay.
This is a basic outline of my process. Note that this basically assumes you have a reasonable logline in place. If not, you can write the story out in Step 1 and then refine this down to a 25- or 50-word logline. Keep referring to this during the process to make sure you’re not wildly off-track.
I begin with a loose prose outline: a paragraph or two that sketches the story in its most essential form: a protagonist, a central conflict, a journey, a few major reversals or set pieces, and a vague sense of the ending.
At this stage, nothing is set in stone. It’s more just asking myself: What’s the story I think I’m trying to tell?
Usually there will be a handful of different versions of this short summary, each testing a different angle or emotional core until one resonates or seems that it “has legs.”
Once there’s a version with legs, I will expand the summary into 8-12 major plot beats.
These might be structural milestones (particularly the Act II break, the Midpoint, and the All is Lost), but they may also be scenes that inspire me or emotional turning points that somehow feel natural to the story.
Once I have a version that resonates, I break that summary down into 8–12 major beats. These could be traditional structural milestones (Inciting Incident, Break into Two, Midpoint, All Is Lost), but sometimes they’re just key reversals, scenes I can’t wait to write, or emotional turning points that reshape the protagonist’s trajectory.
Putting them in this form allows me to move them around to give the story a shape that seems to flow naturally. I can see which reversal leads to which further complication, and I get a better sense of how it all lands on a particular conclusion.
At this point, it is making sure that the story flows smoothly. This is connecting scene to scene and noting where I don’t really have something that fits but need a buffer. Sometimes these are big sequences. Sometimes it’s simply a note that a character needs to be introduced earlier.
This makes it more realistic that Act II–notoriously messy–has enough information to pad itself out. It’s a good place to remind myself that Act IIa is for the fun stuff about the premise; Act IIb is the nightmare mirror of this–the worst potential outcomes of the premise come to life.
At this point, I’ll move from the document to a visual/tactile system by writing all the beats/scenes to this point on index cards. Ideally this is one card per scene with 2-3 sentences describing the scene and the main idea/reversal within it.
The cards may end up on the table or on the floor so that I can move them around to find an order that seems to make good organic sense. If I have a good idea of how it’s working already I might just number them as I go along (although some are bound to change later).
Some folks like to use digital tools for this part of the process: Scrivener (my go-to), Final Draft (expensive and overrated) and Trello all provide some way to do this. However, given that most people seem to be spending 14 hours a day on TikTok, it’s worth scraping one’s eyeballs off the screen for like half an hour just to exist in the real world for once.
Visualizing the scenes this way makes it obvious when there are gaps, repetitions, or pacing issues. You’ll notice that there are gaps. There always are. Put a placeholder card in there saying “buffer” or maybe a tiny sketch of what might fit.
If you’re feeling really special, you can color code them for A and B stories or what have you. That’s a bit too much detail for me–but you do you. Just make sure the rhythm feels good.
At this point, the filler work done by rearranging the cards can be translated back into a full outline on the computer. Each scene becomes more or less a full paragraph with each sentence illustrating beats or little snippets of dialogue. If necessary, emotional changes will also be noted.
Usually I’ll aim for around eight beats per scene. Remember, each scene has its own mini-arc just like the film. Crucially, it will have conflict (introduced in a mini-Inciting Incident), a Midpoint reversal (what it says on the tin), and a low point where the antagonist seems destined to win.
This is usually sufficient to act as a reasonable blueprint for a first “vomit” rough draft. It isn’t really a rigid structure, but gives me enough to work from to get me started–and, crucially, back on track when I lose track of the story.
At this point, it’s writing.
At this point, everything begins to change. I sit there and breathe life into the situation at hand. Sitting at the keyboard, I am imagining the scene in my mind and basically transcribing what I see as I go along.
(If you’re not a fast typist, this is one of those metaskills you’ll need to work on.)
That doesn’t mean that everything stays exactly as-is. Rather, scenes that seemed like filler might become vital, and scenes that once seemed imperative are euthanized. Characters run off and do their own thing–sometimes this tells you a lot about where the story needs to go. To paraphrase the master Tom Robbins, sometimes when you pull a rabbit out of the hat you can’t be surprised when it starts living its own life.
However, equally don’t let things get entirely off-track. That’s what the outline is there for. You want just enough structure to improvise safely. Even jazz people understand that they’re in a certain key and they need to get back to a certain melody line eventually.
If you get stuck (or when you get stuck, more like it), having a somewhat-detailed outline such as this will help you get back on track as quickly as reasonably possible. If nothing else, go back to the scene you’re working on, distil its essence, and think of an entirely different way you could get that same point across at this juncture in the story.
A lot of novelists love to squawk about “writing by the seat of their pants” or (dad-cringe) calling themselves “pantsers.” They “wouldn’t know what to do” without the freedom “to discover as they go.”
This isn’t inherently absolutely wrong, but I read it as something a bit overblown. I think certain real experts with many thousands of pages under their belts (Stephen King, for example) probably simply have story structure embedded so deeply in their minds that they don’t need outlines in the sense that the less-experienced (like you or I) might.
Nevertheless, this simply means that such people–if they are competent, at any rate–are able to create a solid story structure somewhat unconsciously. Tom Robbins, for his part, famously only ever worked, Zen-like, on perfecting one sentence at a time without regard to what was coming next. Nevertheless, he was able to create structurally sound masterpieces like Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which could stand on its own as a brilliant screenplay (despite the fact that the filmed version is a notorious shitshow).
I don’t begrudge these writers their method, but it’s not the way that I work. Nor, I suspect, is it the way that most screenwriters work given that writing for film is notoriously a bit more structure-intensive and limited in its narrative freedom as compared to novel writing.
The constraints of most screenplays–specific length, visual storytelling, focus on a single protagonist’s arc, and a tight three-act (maybe five-act) format–require a more dedicated structure than this. If you want to break the rules, that’s all well and good.* However, to avoid slipping into utter incoherence, it’s necessary to understand those rules well before you actually break them.
With that in mind, it’s healthy to think of a certain amount of structure as essential. Hence adding chaos to make things interesting rather than boring and formulaic. Remember, people want what they think they want–with a twist.
*That said, if tell me you don’t need structure because you’re trying to write “like David Lynch,” I will slap you with a dead fish.
Think about what you need in order to keep working when things get difficult.
If you need a clear list of the scenes and you have them all mapped out in your mind, great. Maybe you need some space to discover the unexpected. Maybe you need color codes on the notecards. Maybe you even love spreadsheets, just like Patrick Bateman.
The key is to determine what sort of plan works for you without making you stall out. In time, you’ll figure out the amount of chaos to introduce into your planning to let creativity flow.
This might even change from project to project. In the end, there’s no point in letting any specific process be dogma. Some scripts come out almost stream-of-consciousness. Others need to be forced out like water from a stone. Some need to be conjured like some sort of goetic demon.
Figure out the amount of structure that will see you through to the end. That’s the right amount.
This rough draft is going to suck.
It always does.
Then you have to worry about cutting and refining and rearranging, etc. You need to figure out what you want to say and what the film wants to be. However, you’ll definitely be glad that some of the unexpected stuff that came from those elements you left loose will become favorite parts of the story.
It’s weird how that works, but it always happens.
Whether you want to blame the muses or your own unconscious mind, having a decent amount of structure helps ideas take shape. The chaos, however, is what makes them feel alive.
Murch prefers not to use an editing system that is linear, where he would have to search through every conceivable frame of footage to find what he wants.
He also doesn’t want something that’s completely random access, because he is worried about being spoiled for choice. Everything everywhere all at once leads to total overwhelm, in other words.
Rather, he chose to use a system of keeping ten-minute reels of film in shooting order. In this way, he would have a good idea of what was available and where to find it.
In other words, he had a broad structure in place and then could fill in the gaps from the available material as necessary. In Murch’s words, this “adds just the right amount of chaos that I need in order to work the way that I want to.”
Exercises: Add the Right Amount of Chaos
Exercise 1: The 200-Word Story Challenge
Write the entire story of your screenplay in 200 words. Focus on the protagonist, central conflict, and major change. If it feels too long, cut it down. If it’s too short, clarify.
This is the spine of your draft. If it’s not clear, rewrite until it is.
Exercise 2: Index Card Chaos
Take your eight to twelve major beats and write them each on a card. Shuffle them. Rearrange. Add scenes in between. Remove one entirely and see what changes.
Forget about perfection. Take note of what happens as the structure shifts and flexes. Notice whether anything unexpected comes up.
Exercise 3: The Wild Card Scene
Write a scene that’s not in your outline. Make it as strange, spontaneous, or character-revealing as possible. Maybe a side character takes center stage. Maybe the protagonist has a dream or a public meltdown or does something in private that she would never admit to in public.
Consider what this scene reveals about the story that the outline was unable to.
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