I put the major story beats in blue - the opening sequence, the first act break, the midpoint, the second act break, and the climax. Here’s what something like that would look like for Haunted Bakery: In a writers room when you break a story, you “put it on the board.” It’s literal in its meaning - the room will have probably one or several whiteboards and together the writers will split the story into acts and write down the story scene by scene to serve as a skeleton for a fuller outline. Like I said in previous parts, you want to make sure there are clear stakes, that your protagonist is driving the action, that there is something in between him or her and what they want to achieve, and that there is some satisfying conclusion to the story. Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park have a system for storytelling and structure based on the words “therefore” and “but” that is worth checking out in that link. Write your outline and then examine it thoroughly. Unless you’ve got an unbelievable deadline, take your time.

When you’re in too deep with a story and you don’t give yourself a break, you can become blind to otherwise glaring problems and plot holes. When you’re in too deep with a story and you don’t give yourself a break, you can become blind to otherwise glaring problems and plot holes.įor me, I find that if I step back from it for a couple days, it’s a big help to come back and look at it with fresh eyes. Once you have it all down, you can examine the story and see if it all hangs together and makes sense. You start with your first and second act breaks, your midpoint, and your third act’s climax so you know what you’re working towards and then fill in the rest. What also is helpful for me is mapping out the major story beats ahead of time. Personally, the way I do it is by creating a Word document, splitting up the story into three acts with headings and writing a short paragraph describing each scene. So once you feel like you know enough about your world, your characters, and the show you want to create, you can begin the outlining process. Characters might come naturally to you, but the more work you put in ahead of time, the more you will get out of it in the end. Small touches that inform the characters will give them depth and help them connect to the audience. The more information you arm yourself with, the fuller and more real your world seems - even if your world isn’t real at all. Know things about every facet of your story - stuff that won’t even make it to the page. If you want to write something big and dumb and raucous, know that. Know what themes, if any, that you want to convey. Know as much as you can about your protagonist and everyone populating your world before you begin. Before You OutlineĮven before you start outlining your story, consider what I wrote in the first part of this series. With a well-considered and detailed outline, you have the opportunity to iron out most of your story problems ahead of time so there’s less of a chance of having to go back to do a page one rewrite because you’ve screwed yourself. You may find out halfway through of a critical flaw in your story that makes the whole thing not work that you probably would have caught if you did an outline. If you don’t know how your story is going to end, you run into the trouble of maybe not starting off with the right beginning to properly fulfill the ending you come out with. Outlining is especially important so when you’re writing your script, you know where you’re going. But if you just want the bare skeleton of the structure down on paper, that works, too.

You can plot out every beat of your script, every line of dialogue, every minute detail. If you want to be very detailed, be very detailed. So how detailed you are and how you organize the information should be entirely dependent on what will make your script stronger, as well as easier to write. Since this is your pilot, your outline is only for you. I’d recommend outlining your script with as much detail as you feel is necessary. And two, since I’ve worked out all of the script’s problems in the outlining stage, most of the difficult work is done and I can focus on the fun stuff. One, because I’m actually doing the work that I set out to do when I started all this. Writing the script is the most enjoyable part of the process for me. South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have a good system for breaking a story

Tv pilot script outline