• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

John August

  • Arlo Finch
  • Scriptnotes
  • Library
  • Store
  • About

Treatments

Putting Words on the Page

Episode - 349

Go to Archive

May 8, 2018 Directors, Follow Up, Formatting, Los Angeles, News, Scriptnotes, Software, Television, Tools, Transcribed, Treatments, Words on the page, Writing Process

John and Craig discuss the digital tools of the trade. From outline to first draft to production rewrites, screenwriters find themselves facing different challenges. We talk about what works for each of us. We also speculate on what impact Highland 2’s gender analysis tool will have.

Then we answer listener questions about following the “rules” of formatting, from creative scene headers to “hey reader” notes and tips for introducing characters who play important roles later in the script.

Links:

  • Our next live Scriptnotes with Jonah Nolan & Lisa Joy (Westworld) and Stephen McFeely & Christopher Markus (Avengers: Infinity War) will be Tuesday, May 22nd at the ArcLight in Hollywood. Tickets are on sale now — proceeds benefit Hollywood HEART, which runs special programs and summer camps for at-risk youth.
  • Frank Oz, in case you’re curious
  • Look how fast Highland 2 loads War and Peace compared to other programs!
  • Scriptnotes, Ep 125: The One with the Guys from Final Draft
  • Welcome to Southern California includes a 1953 pronunciation of “Los Angeles”
  • Less by Andrew Sean Greer
  • The Scriptnotes Listeners’ Guide!
  • The USB drives!
  • John August on Twitter
  • Craig Mazin on Twitter
  • John on Instagram
  • Find past episodes
  • Outro by Larry Douziech (send us yours!)

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

UPDATE 5-15-18: The transcript of this episode can be found here.

Outlines and Treatments

April 12, 2016 Film Industry, Follow Up, Projects, QandA, Scriptnotes, Story and Plot, Transcribed, Treatments, Words on the page, Writing Process

John and Craig look at the non-screenplay things screenwriters end up writing, most notably outlines and treatments. We discuss some of the ones we’ve written (with examples), and offer advice on writing your own.

Also, how do you deal with sudden success? And what should a writer-director say when talking to a Very Famous Actress about starring in his movie?

Our live conversation with Lawrence Kasdan is this Saturday! Find out more about the all-day Craft Day featuring many previous (and future) Scriptnotes guests in the links below.

Links:

  • Get tickets now for the 2016 WGFestival, featuring John and Craig’s interview with Lawrence Kasdan, and more
  • BuzzFeed talks to Karyn Kusama
  • Overnight on Wikipedia, IMDb and Amazon
  • ID Theft treatment
  • Original Big Fish outline
  • Big Fish sequence outline
  • Short Circuit treatment
  • D.C. pitch
  • D.C. pilot outline
  • Alaska write-up
  • Ops write-up
  • Ops Iraq outline
  • @TomSchnauz on Twitter
  • Watch the performances from MCC’s Miscast 2016
  • Tesla Model 3
  • Outro by Rajesh Naroth (send us yours!)

You can download the episode here: AAC | mp3.

UPDATE 4-14-16: The transcript of this episode can be found here.

Hardy Boys, in outline form

March 13, 2015 Follow Up, Story and Plot, Television, Treatments

Rebecca Onion looks at the typed outline for a Hardy Boys novel:

In this two-page outline for the 1927 Hardy Boys’ mystery The House on the Cliff, Edward Stratemeyer directed writer Leslie Macfarlane in the construction of the plot of the second book in the franchise’s original series. The book was officially published as the work of Franklin W. Dixon, a fictional author whose name appears on all of the Hardy Boys books.  

It’s fascinating to look at something so old yet so familiar. Most modern televison writing goes through an outline stage, at which point the studio and network sign off on the story — or send it back with notes.

TV outlines aren’t this rough, but they are similarly straightforward in their just-what-happens style. I find them hard to write, because my instinct is always to be fancy and clever. That’s not what outlines are for.

Based on what I read in Marvin Heiferman and Carole Kismaric’s The Mysterious Case of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, Macfarlane would have had a month to turn this outline into a book, for which he would be paid $100.

Beware of miserable success

May 14, 2014 Psych 101, Treatments

I really like Dan Harmon’s advice to young writers in the sidebar to THR’s showrunner feature:

Entertain yourself. Luck comes just as often (and just as rarely) to every writer. Don’t be the writer that got lucky doing something they hate.

« Previous Page
Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Newsletter

Inneresting Logo A Quote-Unquote Newsletter about Writing
Read Now

Explore

Projects

  • Aladdin (1)
  • Arlo Finch (27)
  • Big Fish (87)
  • Charlie (39)
  • Charlie's Angels (16)
  • Chosen (2)
  • Corpse Bride (9)
  • Dead Projects (18)
  • Frankenweenie (10)
  • Go (30)
  • Karateka (4)
  • Monsterpocalypse (3)
  • One Hit Kill (6)
  • Ops (6)
  • Preacher (2)
  • Prince of Persia (13)
  • Shazam (6)
  • Snake People (6)
  • Tarzan (5)
  • The Nines (118)
  • The Remnants (12)
  • The Variant (22)

Apps

  • Bronson (14)
  • FDX Reader (11)
  • Fountain (32)
  • Highland (72)
  • Less IMDb (4)
  • Weekend Read (34)

Recommended Reading

  • First Person (87)
  • Geek Alert (147)
  • WGA (123)
  • Workspace (19)

Screenwriting Q&A

  • Adaptation (66)
  • Directors (90)
  • Education (49)
  • Film Industry (487)
  • Formatting (129)
  • Genres (90)
  • Glossary (6)
  • Pitches (29)
  • Producers (59)
  • Psych 101 (117)
  • Rights and Copyright (96)
  • So-Called Experts (47)
  • Story and Plot (170)
  • Television (164)
  • Treatments (21)
  • Words on the page (238)
  • Writing Process (178)

More screenwriting Q&A at screenwriting.io

© 2023 John August — All Rights Reserved.