Most screenwriters make the mistake of developing their storyline as they write their screenplay which is a huge mistake. Don’t be one of those writers!

Are you the creative type? Does your imagination flow abundantly with ideas, plots, and colorful characters? If so, you’ve probably given more than a passing thought to building a career as a screenwriter. While it may seem easy enough, especially when you consider the simple format of screenplays, the fact is a screenwriting career is one of the toughest career choices a person can make!

A screenplay-writing career has some very obvious perks. For one, you’ll get to fraternize with celebrities. And if your script gets transformed into a major motion picture, you will garner a little fame yourself. You will also get paid a truck load of money for your script. Those benefits seem pretty nice, don’t they? And that’s probably why many young writers head to Hollywood every year with the idealistic hopes of writing the next blockbuster and cashing in on the celebrity lifestyle.

Before you dive head first into the screenwriting world, you need to know one thing: a screenplay is a tool for the producer, director, actors, and editors – it’s not a work of art! It’s not a novel or an award winning play. It’s a production tool for everyone to use that is involved in making the film. And the most important aspect of that tool is the storyline. Without a properly crafted storyline, your screenplay won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on.

What comes before the screenplay? The storyline! What comes before the storyline? A treatment! What is a treatment? A treatment is a condensed, first person accounting of the story from beginning to end. Most treatments are no longer than 10 to 15 pages. The purpose of writing a treatment is to simply get your story down on paper and to allow for simplified editing; reorganizing 10 to 15 pages of story content is fairly simple compared to reorganizing 90 pages of a finished screenplay!

A final treatment is integral to completing your screenplay. You’ll need to work all the bugs out of the story before you start writing the first page of the actual script. The more time you invest into troubleshooting the treatment, the better your final script will be. It’s as simple as that.

Once you have the treatment complete, the actual process of writing the screenplay shouldn’t take you more than a dozen hours. Most likely it will take much less time because with a properly edited treatment in your hand, the creation of the screenplay will require simply retyping the story into the proper format.

If you don’t know how to properly format a screenplay, all you need to do is look around on the internet. You will find plenty of free information that explains industry standards for a properly formatted screenplay. And even those standards are loose, particularly when it comes to a screenplay with an engaging storyline – if your storyline is great, the screenplay’s format becomes much less important.

A perfect screenplay is a perfectly assembled storyline. The scenes not only make sense but they are all necessary to the development of the story. They are arranged in the perfect order. There are no missing details or instances of ambiguity. It’s important that your screenplay be in perfect form before you present it to anyone for review.

If you want to learn more about screenwriting, the simplest method is to watch a great movie over and over again. You should also get your hands on a few screenplays and study them. The more you read, the more you’ll learn. The more you watch, the more you’ll learn. Thanks for reading and good luck with your screenwriting endeavors!

Author Bio: Learn more about screenplay writing here: how to craft great characters, tips for writing great dialogue, and the seven moments in film.

Category: Writing
Keywords: screenplay storyline