How do you know if an idea is good enough?

[Randall_Oelerich]

For feature screenplays, curious how you all decide if a logline, premise, story idea is good enough to proceed with further writing? What criteria do you use to make that judgment call? Do you run your logline [or paragraph summary] [or one page summary] past ten people? What people -- average joes off the street, or fellow writers? So much work and time expended going forward on a story idea-- that idea better be worthy of having the potential to be successful at a theater run, or at least Netflix / VOD, so how do you decide if it is worth the effort to go forth with detailed structuring, a treatment, a first draft, rewrites? Huge commitment once that decision is made.

 

[Kess]

The real answer is that no one knows. Absolutely no one.

 

[Batutta]

It's purely visceral for me. I get a little tingle in my head that goes down my spine. Honestly...but it's never just the idea. It's when I find the angle on the idea, the fusing of an idea with a personal emotional experience I've had that the switch gets turned.

 

[Ted Spencer]

For feature screenplays, curious how you all decide if a logline, premise, story idea if good enough to proceed with further writing? What criteria do you use to make that judgement call? Do you run your logline [or paragraph summary] [or one page summary] past ten people? What people -- average joes off the street, or fellow writers? So much work and time expended going forward on a story idea-- that idea better be worthy of having the potential to be successful at a theater run, or at least Netflix/VOD, so how do you decide if it is worth the effort to go forth with detailed structuring, a treatment, a first draft, rewrites? Huge commitment once that decision is made.

Excellent question, and I think all the things you mention are worthy points, so yes, show it to "average joes", other writers, friends, family, peer-to=peer sites like zoetrope, here, etc.

Otherwise I think the answer writing-wise is 'one step at a time'. Start with a bare-bones outline, story bullet points or whatever the most minimal, boiled down overview of the story design is. That will give you the greatest flexibility to play around with alternatives with minimal writing time (but maximal 'inspired thinking time', which is what you need to be doing at this stage - not writing - yet). Don't go past that stage until you're *really* convinced you've got something great - not just good. If one 'idea path' dries up, congratulations - you've just saved yourself from a lot of wasted time in subsequent writing stages pursuing an inferior fundamental story. Try again. When you've got a 'live one', go on to stage two: the treatment.

As I'm sure you know, a treatment is basically the script in prose form told as a story. It's where you get to pre-visualize things much more clearly than in the outline/bullet-point stage. You will likely discover problems here - too many/impractical locations, excessively expensive special effects, too large a cast, too much exposition required, etc. You must solve these issues before moving on. As with the outline, if your idea path becomes dysfunctional, you've saved yourself a ton of dialog and scene description work because you're not going to write that script. So as before *get this stage right*, or go back to the outline stage and retool, or toss the whole thing and start over. Once you've got a *great* treatment that's shootable, cast-able and so on, *then and only then* start writing the script.

At that point most of the heavy lifting is already done - now you get to go all the way off into your intuitive side, living inside the skins of your characters as they traipse through your imaginary world's locations and events, which you have already created, envisioned and *vetted to a fare-thee-well* for story interest, integrity, originality, and every other qualitative and practical metric you could throw at it.

If you've got real talent, well developed skills, and do all the above, chances are you'll have a pretty darn good script : )

My $.02

 

[dougspice]

I'm not sure if I agree with all of Ted's advice. What particularly worries me is the idea that you should only write something that is practical and shootable. That's well and good if writing a script is just stage one of your plan to also produce the movie yourself – in that case you'd be well-served to know your limits.

Even in that situation, though, I think you're better off just writing the movie you'd like to see. Don't let practical factors cloud your creativity too much. Write beyond your limits. Otherwise you risk writing "safe," and another word for safe is boring.

If you've written a script that you love and now intend to produce, it's easy enough to go back through it and "write it smaller," but now you have the advantage of knowing the full scope. You will be inspired to find creative solutions to problems (opportunities) you didn't even know you had.

 

[dougspice]

As far as the question of the thread goes, it's pretty simple: does the idea stay with me? Month after month, do I find myself coming back to a concept or setting? If it doesn't pass that test, I know I'm never going to be able to write it with enthusiasm. In my experience, leaping into writing something before I've let it settle in my head for a while is a recipe for a lot of roads that don't go anywhere. If I look back through my old files I see a lot of scripts that made it to page 20 or outlines that never got finished. It's because I didn't love my own idea.

If you don't love it, how can you expect anyone else to?

 

[Ted Spencer]

I'm not sure if I agree with all of Ted's advice. What particularly worries me is the idea that you should only write something that is practical and shootable. That's well and good if writing a script is just stage one of your plan to also produce the movie yourself – in that case you'd be well-served to know your limits.

Even in that situation, though, I think you're better off just writing the movie you'd like to see. Don't let practical factors cloud your creativity too much. Write beyond your limits. Otherwise you risk writing "safe," and another word for safe is boring.

I don't disagree, and I didn't intend to advocate a "think small" approach. I also was (for whatever reason) imagining Randall's question in a self-produced micro-indie context, not a studio spec script. In the latter case, the sky's the limit if you want to go there. And I say yes, go ahead and let your imagination run free in any case. But as many wise folks have taught, for us mere mortals, especially on a micro-budget, there are some things that will be much better avoided at an early stage - like crashing 25 police cars (Blues Brothers) or blowing up an office building (Dark Knight). Sure - dream big, and you may surprise yourself with what can be accomplished, but I was speaking of things that are *actually, really* impractical.

Quentin Tarantino didn't burn down any movie theaters in "Resorvior Dogs"...

 

[GoodLuck]

I brainstorm about 20 or so ideas in a journal and keep a list of my top story ideas jotted down. I'll often come up with new story ideas and will add them to my list. I'll then write brief outlines on a few of them and will pick the ones that I like the most and will write them. I think the key is to have options. You then find the one that attracts you to it the most and write that one. One outline I recently wrote I ended up calling a friend up and saying "I came up with a really great outline for a screenplay!" You feel like you have a eureka type moment that you have to tell someone about. You don't feel like you are wasting your time writing it either, if anything you feel like you are wasting your time when you are not writing it. You question your work ethic! You constantly think "I should be writing it!"

 

[Ted Spencer]

If you've written a script that you love and now intend to produce, it's easy enough to go back through it and "write it smaller,"

Or not so 'easy'...I've had to abandon a number of script ideas I worked on as micro-indie concepts because my imagination took me to places that were not going to be feasible enough to warrant the effort. The film wasn't going to work well enough without them, and other alternatives either didn't cut it or were similarly impractical.

And trying to do too much on the cheap might buy you a ticket to the Ed Wood express. A bad reason to end up with cheesy alternatives to the kind of effects quality film viewers expect. A couple of films I've been involved with in various ways (but not regarding these choices) did this, much to their unintentionally comedic effect...

It's why people like Dov Simens recommend newbie filmmakers do a domestic drama, or a courtroom story - in as few locations as possible, to ensure that the fundamentals are done right rather than overreaching into riskier scenarios. "Paranormal Activity" is an absolutely textbook example of it. Once you've got a low budget success under your belt, you should be able to attract the budget and crew for your more ambitious plans.

 

[dougspice]

I agree with you there. Don't try to fly too close to the sun. Try to execute what is just out of reach, not miles out of reach. If you're perceptive, though, you should be able to recognize the difference and make the appropriate fixes. "Is there a way to write this scene where instead of 25 police cars crashing, it's only one? Is there a way to do this where we don't have to SHOW the office building exploding?"

But again, only if you're main intention is to make the film yourself at the end of the day. If you're just trying to write a great screenplay – go nuts. Even if your script is unproducible even in Big Hollywood, someone will notice. A buddy of mine made the blacklist this year with a tough script he wrote. That script will probably never get made but it's led to many other opportunities for him.

Dov can try to suggest appropriate genres all he wants, but if you're writing something you're not enthusiastic about it's going to be obvious to everyone.

 

[Ted Spencer]

if you're writing something you're not enthusiastic about it's going to be obvious to everyone.

Agreed, wholeheartedly.

 

[BitMaestro]

For feature screenplays, curious how you all decide if a logline, premise, story idea if good enough to proceed with further writing?

{c/p from a post I wrote on another board:}

The logline template I use is:

When [inciting incident] a [protag] must [second act conflict] (or else [stakes, if they aren't already apparent]).

Bonus points for working in genre and character arc through astute word choice, as well as delineating the third act tension.

For example:

When the plans for a galactic Empire's ultimate weapon fall into the hands of a stargazing farmboy, he embarks on an interplanetary quest to see the plans safely to the leaders of a Rebel Alliance in the hope that they will be able to find a way to destroy the weapon before the Empire can use it to crush the Rebellion once and for all.

Inciting incident - he gets the plans. check.
Protag - farmboy. check.
Second act conflict - he tries to get the plans to the Rebellion. check.
Stakes - or else the Rebellion will be crushed. check.

I also think I earned the bonus points for genre ("galactic" and "interplanetary" implying sci-fi, and "quest" implying action/adventure) and maybe half the points for character arc ("stargazing" hints at Luke's quixotic nature at the beginning of the film, and also reinforces the SF genre, but I didn't tie it into the plot). And maybe half the points for delineating the third act tension (the battle to destroy the Death Star).

Yes, it's very wordy. Too wordy for an actual logline. But this brings up another point: when one speaks of loglines, one generally thinks of a sales tool that's written to help pitch/sell a script that's already complete. But we seem to be having a more story-focused discussion here. And if we would like to use these loglines as tools to help analyze the stories they might spawn, I think a more structured approach could be helpful. So...

Who is your protag? What is his/her character arc?

What is the inciting incident?

What is the second act conflict? Is there enough conflict here to sustain the entire second act of a movie? How does the external conflict relate to the character arc?

What are the stakes? Are they enough to drive this story?

What is the dramatic tension of the third act?

Even in the facetiously written logline in my previous post {referencing the reality TV show On the Lot which was airing when my original post was written back in 2007}:

"In a last-ditch attempt to make it in the entertainment industry, a struggling filmmaker enters a reality TV show contest, only to have low ratings doom the show to cancellation before the prize is awarded."

I un/subconsciously answered most of those questions. (The filmmaker is the protag. The inciting incident is when he applies to be on the show. The second act conflict is all the challenges he faces while competing on the show. The stakes are that this is the protag's last-ditch attempt. The third act tension is that the show is cancelled.) But, if I actually wanted to write this script, the fact that I haven't answered certain questions highlights some things that I should work out before I start writing. Specifically, the genre and character arc are still to be addressed.

It's a lot easier to find and fix things at the logline stage, than it is when you're stuck on page 78 - M

 

[Ted Spencer]

^brilliant post

 

[lambert]

I write screenplays very quickly, so my view is to just write it, stick it in a drawer for three months to season it and start another. Forget setting up mini focus groups.
I'd try and write what you haven't seen before and what you really want to see. ( agree with dougspice's comment about writing about something your enthusiastic about)
If your aiming to direct at some point, write a new short everyday (or every week) until you have one you have to direct and it fits in your abilities and budget.
Trust your gut, at the end of the day its all you've got.

 

[Nektonic]

I agree with just writing what you love and are enthusiastic about. I used to sit and calculate all these ideas I thought would be "commercially viable". Now I've realized that the best ideas I have are the ones that either come out of nowhere and evolve by my own imaginative tinkering, or the ones that I think up that seem a bit derivative, but once I develop them a bit I can start to mold them into something that has its own soul, if you will.

I still try for a high concept element. Don't get me wrong, high concept ideas are great. I just think that what I used to do, and what a lot of writers probably do at some point, namely chasing after these mythical high concept Hollywood ideas is not the end all be all of writing.

Also, lambert makes a good point about writing the initial rough draft in a spurt of creative fury, then letting it hibernate for a couple months before coming back to it. That is something I am trying to do more now. Of course, there will always be exceptions like a script based heavily on a historical period or a biopic where tons of research is necessary.

For example:

When the plans for a galactic Empire's ultimate weapon fall into the hands of a stargazing farmboy, he embarks on an interplanetary quest to see the plans safely to the leaders of a Rebel Alliance in the hope that they will be able to find a way to destroy the weapon before the Empire can use it to crush the Rebellion once and for all.

Inciting incident - he gets the plans. check.
Protag - farmboy. check.
Second act conflict - he tries to get the plans to the Rebellion. check.
Stakes - or else the Rebellion will be crushed. check.

Wow, that sounds like a fantastic and epic sci-fi film waiting to be written and made into a blockbuster flick.

Hollywood will probably never make it though because it would be deemed too costly and it is not based on any established intellectual properties. Seriously though, they could make it in 3D and it could become the next Avatar.

 

[Randall_Oelerich]

Hmm, sounds familiar. let's see-- oh yeah, LOL:

When the plans for a evil sorcerer's ultimate weapon (a powerful ring) falls into the hands of a stargazing Hobbit from the Shire, he embarks on a dangerous quest to see the ring safely to a volcano in the hope that he will be able to find a way to destroy the weapon before the evil sorceror and his Empire can use it to crush the Rebellion (humans, elves, i.e. non-Orcs) once and for all.

...
For example:
When the plans for a galactic Empire's ultimate weapon fall into the hands of a stargazing farmboy, he embarks on an interplanetary quest to see the plans safely to the leaders of a Rebel Alliance in the hope that they will be able to find a way to destroy the weapon before the Empire can use it to crush the Rebellion once and for all.
...

Who said that blockbusters were original, lol. I need to stop coming up with ideas, just rehash some old ones!
randall

 

[Lee Saxon]

Who said that blockbusters were original, lol. I need to stop coming up with ideas, just rehash some old ones!
randall

It's worked out well (financially) for Hollywood!!

 

[Ted Spencer]

I write screenplays very quickly, so my view is to just write it, stick it in a drawer for three months to season it and start another. Forget setting up mini focus groups...

...write a new short everyday (or every week) until you have one you have to direct and it fits in your abilities and budget.
Trust your gut, at the end of the day its all you've got.

This sounds a little too much like a recipe for quantity over quality to me. I agree with the 'write regularly' idea, but some writers just crank out reams and reams of mediocrity because they lack the patience and seriousness of mind to ever really hold themselves to the highest possible standards. In almost all cases it's the latter that is what it takes to achieve great success as an artist.

Not saying the former describes you, but just saying...

 

[Michael Wisniewski]

My improv troupe is probably the best way I have to really test out ideas. We have several really good improv group games to play with and explore the connections and space that an idea inhabits. It's good because when you have people attacking & playing together, it helps to clarify what's most interesting, and what's drivel. More often than not, the "fantastic" idea I thought I had gets played out by the group in a split second and it's done. And the really mundane, boring, everyday idea becomes an amazing scene/story/character that you can really build on. But you just never really know until you try it out, and let other people take a whack at it. Beats waiting around for your subconscious to slog through and make the connections.

I agree with the idea no one really knows. Sometimes you just have to take your best guess and go down that road.

 

[BitMaestro]

Not surprisingly, I agree with Ted--thanks for your previous post, BTW--that writing a bunch of stuff and putting it in a drawer sounds to me like too much work for too little reward.

I'd also like to add that I completely agree with writing something you love and are passionate about. The process I outlined above is simply how I quickly determine (with a minimal amount of work) which one or two ideas (out of ten or twenty) that I love has the most story potential.

Also note that "most story potential" is not the same as "commercially viable", much less "commercially viable movie". That's a-whole-nother discussion.

Mark