Is this an effective way to write?

B

boarderjosh10

Active member
I don't really know any screenwriting skills except for the ones I see people use on the internet. As I have been writing lately I come up with a list of individual scenes on notecards, then I can move them around to try and make a story line out of a bunch of similar scenes/ideas.

Is this a good approach or not? It has been working for me but sometimes I lose my place in the writing

thanks!!
 
There are good stories and there are boring stories. That being said, there is no correct way to actually perform the writing, in my opinion. You have to discover what works best for you. Ideas can often be discovered during times of organization because you are forcing yourself to examine the details. I used to write on walls, but that's a story for another day...

During a fiction writing seminar in college, our professor used to talk about taking showers. No, not because he was suffering from mysophobia; rather, he found that the warm water, steam, and solitude afforded him a haven to think creatively. I happen to concur with him. Requests to shower with him were declined...
 
It might be great for you. I prefer to do it a bit differently, in a common method. I come up with a story first; the most basic, simple definition of the story, maybe with well defined characters. I work it into a log line; if that log line works, I'll keep going on it. Otherwise, something needs to change. The central theme has to work for me. Then I figure out what the different acts consist of, then outline, then write out scenes on note cards and move them around on my bulletin board. But I'm just one person who doesn't write very much posting on an internet forum, nothing to take too seriously.
 
One thing that I would like to add: While many writers (not necessarily screenplay writers either) prefer either manually writing by hand or using a typewriter instead of a computer because they feel it is a more creative process than typing on a computer, I prefer to use a computer. My reasoning: I have ADD. I have found that sometimes by handwriting (I don't own a typewriter) by the time it took me to write the first half of the idea, the second half had already been forgotten. It was extremely frustrating to have half an idea and not be able to remember the rest. Now I always type my ideas because I can type much faster than I can write and (usually) this allows me to get the whole idea down before my mind wanders.
 
Although he was a racist, a pimp, and a drug addict with a foul mouth whose trumpet technique was limited, he was a genius at combining musicians and altering the course of jazz.
 
notecards are suggested by many writers. i tried to use them but i'd rather have everything on my computer, so now i use this mac program called omni outliner. any outlining program would work. i think the important point of outlining is getting a big picture view of the story, and not getting bogged down in the detail.
 
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