At this point, if I’ve done it right, I’ve read all or most of the books cover to cover, and I’ve compiled at least two or three legal pads full of notes. Now all I have to do is simply open up a new document on my computer and transcribe them. This is the easiest part of the entire process. There’s absolutely no pressure. I’m not even writing really. I’m just typing. Sure, if I have another idea or two while I’m doing this, I’ll throw it in there, but I don’t feel obligated to. I’m working for minimum wage right now, essentially being my own temp secretary. Then when I’m done transcribing, I just name the file with the working title of the story and the qualifier “Notes.”
What does all this stream-of-consciousness, Thanksgiving dinner bloat buy you? Well, if you begin the process of writing your original story the way I’ve described, you will now find yourself with at least five to ten written pages (your “Notes Document”), which means you have just successfully kicked off your project without ever having to stare at a blank page.
The Concept Document
I admit, this five to ten pages is really nothing more than a bunch of brain spasms you had while reading all those books, but when you finally go back and review the notes that you’ve made, I guarantee you’ll be surprised at how much good stuff you’ve actually captured.
The important thing to understand is this:
By letting yourself passively receive this information and simply be the channel through which it flows, you can effectively get out of the way of the story, which exists in its perfect and purest form entirely separate from you.
Now you are much more equipped to tune in the rest of the story, because not only have you learned a tremendous amount about the world in which it takes place, you have also identified many of the emotional anchor points that drew you to the idea in the first place. It’s around these anchor points that you can now begin to build what I call a “Concept Document.”
Depending on the type of story I’m telling and the medium in which I’m telling it, the contents of my Concept Document will vary. If I’m writing a television pilot, for example, I usually like to include a section on potential future episodes, and very often I’ll include a paragraph or two on various long-range character arcs. If, on the other hand, I’m creating an interactive game or experience, those types of elements may not apply. But if interactivity is involved I will definitely need to include a section on the user interface (i.e., how the consumer will interact with the various parts of the experience). Regardless of the medium, however, the five basic sections I typically include in each of my Concept Documents are:
•Logline
•Theme
•Tone
•Characters
•Story Summary
Whether you’re writing a stage play, an original television pilot, a screenplay, a novel, a narrative-based interactive game, or any other type of original story, it’s critical that you are able to articulate each of these elements with as much clarity as possible before you start writing the script. Again, patience is a virtue. You’re still early in the tuning process. Don’t rush it.
The challenge of writing a good Concept Document is to be able to take all those notes you’ve written during your research phase and distill them into a concise vision of what your script will eventually become. To illustrate this, I’ve provided the relevant sections from a Concept Document for a TV pilot called Scotty’s Travels, which I wrote “on spec” (i.e., creating a story/script speculatively with the hope that you will sell it once it’s written). I’m proud to say this script was honored in Written By, the magazine of the Writers Guild of America, as one of the best unproduced television scripts of 2004 (a dubious honor, I know, but an honor nonetheless!).
Let’s take this section by section:
Getting the logline right helps you boil the story down to its essence. It’s the elevator pitch, the TV guide blurb. Here’s how I did it for this particular concept:
Logline:
SCOTTY’S TRAVELS chronicles the adventures of Dr. Jonathon Scott, a prominent psychiatrist whose life is turned upside down when he’s suddenly visited by an imaginary voice.
I like to try and get the logline down to one concise sentence like this, but it could be a little longer if necessary. Just think about how you would tell someone your story if you only had about fifteen or twenty seconds to do it.
Now let’s look at the theme. Identifying your theme allows you to hone your message and solidify it in your mind. You can’t tell a good story if you don’t have a clue as to what you’re trying to say with it. I generally dig a little deeper into this one, but still try to keep it relatively short and sweet:
Theme:
This voice, whom Scotty dubs “Liberty,” magnifies discordant feelings already deep within him—that his career has gone awry, and that his purpose in life is still largely unfulfilled. To remedy this, Liberty encourages Scotty to make a daring choice—to give up all he has and go out and truly heal the troubled hearts and minds of the world.
But obliging Liberty comes with a heavy price. Not only is Scotty stigmatized as a crazy person, but where he must now go, his wife and children cannot follow.
At the heart of Scotty’s journey is the thing that we all seek as human beings, a sense of certainty that our life's struggles are meaningful. Throughout the series then, Scotty will be faced with both the external dilemmas of the people he meets and the internal longing that he has to return to his former life.
Now let’s talk about tone. In some ways tone is more about your overall voice as a writer than
