DZ-106: How do you know if you have enough story?

Listen you're not sure whether your idea has enough fuel for 90 pages.

In this episode, Chas, Stu and Mel attempt to answer a listener question: “In your own pre-writing process, how do you know you have enough for a feature? And do you have a specific pre-writing method you're going to?”

Thus we launch into a discussion on our writing processes and the varying usefulness of tools such as log lines, turning points, beat sheets, synopsis, treatments, and scene breakdowns. We also tackle the challenges encountered while developing an idea to first draft, such as balancing the pace of the story, developing distinct character voices, character choices, plot changes, pacing, and thematic clarity.

Is this backmatter? Or is it development tools? You decide! Hahaha.

Thanks so much to Chris Walker for his excellent editing on this episode!

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

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→ Read the transcript for this episode.

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"for me, that's actually in a lot of ways easier to write. You don't need to conclude anything. And you can hopefully if you sell it, then you get a room of people and then it's all of your problems, you know, as opposed to just your problem and you're banging your head up against the wall on page 80 going, Oh my God, what have have I done?" — Mel Killingsworth @ 00:05:41

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CHAPTERS

• 00:00:00 – Cold Open
• 00:00:16 – The Listener Question: Do You Have Enough for a Feature?
• 00:00:30 – › Why features demand a known ending before you start
• 00:02:38 – Our Development Processes
• 00:05:20 – › Deciding format before asking if you have enough story
• 00:09:20 – › Narrative fuel as a concept and when to test it
• 00:13:42 – › Why the midpoint is the first structural tent pole to find
• 00:17:35 – › Cards, brainstorming, and capturing scenes before plot
• 00:20:06 – › How TV bible development differs from feature outlining
• 00:25:15 – Developing from Concept
• 00:28:53 – › Mel's four-stage process from voice note to scriptment
• 00:33:06 – › Theme as the organising principle before you outline
• 00:38:55 – › Character and plot as mutually dependent in development
• 00:44:09 – › Loglines from other characters' points of view
• 00:45:26 – Sponsor: Arc Studio Pro
• 00:48:12 – Expanding Your Idea
• 00:51:24 – › Sequence structure as a test for narrative fuel
• 00:55:34 – › Turning points driven by character decisions, not events
• 01:00:01 – › When genre dictates how fixed your major beats should be
• 01:06:19 – › From bullet outline to scriptment: when to move to pages
• 01:09:36 – › Summarising dialogue scenes before writing them
• 01:15:29 – Long Short Documents
• 01:20:34 – › The therefore-and-but test applied to outlines
• 01:23:07 – › Prose treatments as a low-cost pitch and development tool
• 01:27:22 – Consistent Problems with First Drafts
• 01:28:53 – › Pacing imbalance between over-written and under-written sequences
• 01:31:27 – › Character voice, empathy, and choices that don't land
• 01:34:28 – Many Thanks to Our Patreons!

EPISODES IN THE DEVELOPMENT TOOLS SERIES

• DZ-106: How do you know if you have enough story?
• DZ-71: Treatments & Loglines - Development Tools 1
• DZ-72: Theme & The Story Synopsis - Development Tools 2
• DZ-81: Pitch Decks & Look Books - Development Tools 4
• DZ-73: Selling documents - Development Tools 3

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Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2023/dz-106/