As you may know, I’m in the middle of my new screenplay. Well, middle is a bit of an exaggeration but I have 23 pages which is quite ok. about two thirds of those pages are actual screenplay pages and the rest is outline and notes.
Leuchtturm 1917
But I don’t want to talk about the outlines. I want to talk about my handwritten notes/ideas I wrote in my little black book, no it’s not a moleskin it’s a Leuchtturm 1917 and those little things are just awesome. But I’m getting side tracked it’s not about the notebook you use, it’s about what you use it for and I like to use it for a whole bunch of things.
- I like to use them for ideas. These ideas can be a few words or a few pages but most of the time there are not fully fleshed out and are just there to make me not forget something I think I might use some day.
- I also use it to make an outline and by outline I mean the basic structure with some moments, septettes and character beats woven in. The outline and basic Idea for “Down Under” is 11 pages in my notebook and was written in one day.
- Then there are shower thoughts and by that I mean script related thoughts that might turn into ideas. These is probably the most useful thing I write down and when I browse though my notebooks these short entries usually are the most interesting and sometimes lead to interesting rewrites. “Make Saber older” was one of these and I just had a great one on Monday for “Down Under”.
But it doesn’t matter what you use your notebook for or if you even use one, just make sure you have something at hand to write down what your brain spits out. A lot of it might be garbage but there might be this tiny spark of something that’ll turn into a great idea and you wouldn’t want to forget or miss that one. So write everything down. Use your phone (sometimes i do that as well) or a pice of paper (don’t loose them) or text or email yourself (technically that’s like using your phone) but make sure you write because that’s what it’s all about. The more you write the better the chance that you write something good.
