Warren Ellis —

THE METHOD

I’ve taught a few people this method over the years. The method has undergone a lot of addition and adaptation across the decades, pulling in useful stuff from other people. It doesn’t work for everything, and nor should it, but, when all else fails, it can be a handy foundation.

So you’ve had your idea. Grab a notebook or open a plain text file and empty out every thought you have about and around the idea. This can take a few hours, this can take weeks. This is fine. When you think you’re done, or nearly so, open up a word processor file and transcribe or copy it all over. It’s fine to rewrite or tweak as you go. You’ve just done all the hardest work in the method. From this point on, you will never have to start with a blank page. That’s the point of the method. You’re always writing over what you already have.

All your notes are copied down. Save them. Copy the whole lot and paste into a new file with a different name. Now start assembling them into a shape, deleting anything that doesn’t fit (you already saved it all), adding whatever you need, surrounding the whole thing.

Copy and paste into new file. Break it down into episodes. Again, rewriting as you go. Go as deep as you like. Some people like a skeleton framework, some people go full “scriptment” style and lay in dialogue and colour.

By the end of it, you should be able to see everything that happens in every episode, in order, having kicked out your timing errors and your broken connections.

When it comes to scripting, copy and paste the outline for your episode into a new document. Bang. You’ve got a complete breakdown of your episode right there, and all you have to do is expand it out into script. All the difficult work of, you know, having your story make sense is done, and you’ve left yourself the juicy work of actual writing, character and setting and action and dialogue.

Sometimes, the method is what saves a piece.