From Idea to First Draft in 3 Days

One thing I've learned about myself as a writer is that if I don't immediately start writing when inspiration hits, the idea is doomed to stay in the notes app on my phone until the end of time.

There are different levels to inspiration for me.

Sometimes I feel none, and all I wanna do is watch trashy reality TV

Sometimes I get inspired enough to start writing an outline for something

Sometimes I'm so inspired, I start writing character descriptions and even some dialogue that could go into the script

But the rarest kind of inspiration is when a full idea randomly hits me in such vivid detail that I have to stop whatever I'm doing and write it all out immediately.

That's what happened to me on Monday.

side note: i'm seeing the hamilton pro-shot in theatres on saturday.

should i review it?! 👀

So let's walk through my process and how I went from idea to first draft in 3 days (take that, past me)!

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Day 0 - 1: Inspiration Stage

The main way to spark inspiration is to experience new things.

If you're living in routine and finding it difficult to write, I can almost guarantee that switching anything up in your life will lead to you thinking of at least one new idea.

So... I've been intentionally having a lot of new experiences lately.

Not all of them have led me to thinking up entire scripts, but all of them had me writing something down.

Whether it was a dialogue exchange for a feature idea I had years ago, an interesting character I want to write a short story about, or even a poem (I've written a LOT of those lately 😅)

The main source of my huge burst of inspiration is a new friend, who I find very unique.

I've thought a lot about this person's perspective and life experiences they've told me about.

I tried to imagine what a day in their life is like, and that's when the first full season of a half-hour comedy flashed before my eyes.

I haven't wanted to write for TV since my days in community college, so I knew if I was thinking about it in such great detail, it had to mean something.

As I always do when I have ideas, I started furiously typing away in my phone's notes app.

At this point y'all must think I enjoy embarrassing myself by posting my hastily written notes for the world to see.

I do not.

But I've been told it's helpful each time I've done it, so I will sacrifice myself for the greater good 😇

Anyway... As you can see from that screenshot, I wrote out a detailed version of the parts of the story I saw clearest (the opening scene), and a very basic outline for the rest.

Literally I think the remainder of that notes document was about 5 sentences long.

But that was enough for me to start writing without going in completely blind while I felt inspired.

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Day 1 - 2: Writing + Revising Stage

No matter how perfect you think your outline is, no matter how much work you've put into it... When you get to actually writing the script, it's going to change.

Whatever you do, DON'T force your story to fit into the outline if the script version isn't quite delivering, or if YOU'RE not feeling that version of the story anymore.

When you hit a sticking point, the best thing to do is brainstorm new ideas.

Act like your current outline / structure doesn't exist.

Where do you go from here?

I like to ask: what's the most ridiculous thing that could happen next?

This usually is not the answer hehe 🤭

BUT it gets me thinking, and ultimately sparks new ideas that I get excited about writing!

And when you feel inspired again, you could do one of two things:

• 1. Write the scenes you want to write however you want to write them and don't think about how they fit into everything else that's already written, creating more work for yourself and throwing away some fun beats in the process

• 2. Revise your outline based on your new ideas

If you're like me, you'll go for option 1 every time, then realize you probably should've done option 2.

It's not necessarily a bad thing to immediately start writing when inspiration hits... It's just that when that inspiration high dies down, you'll realize there are some holes in your ideas.

Let's look at my own work, for example.

I had a pretty clear vision for how the opening few scenes would go.

• Cuck scene

• Protagonist goes home, we meet his roommate, see a glimpse of his home life

• Protagonist matches with a girl online, plans a date

• Protagonist goes to work, we see his work life

• Protagonist meets the girl in real life

In theory, this works!

We see the protagonist in every possible scenario we're going to see him in throughout the series:

• At work (and "work" 😏)

• At home

• At play (in this episode, on a date)

And we even meet all the major supporting characters (his roommate, his coworkers, his date who will become an on-again-off-again love interest for the remainder of the show) within the first 5 scenes!

When I finished writing it out in script form, I thought damn I'm good 💅

When I read it back from page 1, I realized damn... I'm not good 😞

Sure, the plot was moving quickly, the comedic tone was clear, and the main characters and locations were established...

The missing piece was a moment where we see the protagonist alone.

Without that, not only was there no opportunity for the audience to get to know him as an individual, but there was nothing that clearly expressed his internal struggle and core want.

All we see in those opening pages is external conflict and tension.

His internal struggle is that he wants a life partner, but he's stuck playing the bull role for loving couples.

Although we get a sense of this when he's shoved out of the room once the cuck couple is done with him, it's being shown through an external conflict.

We can infer that he would feel disappointed or used when he leaves the couple, but we still don't know exactly what it is he wants.

So I added 2 scenes:

• Cuck scene

• Protagonist drives home, listening to a podcast about relationships

• Protagonist goes to the gym, works out his frustrations

• Protagonist goes home, we meet his roommate, see a glimpse of his home life

• Protagonist matches with a girl online, plans a date

• Protagonist goes to work, we see his work life

• Protagonist meets the girl in real life

Let's take a look at those two new scenes so you can see what they accomplish:

Scene 1:

Scene 2:

Let's break down what emotional beats we're seeing here:

• The protagonist is choosing to listen to a relationship advice podcast -- this indicates his WANT

• He turns off the podcast before he arrives at the gym; something struck a nerve -- this indicates his INTERNAL STRUGGLE

• He continues to listen to the podcast while working out -- this shows his determination to achieve his goals, which speaks to his character.

There were multiple other instances where I had to go back and change things up to more effectively tell the story.

It's just a part of the process! 🤷‍♀️

Which I've found is much easier when you incorporate the next stage as early as possible...

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Day 2 - 3: Feedback + Revising Stage

Everyone thinks I'm insane for this, but I always seek out feedback on my unfinished drafts.

It helps me to see what people's immediate thoughts are, where they think the story's going / where they want it to go next, and what the problem areas are.

It ultimately saves a lot of time to get those things out of the way before writing a full script and receiving a note that makes you go "how did I not see that before?!"

But the most insane part about my feedback-seeking process is:

I don't just get notes from one person

I send my crappy, half-written draft to several people.

Why would I subject myself to potentially being roasted by multiple people instead of just one, you ask?

Because I'm a masochist

jk

Because one person's notes are an opinion, but if multiple people have the same note, it's a fact.

For example, there was one scene I wrote hastily to get to the next scene I actually wanted to write (where the protagonist and his love interest watch trashy reality tv), so I was expecting the people I sent it to to tell me it needed a lot of work.

But I actually got the opposite reaction. It was most people's favorite scene!

Here it is:

In my next revision, I was planning to rewrite this scene from scratch.

But everyone I sent it to liked the simplicity and how it captured both the protagonist's desire for a deeper bond and the love interest's mindset of having fun.

Looking at it now, I see how it clearly and concisely establishes the seeds of the main conflict that will drive the series:

The protagonist wants to be serious with this woman, and though she provides space for that, she ultimately doesn't want a relationship.

I will say, I think the brevity of the scene only works because of what's established in the (unfinished) scene that leads into it:

So for now I'm keeping it as is -- which I wouldn't have done had I not sought out feedback early!

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And THAT is how you go from inspiration to first draft in 3 days!

Also, recently I've realized how much I enjoy helping people -- or myself -- go from the outline to script phase.

In the past few months, I've guided a few people through this at Roadmap Writers, as well as other freelance projects.

If I offered this sort of service on my site officially, would anyone be interested?

Email me if you want to talk about it!!

Anyway...

Next time I have a wave of inspiration, I might just record myself going through the whole writing process and post the video my YouTube channel

Then y'all can REALLY see how ridiculous (but effective) my approach is.

🤔

See you in the next post!