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LESSON FIVE – Call in
the Framers; The Event Outline By M.L. 'Max' Roth The following is a transcript from a talk the author gave. Includes: Script and Manuscript. [Those of you who are writing short stories may begin your story with or without completing the balance of the writing exercises. However, it is strongly suggested that you read and work the lessons on editing and formatting before submitting your story for publication.] In construction, after the foundation has been laid, the framers take over. Framers are the guys who nail, rivet, and weld together a structure of beams, and whistle things at your sister when she walks by. The room laughs. If you have ever studied a framed structure before the skin goes on, you've noticed appropriate spaces for windows, doors, and skylights are all strategically planned, and areas for electrical outlets and plumbing fixtures are marked. You can look at a well-framed structure and understand what the nature of the project is about. A house will be framed differently than an apartment complex, an office suite, or a shopping mall. How can you tell the difference? In a house, the electrical outlets are down next to the baseboards and the bathroom plumbing is located near the bedrooms and includes space for showers and tubs. In a commercial structure, say an office building, the electrical outlets are placed higher on the wall for office equipment. There are differences in the dimensions of a family garage and a commercial receiving area or dock. In other words, the structure is planned to make space available in a manner enhancing the nature of the activity that will take place within that space. An empty house only appears empty. Actually, it's brimming with the forethought and attention to detail of its builder. Freedom thrives within structure. A well planned home provides its inhabitants with a sense that this space insures them the freedom to pursue their lives according to their wishes. Rather than viewing their walls as limitations, they sense this as their safe space – a place where they are free to write their own story. As creative artists, it's imperative we frame the plan for our three-act structure with a vision in mind that will enhance our freedom to write a story the way we imagine it. Only within a planned structure can we sustain the freedom to create with the fearless integrity needed to reach our goal. We've already diagrammed our three-act structure. Now we'll outline it. Other than numbering scenes, our finished outline will have no other numbers or letters. It will be bare bones, an event-driven outline. A plot must achieve forward momentum, and there is no better way to insure this momentum than by using an 'action only' narrative to frame your three-act diagram. Each of the three acts is framed with scenes. The entire outline will total sixty scenes, more or less, and each scene will be assigned a consecutive number beginning with number one. How many actual novel manuscript or film script pages does the outline represent? If you're writing a film script, the outline represents one hundred twenty actual script pages: Act one = thirty pages [I have added the actual script page numbers in parenthesis to the breakdown below.] If you're writing a novel manuscript, there are no page limitations. I suggest assessing your outline one scene at a time and shooting for no less than five actual pages per scene. The outline for a novel manuscript represents a minimum of three hundred actual manuscript pages. The event outline breaks down as follows: Act One – The Promise (1-30) Fifteen scenes are written for the purpose of introducing characters and stating the promise of a story. Here you will demonstrate your characters' bottom lines through an action narrative. The last scene in this act should be your first monkey wrench and linking question to act two (see LESSON TWO). Act Two – The Action (30-90) Thirty scenes are written-- remember, act two is your longest act-- for the purpose of introducing, exploring, and overcoming challenges. Bear in mind that while your characters are complex, this is only an event outline. If you wish to show a character arc in your outline, you'll have to do it through action. Taking this 'action only' stance helps you establish pro-active characters with strong arcs in your subsequent drafts. (See LESSON FOUR.) Whether your project is a film script or a novel manuscript, you will need to establish the turning point in your character's arc, and concurrently the pivotal dramatic point of your story, with a major situation allowing your character to become pro-active around scene number thirty, which should arrive in the middle of act two. This can be a scene involving risk, danger, love lost and found, triumph, the big disaster, etc. This is a long act and your readers/viewers need this scene to sustain their interest. The last scene in this act should be your second monkey wrench and linking question to act three. Act Three – The Result or Resolution (90-120) Fifteen scenes for the purpose of resolving the story and completing character arcs. Heighten the dramatic sense of your story by throwing in one final monkey wrench to be surmounted before the story can be resolved. The event outline can be written on paper, saved to your computer, or the way I learned to do it, it can be jotted down quickly on index cards. Well, you can see from looking at me, it's no secret I'm old. You'll probably use your computer. Fine, be that way. Several film script and manuscript writing programs include 'scene card' functions, or you can use the 'block move' function to switch the order of your scenes until you're satisfied. The event outline works because it indicates direction while preserving freedom within the structure. For guys, this is kind of like the Jockey shorts must be there, but so does the room, and yes, I'm aware that women are listening, but my wife refuses to give up her underwear secrets. I'm going to shout out a sample sequence of scenes. They are written quickly and without detail. They are event driven. Each scene is a bare sketch of an action: "One! A man runs down the county courthouse steps quickly looking behind himself every few feet." "Two! The running man spins around once and looks at the bustling, crowded sidewalk and disappears into the darkness down the subway stairs." "Three! The running man finds his way into a passenger car and is smashed and jostled in the crowd as the car takes off." "Four! We do not see the running man. The car stops. The crowd exits. The running man lies motionless, dead on the car's floor." Any questions? Is this another film staring Steven Segal? No. You know, that man never dies! So, using this method, we are free to create environment, dialogue, draw characters, and add more action and events while the event outline guides us through our actual first draft. With outline in hand, we create fearlessly, knowing we'll never lose our way. Remember, as the writer of the outline, you are also the observer. New scenes begin and end where your observation viewpoint begins and ends. When a character leaves one room and walks into another, the scene changes. A character driving is one scene. When she has parked and exited the vehicle, that's a new scene. When she has walked into a building and is off the street, this is another scene. Determining scene parameters on the actual pages is more complex – especially for script writing – but for the event outline, these general scene changes are fine. EXERCISE FIVE: WRITE YOUR
EVENT OUTLINE. Copyright © 2003 The Success Trust. Reprinted with permission.
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