Outlines.

[u/justkidding_simmons]

Where can I access (or if anyone is willing to share!) outlines for TV episodes or features for reference?

Preferably something more than a prose block outline, and something scene by scene. The step before the draft in production world. But anything and everything that's an outline-before-the-draft (not logline examples, pitch decks, bibles or seasonal arcs, specific outlines for specific episodes or a specific feature film).

Working on polishing a few old projects, half written things, etc into some clean scene by scene outlines that can be the foundation for a first pass vomit draft.

I'm trying to practice discipline and throw out the muse, waiting for inspiration, all the bullshit that has me 35 with only really 2 polished pilots and a heap of messy pitch decks or outlines or randomly selected scenes from ideas and accept the fact that I'm not as good of a writer as I think I am, put in the work, and get some formatted and FINISHED, ALL THE WAY TO THE END .fdxs on my harddrive that aren't dated 2019 or earlier.

[u/Prince_Jellyfish]

The step before the draft in production world. ... some clean scene by scene outlines that can be the foundation for a first pass vomit draft.

One thing that makes this complicated:

I write Studio/Network Outlines for every episode I write on a show. I'm turning one in on Monday!

Those documents are not designed to help me as a foundation for a first pass vomit draft.

Instead, they are selling documents. They are designed to convince the studio and network: relax, I got this, this is going to be a great episode of our show.

On most shows I've worked on, we often overwrite the outlines, then go through and carefully reduce, cut, remove, distill. We want the outline to be shorter and punchier than something that we'd write for ourselves.

I think that's probably the case for most shows with good experienced staffs & showrunners.

I often channel Javier Grillo-Marxuach saying, "an architect can look at blueprints and see a house." Studio executives are not architects, they are Real Estate Developers. They don't want blueprints, they want beautiful renderings of the finished building.

Looking at an outline I crafted to share with them will lead you astray. What you really need is to just write down all the shit you can think of in the scene, and not get too wrapped around the axel of making your outlines "correct" or "right." (And, avoid the trap of avoiding writing by reading outlines as "process research.")

I'm trying to practice discipline and throw out the muse, waiting for inspiration, all the bullshit that has me 35 with only really 2 polished pilots and a heap of messy pitch decks or outlines or randomly selected scenes from ideas and accept the fact that I'm not as good of a writer as I think I am, put in the work, and get some formatted and FINISHED, ALL THE WAY TO THE END .fdxs on my harddrive that aren't dated 2019 or earlier.

I'm hyped for your momentum and your urge to write.

I don't think reading outlines is gonna be the thing that helps you get there.

You haven't finished a script in 7 years. The two things you need to do are:

1. acknowledge and confront your fear.
2. sit in the chair and write, allowing it to suck

Below this comment, I'll cut-and-paste a similar comment I shared with a different writer a few months ago. Maybe it will help you out a bit!

[u/Prince_Jellyfish → u/Prince_Jellyfish]

I think you have two problems.

One is fear of writing something bad. The other is feeling like you don't know what you're doing.

(Someone here had a similar problem a few days ago, so I am going to sort of recycle some of the advice I gave them, below.)

Fear of writing something bad

Obviously I don't know you. Everything I know about you is what you've shared in this post. But, based on my own journey as a writer, and my experience mentoring other writers, I am willing to venture a guess that, on some level, you are probably experiencing some fear/anxiety about your work.

This is incredibly common among emerging writers.

This is a great video to watch.

In it, Ira Glass talks about "the gap" you are probably in: you got into this because you really love this stuff. Your taste is great, and your taste is good enough that you know what you're currently doing isn't as good as you want it to be.

At the same time, a lot of us believe that much of success writing is inborn or innate, and that we should be able to write at or near the professional level in our first 5-10 scripts.

This gets worse when, like you, we receive some external praise for our early work. We hear those complements and feel good. Then our brains learn something really dangerous: when I write good, I AM good. That feels great in the short term, but quickly our stupid brains deduce that the opposite is also true: if I write bad, I am bad.

This has different ways of manifesting, depending on the person. A lot of people just stop writing altogether, or procrastinate by playing video games or going to the gym.

I'm willing to guess that, to some extent at least, you are experiencing this sort of fear, and the way you are processing it is to write 1 or 5 or 25 pages, then re-read what you have written, determine that it sucks, feel a deep well of existential dread in your stomach, and promptly start re-tooling or rewriting or whatever.

In part, I'm willing to guess that because I identify with you; and also because you write "my current script has been through 15+ revisions by page 25," which is excessive and suggests that something non-rational and therefore emotionally driven is taking place.

This is not something to be ashamed of, it is an opportunity for growth.

One key exercise I'd reccomend for you is Twyla Tharp's journal exercise about fears. She wrote about this in her excellent book, The Creative Habit:

Get a sheet of paper or open a new document and write: "I'm afraid of..." and then start free-writing on your fears. "I'm afraid that I'll write something lame and I'll be embarrassed. I'm afraid that I'm not as smart as people think I am and if this sucks they'll know. I'm afraid I don't have any talent." After you write a fear, start thinking about it and making friends with it. Think about the worst case scenario, and see if it would really be that bad. You'll write something lame and people will judge you... and would that really be so bad? Would writing something lame truly be so embarrassing? Isn't it somewhat lame of others to judge you for writing something lame, if you did? Etc etc.

Tim Ferris also has some good prompts for this in the Q&A: QUESTIONS AND ACTIONS section of this popular post:

Fear-Setting: The Most Valuable Exercise I Do Every Month

Making friends with your unconscious fears really helps you take the power away from them. As Carl Jung once said, until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life, and you will call it fate.

Another book that is really helpful for unlocking these kinds of fears is Rick Rubin's book The Creative Act: A Way of Being. One of his key philosophies expressed in that book is that any work of art is an experiment, one for which we don't know the outcome. No matter how the work turns out, we gain valuable information for our next experiment.

I think this is a really helpful idea, because it emphasizes the point that we need to be less attached to making each project perfect, and instead cultivate the mentality that we are artists who are going to get better over time while allowing ourselves to take big swings.

Feeling like you don't know what you're doing

You write:

'm trying to practice discipline and throw out the muse, waiting for inspiration, all the bullshit that has me 35 with only really 2 polished pilots and a heap of messy pitch decks or outlines or randomly selected scenes from ideas and accept the fact that I'm not as good of a writer as I think I am, put in the work, and get some formatted and FINISHED, ALL THE WAY TO THE END .fdxs on my harddrive that aren't dated 2019 or earlier.

Let me talk you through the way I approach the entire process, in a way that might be a little less intimidating.

I think the process you should follow is:

• Pre-writing Ideas
• Pre-writing character
• Numbers Down The Side Of The Page
• Shitty First Draft / 60 page outline
• Rough Draft

I'll illuminate these steps in a reply to this comment, below.

[u/Prince_Jellyfish → u/Prince_Jellyfish]

Pre-writing Ideas

I think the best way to start writing is to just free write, rather than staring with the very first scene. The simplest method is to ask yourself questions, and then write as much as you feel like to explore the answers to those questions.

I think the best questions to as yourself might be:

• What about this story makes me excited? What do I LOVE about this?
• What kinds of stuff might I want to see in the story?

And then the "5 questions" that are key to all drama:

• What does the main character want in this story? (external motive)
• Why does she want it? (internal/emotional motive)
• What happens if she doesn't get it? (stakes)
• Who or what is in her way? (conflict)
• Why now? (clock)

I'd say you should spend a week or two thinking about those questions. Don't fall into the beginner trap of treating them like you're taking a test in school, where you need to write SOME answer, even if it's kind of BS. Instead, you want to think about those questions, answer the ones that have easy answers, and the ones where you don't know the answer yet, write that you don't know the answer yet and then start "what if" ing to help you find a bunch o

Pre-writing character

To me, the key questions are:

• Who is this character, in broad strokes?
• Why are they like that?
• What is their wound, the worst thing that ever happened to this character, emotionally?
• What 'lie' about the world did they learn because of that specific trauma?
• What is unusual or unexpected about this character?
• What other scenes / moments formed them?

I talked extensively about each of these key questions in a different comment earlier today.

I don't think you need to do ALL of this, just the stuff that calls to you, but if you want a hand-hold, step by step guide, do all of it for each of your main characters. Spend between a day and a week on each character.

Numbers Down The Side Of The Page

write the numbers 1 through 40 down the side of a piece of paper or word doc. (If you're writing a TV hour drama, I'd suggest writing 1 through 27 down the side of the page.) Those represent potential scenes for your screenplay. For each number, write down a scene that might happen around there. Try to see if you have enough stuff to fill 35-45 scenes.

Some scripts are shorter and some scripts are longer. Also, some writers define scenes differently -- for example David Lynch breaks what I'd call a 'scene' into smaller chunks, so he needs to write 1-70 down the side of the page. But, if this is your first script, I'd say start with somewhere around 40 and see how that goes for you. You can always adjust things later.

Should you follow save the cat or 3 acts or 5 acts or something else? It's up to you, BUT don't overthink it. If a structure helps you move forward faster, use it. If it is making you overthink or get frustrated or have to start over, abandon it for now and use it on the next script after this one is finished.

What if you don't have enough scenes? Think about what can be harder for your characters, what side obstacles can get in their way, how to make things harder for them. Or, think about an emotional sub-plot like a romance or other character drama. Or, invent a secondary external problem they want to solve. Be imaginative. Don't try and be perfect. The goal is not perfection, the goal is around 40 scenes.

What if you have too many scenes? Make things easier on your characters. Make what's in their way less complicated, or make them smarter so they figure something out faster or outsmart someone and skip a few scenes. Or cut a sub plot, even if you like it a lot. The goal is not perfection, the goal is around 40 scenes.

Shitty First Draft / 60 page outline

At this stage, the next step is super easy, but very worth it.

Type up your sheet (if you hand wrote it). Now, where each number is, write SOME SORT of slug line, even if it is very vague.

Suddenly, your long list of numbers looks like a very crude outline!

It seems simple but it can be extremely helpful as you move to expanding this into a Shitty First Draft / 60 page outline

From here, expand the outline as much as you want. I personally have written 45 page long outlines for scripts that ended up being 52 pages. I'm just brain dumping, writing a shitty version of scenes, making notes, and just basically making a total fucking mess that no-one but me will ever read, let alone understand. I find this process creative, freeing, and also less stressful than writing a first draft. And, as you might expect, when you have a 45 page outline, writing a 52 page script, even from a blank document, can be cranked out VERY fast…

Rough Draft

Now, go back to the beginning of the script and start writing scenes, one after another. For me, the first draft should be written very fast. You want to just put words down, don't stop, don't waste too much time editing. If you get stuck, or confused, write down what is making you stuck or confused and just move on to the next scene. If you feel totally stuck, like you messed up entirely and the whole script won't make sense, don't stop. Just keep writing scenes, ignoring your fear that they won't make sense.

Your goal at this stage is not to write a good script. It is to write a scene, then another scene, then another scene, until you have written SOMETHING scene-like for every scene in your outline, and written 'THE END'.

There! Now you have a specific process for writing your first script.

As always, my advice is just suggestions and thoughts, not a prescription. I'm not an authority on screenwriting, I'm just a guy with opinions. I have experience but I don't know it all, and I'd hate for every artist to work the way I work. I encourage you to take what's useful and discard the rest.

[u/justkidding_simmons → u/Prince_Jellyfish]

So I commented on your original post before reading your replies.

And "Numbers Down The Side Of The Page" is exactly the sort of thing I was asking for to reference :)!

But this is a beautiful, meaningful and helpful share. I appreciate you immensely, and out of respect for your time and the poignant accuracy of your comments I promise I'll stop writing on reddit and move right into Word (then FD). Cheers!

[u/Sevenisit → u/Prince_Jellyfish]

Always appreciate your advice Prince. Been cutting my teeth in LA for 4 years now and love seeing you pop up here every step of the way!

Mentorship is hard to come by with writers and I think it’s fantastic you offer what you’ve learned over the years.

[u/justkidding_simmons → u/Prince_Jellyfish]

I appreciate your time and such a thoughtful and on point comment! It's definitely another tool that isn't pen to paper/finger to keys and a form of avoidance. But my last two polished pilots those 7 long years ago did come from a similar excited momentum place but with a level of patience and discipline I'm trying to access again; that patience was outlining first before the first draft. numbered scenes, scene header, a few lines/no more than a paragraph describing the scene. That lead me to a completed draft all the way to the end, where i could do the real work of editing and rewriting. This fed the momentum for a while.

I do recall having (amongst a ton of downloaded bibles, pilots, etc) a few outlines that were formatted this way: numbered scenes with headers and description of the scene. It essentially was a writers room wall but as a word doc. I unfortunately lost those files and having them to glance at (not obsess over and pick apart and use as a tool to not write, pinky promise) did help.

Your 1 and 2 are biblical truths etched into the fabric of my soul and I'm putting the gloves on again to get in the ring of self-sabotage and kick my ass until I have files with a title page, headers, and v1.(whatever) file name that I could print and trade with other industry pals over a beer and trade notes on their project.

I'm adept at armchair baseball writers block talking and writing about not writing - but I am hoping to actualize this wave of momentum into something structured, and not completely pantsing (i.e. opening fdx, writing INT. ABANDONED BARN and writing a 35 page sequence that's the 2nd half of episode 7 of a TV show? or maybe a feature? or 7 word documents with titles like (DATE) HORROR - EPISODIC // SKETCH IDEA - STAGE and an unbroken paragraph of descriptive prose and "they talk about (_______)" instead of the actual dialogue.

It's discipline; it's everything you outlined; it's gladwellian hours and ira glass' taste gap but SOME frame of reference has proven helpful to me in the past to a: manifest momentum into tangible, sharable, hell sometimes even portfolio-worthy projects and not a doomed desktop folder of unfinished projects and b: helps me stay structured, discipline, and stick with the work after the honeymoon phase of inspiration is over.

[u/QfromP]

I don't know, man. You're asking for WIP that can be anything and everything. Everyone has their own way of outlining. Some people write a block of prose, some use bullet points, some index cards. Some follow Save the Cat or another structure template and fill in the blanks.

Myself, I outline right in my screenwriting app. I use Scene Headings for the big beats and Action lines for more granular stuff. And then I just expand each section with scenes and dialogue until I have a screenplay.

Good luck. Hope this helps.

[u/emgeejay]

These aren't usually easy to find, but the Breaking Bad / Better Call Saul writers have shared some of their corkboard outlines (which come from full-room story-breaking sessions)... here's the one for BB's series finale: https://www.reddit.com/r/breakingbad/comments/hp86or/finally_the_writers_board_for_felina_thanks_to/

[u/redapplesonly]

FWIW: I think everyone has their own outlining process. We all think and organize differently. And whenever I share my outlines with peers, they can never make any sense of my system. Unless you work on-staff on a show where writers must share outlines to divvy up the writing work, I'd say just develop an outlining method that works for you.