Write Step Outline of 12-15 steps/scenes for your script based on your revised story idea. Each step should contain 1–2 sentences that focus on the protagonist’s action in that scene. Each step should move the story forward (one more step) and reveal a different aspect of the story and the character.

 I’m working on a scriptwriting multi-part question and need an explanation and answer to help me learn.

Write Step Outline of 12-15 steps/scenes for your script based on your revised story idea. Each step should contain 1–2 sentences that focus on the protagonist’s action in that scene. Each step should move the story forward (one more step) and reveal a different aspect of the story and the character.

Think of the step outline as an outline for the film that you envision on your mind’s screen. Each step should capture, in one sentence, the action your character takes to go after what she wants. Before writing your steps, consider: Who is the main character? What does he/she want? What obstacles must she overcome? How is her predicament life and death?

Your steps should reflect your answers and describe what we’d seen on the screening using active, visual, and dramatic language, and present-tense action verbs. Your step outline should reflect the story’s beginning, middle, and end. Remember: We can’t see what a character is thinking or smelling. Only describe what we see on the film screen in your mind. Each scene or step should be preceded by a slug line (Int. or Ext., location, and Day or Night.)

No dialogue! Use visual storytelling and active present tense verbs to tell us the action the protagonist takes in each scene to go after what they want, and to show us how the obstacles to preventing this increase become bigger each scene. Act I: Include active opening scene that sets up character’s predicament; character’s want; dramatic premise; inciting incident. Act II: Character takes action against obstacles of increasing difficulty. What decision, at the end of Act II, is the character torn between? Act III: What is the climatic action the character takes at the opening of Act III? What is the resolution to the dramatic premise—and how has the character changed from the beginning to the end of the drama.

SHOW US! DON’T TELL US!

Act I: Include active opening scene that sets up character’s predicament; character’s want; dramatic premise; inciting incident. Act II: Character takes action against obstacles of increasing difficulty. Act III: Active, character-drive climax and resolution of the dramatic premise.

Before submitting, ask yourself: Do you have a clear, active main character with a life and death want? Do you have a clear dramatic premise and inciting incident? Are the stakes life and death? Do the obstacles increase in difficulty (Rising Action)? Does your character reach a point of no turning back and take a climactic action? Does the resolution answer the dramatic premise? Does your first scene open visually and powerfully and set up the character’s predicament? Does the last scene end powerfully and visually? Revise until the answers to these questions are clear.

Include a logline for your story:

A logline summarizes, dramatically and visually, in one to two sentences, the character and the dramatic conflict or decision they are facing. Including a cliffhanger, when possible, can make for a stronger logline. A logline can be a useful tool in helping you articulate the heart of your story.

Review:

Your Story Ideas should answer the questions in the assignment. They should be specific and visual. The character’s want should be clear — so should the obstacles (not simply “some obstacles”). Some of you are focusing on back story but not clarifying the character’s want, action, obstacles, and change having overcome the obstacles. (Think back to your first writing assignment: the self-reflection. Remember that all the assignments will build upon one another so that you might write your script more easily.)

5-Page Short Script Breakdown

Page 1: The Setup. Sets up the story visually and efficiently, including: the main character, their predicament, their want, what’s at stake, the timelock, the dramatic premise. Ends with the Inciting Incident.

Pages 2–4: The Rising Action. The main character takes action to overcome obstacles of increasing difficulty to get what they want. (That want never changes. It forms the Dramatic Spine.) This ends at the bottom of page 4 with the character facing the greatest obstacle of all and facing two equally difficult decisions.

Page 5: The resolution. This opens with the character’s climatic action — and the climax (what happens after the character takes that action). The remaining page shows us (visually) what happens after the character gets what they want and how they’ve changed from scene 1. (The change seen in the character in the last scene should almost be the exact opposite from where they were in scene 1.)

These pages are guidelines. But if, for example, your inciting incident appears on the bottom of page 2, you know you’re running very long for a 5-page script. If your resolution occurs on page 3, you know you have some fleshing out to do.

The Step Outline Breakdown

Should have approximately 12–15 steps (scenes) for a 5-page script. (So again, if you have only 5 or 25, you know you’re off.) Remember to write visually and in present tense, each step capturing the character’s action in 1–2 sentences. No dialogue. No thoughts. (We can’t see them on screen.) No smells. (Ditto.)

Scenes 1–3: The Setup

Scenes 4–9: Rising Action

Scenes 10–12: Resolution

Again, these are guidelines. Note that the Rising Action (Act II) is approximately double the length of the Setup and Resolution.

Writing Tips: Read the book. Read it again. Use the Short Script and Character Worksheets provided for you (Course Materials and in early assignments).

Write your Step Outline. Finish it. Allow new ideas to come to you. Go back and weave at least a hint of those new ideas into the Setup and/or Rising Action (so they don’t just magically appear in the Resolution).

Remember that the writing is in the re-writing. Step back. Then look at your Step Outline again.

Does your Setup clearly and visually set up your main character, want, and story (see Short Script Breakdown above)? Does it include an inciting incident? Do your obstacles increase in difficulty in the Rising Action? Does your character go through change in the Resolution?

Before submitting, ask yourself: Do you have a clear, active main character with a life and death want? Do you have a clear dramatic premise and inciting incident? Are the stakes life and death? Do the obstacles increase in difficulty (Rising Action)? Does your character reach a point of no turning back and take a climactic action? Does the resolution answer the dramatic premise? Does your first scene open visually and powerfully and set up the character’s predicament? Does the last scene end powerfully and visually? Revise until the answers to these questions are clear