[Watch the video interview on Youtube here]
Film Courage: Why do you say you can never have a good story without an outline?
Cody Smart, Writer/Script Doctor/Teacher: I think that outlining is good. I don’t know if you never necessarily have a good story but you’re going to be working on so many more drafts and spending so much more time than if you start with the basics. Sometimes people don’t physically outline, they just think about the story. I feel like if you track the emotional arc, if you kind of envision a structure and the journey of your character that will result in a better story. A lot of the times when I’m working with writers one of my notes is to go back to your outline because you have a good idea but it’s just not translating on the page because you’re trying to tell something and you’re not sure what the beats of the story or what the turning points are. Maybe you have a good premise, you want to get your hero from here to here, but that is not on the page because you’re trying to jam all of these little ideas that you have that you think will work but are not connecting to the arc. I think that if you set up an outline, whatever structure you follow through that structure, eight sequence approach, Save The Cat [Blake Snyder] whatever, if you map where you’re going, it will be much easier to…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
BIO:
Cody Smart is an independent writer and script doctor from Chile. She holds degrees in English Literature & Linguistics, Screenwriting, Development and Producing. She worked as a script analyst for Sony, she’s a judge for multiple script and film competitions, she’s written some award-winning shorts, she’s head of the coverage department at a script hosting site and she does a bi-monthly vlog with tips for Screenwriters for Story Data. She takes pride in helping writers take their work to the next level.
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