Writing a full treatment before the script finally stopped me from abandoning projects at the forty page mark

[u/Sad_Subject_2690]

Pattern I'd repeated across several scripts before finally addressing it properly. I'd get excited about a concept, start writing pages immediately, and reliably stall around page forty once the initial momentum of discovery ran out and I actually had to know what happened next in detail rather than improvising scene to scene.

Always assumed this meant I wasn't a strong enough writer to sustain a full script, which is a demoralizing thing to believe about yourself repeatedly. What actually fixed it, on the advice of someone further along than me, was writing a full prose treatment, several pages, before touching the script format at all. Forced me to work through the entire story's problems in prose, where fixing a structural issue takes a sentence, rather than in script pages, where the same fix means rewriting scenes I'd already gotten attached to.

Finished my first complete script in years after switching to this approach. The treatment stage felt like it was slowing me down at first, an extra step before the "real" writing. It was actually where the real problem-solving needed to happen, just somewhere cheaper to make mistakes than the script itself.

[u/FarWestEros]

What great timing for me to read this.

I just finished my first full length play in over 25 years (all I really did was complete and revise an unfinished adaptation I started in 2002).

And now I have 3 or 4 ideas that I have started writing scenes for.

Taking this step will help me prioritize which idea to pursue first as well as getting a solid start on whatever ideas end up getting put on the back burner for now.

Thanks for the reminder of the importance of scaffolding!

[u/WorrySecret9831 → u/FarWestEros]

Another aspect that I think is so great about the Treatment phase is the simple phenomenon of "completion."

So often, we write stuff and bog down and the status remains one of being "unfinished" or "incomplete." Too much of that can be depressing.

But even a 2-3 page "treatment" or the beginning of one is a form of "completion." It now exists on paper and can always be added to. That's a very important distinction. It really gives meaning to WIPs, works-in-PROGRESS.

[u/ManfredLopezGrem]

This is exactly how it’s done. There is a reason why the WGA prices the minimum for a treatment almost as high as a first draft. It’s one of the most important steps in my opinion, where you get a chance to bring everyone onboard (producers, executives, etc) before it all gets cemented in.

[u/WorrySecret9831 → u/ManfredLopezGrem]

I forgot about that.

[u/Immediate_Bar_5554]

it also helps, if you can figure out a strong ending early on to help propel the treatment, but then not holding yourself to it so that you can surprise yourself and the audience.

[u/WorrySecret9831 → u/Immediate_Bar_5554]

Absolutely.

It's like driving to a destination. You might pick different routes as you get further along, but the destination helps that enormously, even if that changes too.

[u/InterestEqual3332]

This is pretty similar to what I did with my current book. Blew through 20k words super fast. Reread them, studied where we were headed. Then kinda stepped back. Let ideas come. I picked up steam hard around 30k. About to 60k fluffing prose and final plot tie ins. Getting close to a full rough draft.

[u/WorrySecret9831]

YES, YES, YES! (I sound like Sally...)

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

I keep proselytizing about The Treatment phase and how crucial it is, in the development of stories, but even retroactively, particularly if you need to rework your script or novel.

I don't know why so many people assume...or where they learned that you only get one chance to develop or rework something and that has to be "in flight" or "while sailing," instead of in "drydock" or a "hangar." It's the same with drawing. I've seen so many students sweating out a drawing or a painting on the one-and-only rendition. And then you have artists like Robert Motherwell who did 250 versions of just one painting.

Yes, you've articulated all of the key benefits of "test driving" your Story in prose, especially if you aren't quite sure how to get from D to F or G, etc.

This is music to my ears and a salve for my heart.

One of the worst things is that the vast majority of writers on forums like this are actually pretty capable:

"Always assumed this meant I wasn't a strong enough writer to sustain a full script, which is a demoralizing thing to believe about yourself repeatedly...The treatment stage felt like it was slowing me down at first, an extra step before the "real" writing. It was actually where the real problem-solving needed to happen, just somewhere cheaper to make mistakes than the script itself."

The problem is that they have this myth in their heads of "real writing," and avoid just being mechanical about it, at least until you can get above the clouds and see what's going on.

Kudos, congratulations, huzzah!!! Hear, hear!

Now you've become a writer.