Writing the Walkthrough
Nov. 5th, 2008 06:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cedar_groveToday see's part 3 of the series of journal posts showing through which the episodes come to be...
Writing a Walkthrough
A walkthrough is just that... it is a step by step breakdown of what will happen in each episode of the story. When I start to write a walkthrough, all I have to begin with is the brief paragraph that's previously been written, the summary, and the image I've created as the banner. From there I sit down and make a kind of 'brainstorm' of what needs to be included... what and where the conflicts occur, how are solutions reached, what unresolved questions will be answered or left unresolved. I end up with something like this:-
Actually the one for Mantle has been far less confused and confusing than the ones for previous episodes/stories have been. Once I have that, I try to reorganise it, rearrange it so that it makes sense, is broken down by character into smaller steps and so on... and then colour code for which act it will appear in. Finally ending up with something that looks like /this/:-
Once I have that then it's time to switch to the computer, type the event flagged for each act into a table, and then check that the whole and entire thing a) makes sense, and b) is roughly balanced with the number of things that happen in each act, which looks something like this:-
And so I have my walkthrough, the events of which are then cut and pasted into word doccuments, rearranged to give the best possible flow for each act, and then it's time to start writing.
A Word About Evolving
As anyone who writes will tell you, no matter how well planned your plots are, sometimes the characters just throw you curve balls. Things happen that you never expected, but which add more excitement or extra dimensions to a person or situation and are just too good to cut/ignore/change etc... but then you find in the wake of these events or sometimes just information that things further down the line will need to change/expand... you will need to add things, take them away... When this happens, I make a note in the appropriate box on the season map, or if it affects, say, the /next/ episode, I'll start a 'notes' file for that episode.
For example, recently, I wrote one episode in which neither Michael nor Teyla were supposed to appear, and yet - as I began writing - it made more sense for Michael to be a part of the story... and so that changed, and he was.
Unless something is /very/ off the wall, I won't usually throw it out.
Tomorrow - last in the series - the 'Public Parts'
Writing a Walkthrough
A walkthrough is just that... it is a step by step breakdown of what will happen in each episode of the story. When I start to write a walkthrough, all I have to begin with is the brief paragraph that's previously been written, the summary, and the image I've created as the banner. From there I sit down and make a kind of 'brainstorm' of what needs to be included... what and where the conflicts occur, how are solutions reached, what unresolved questions will be answered or left unresolved. I end up with something like this:-
Actually the one for Mantle has been far less confused and confusing than the ones for previous episodes/stories have been. Once I have that, I try to reorganise it, rearrange it so that it makes sense, is broken down by character into smaller steps and so on... and then colour code for which act it will appear in. Finally ending up with something that looks like /this/:-
Once I have that then it's time to switch to the computer, type the event flagged for each act into a table, and then check that the whole and entire thing a) makes sense, and b) is roughly balanced with the number of things that happen in each act, which looks something like this:-
And so I have my walkthrough, the events of which are then cut and pasted into word doccuments, rearranged to give the best possible flow for each act, and then it's time to start writing.
A Word About Evolving
As anyone who writes will tell you, no matter how well planned your plots are, sometimes the characters just throw you curve balls. Things happen that you never expected, but which add more excitement or extra dimensions to a person or situation and are just too good to cut/ignore/change etc... but then you find in the wake of these events or sometimes just information that things further down the line will need to change/expand... you will need to add things, take them away... When this happens, I make a note in the appropriate box on the season map, or if it affects, say, the /next/ episode, I'll start a 'notes' file for that episode.
For example, recently, I wrote one episode in which neither Michael nor Teyla were supposed to appear, and yet - as I began writing - it made more sense for Michael to be a part of the story... and so that changed, and he was.
Unless something is /very/ off the wall, I won't usually throw it out.
Tomorrow - last in the series - the 'Public Parts'
