3 Act Structure Anchor
I was stuck due to the organic/random approaches I have to a few screenplays I have in progress & being so new to this.
One story, is based on a traumatizing/painful true life event. I began writing that from my POV which made it hard to translate into a screenplay. I don't see this film being narrated by the protagonist as that would take the audience of out the experience.
The other two stories were birthed out of dreams. I scribbled them while still half asleep. One is a TV series episode of a drama/thriller show. The other, is a anthology Black Mirror type episode or short story. This one has random, treatment style storytelling that doesn't quite work well in a screenplay (at least not without lots of adjustments).
Because of the messy nature of how these ideas hit paper (while navigating neurological injuries), I got stuck in how to turn these into clean screenplays...how to move forward 🤯 So, I went back to basics & briefly wrote out the 3 acts for each story: beginning, middle, end. Woo! I'm sure this is a pretty obvious/basic approach but what a relief this has brought 😮💨 It's weird how you can feel like you know all the beats in your head but it's quite different once you write it out.
Feedback
Wondering, do you all deal w/ this challenge? Messy beginnings that make for difficult formatting, once it's time to turn from story to screenplay? Do you start w/ scenes or treatment? What's your approach? Or is it random based on inspiration?
Coming from a background in songwriting, for now, it feels good to let it flow organically at the beginning but can make for a mess when trying to turn this into something tangible (so far).