Welcome to DAY FIVE in the thirty days to a first draft screenwriting thread.
Now is where the NOTECARDS are put to use.
Find an area where you can lay out the Notecards and find an order to them.
You can lay them out on a table to start. Or you might tack them to a corkboard if you have one, but the table is good. You are going to place the cards in the order you think they come in.
You should start to see the story forming. Don’t worry, you don’t need to know it all yet. We only want to outline up until the End of act ONE, or PLOT POINT ONE. We will stop between each act to outline some more as we go.
You can download the outline I use HERE.
Lay out the plot points for act one. Here’s what you need to figure out:
An opening image, This could be something poetic that hints at the larger themes of the movie. The ordinary world stage. This is where we meet the character and see their everyday world. The INCITING INCIDENT. The event that kicks off the story. Then they will be called to take some action to change their life. They’ll refuse at first, and then something will force them to do it anyway. That is PLOT POINT ONE.
You can check out my video on Three-act structure for more guidance, But only worry about act one right now.