• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Marilyn Horowitz

Marilyn Horowitz

Screenwriting Classes, Coaching, and Resources

212-600-1115
  • Home
  • About
  • Writing Services
  • Guidance
    • Writing Evaluation
    • Writing Guidance
    • Comprehensive Packages
    • Ongoing Coaching
  • Classes & Seminars
    • New York University Classes
    • Seminars
    • Free Video Tutorials
    • Movie Breakdowns
    • Online Stores
  • Books & Media
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Word of the Day
    • What is the Word of the Day?
    • Word of the Day Cheat Sheet
    • Free Word of the Day Webinar

Write Your First Draft Right

October 25, 2019 by Marilyn Horowitz

Happy Friday!

This week I worked on two projects, one a novel, and the other a TV script.

Both projects had the identical problems, and I’ve seen them
many times — a chunky, incomplete draft full of flat scenes, weak dialogue and story logic mistakes. There’s no reason to write a first draft this way. Here’s the solution: prepare!

Neither of my students prepared an outline of the whole story. Nor did they write a treatment or any kind of summary that went from the beginning to the end of the story.

The purpose of this process is that our creative unconscious needs to tell some version of the whole story so that it can be revised. And also to create a sense of security that the story will be completed.This doesn’t mean that you’ll execute the outline exactly as you’ve created it, and the end the story may be completely different, but your creativity will be greatly enhanced because the unconscious part of you now has a safe vessel to pour the story into.

Here’s the process:

1. Write your story down briefly as a synopsis.

2. Expand that into a one-page story written in the past tense. Using the past tense helps you access your knowledge of the many books you have read.

3. Now organize the one-page synopsis into scenes.

4. Create a two or three-page treatment that describes the story visually in the present tense.

By this point, you will have solved many story problems such as logic, stakes, plot twists and turns.

5. Once you have completed the treatment, you are now ready to prepare a scene by scene outline using the Mythic Journey Map.

6. The final step is to begin writing, and try to get through a whole draft before going back to revise.

If you follow this plan, your first draft will be well organized well written and easy to revise.

Here’s to your successful writing,

Professor Marilyn Horowitz

Primary Sidebar

Sign Up

for our Screenwriting Newsletter and Receive Our FREE Gift How To Write a Treatment.

Testimonials

Thank you. If it hadn’t been for you Marilyn, I don’t think I would have made the Woodstock film which… Read more “Nancy C.”

I’m very grateful to be able to learn from Marilyn, Her focus on the psychological and spiritual foundations necessary to… Read more ““…grateful to learn from Marilyn””

Marilyn’s techniques helped me stop overthinking and start writing! She gave me exercises to take the pressure off beginning a… Read more “The Word of the Day”

You are always a light. Thank you.

Desiree

“Working with Marilyn Horowitz has challenged every aspect of my creative process from conception to preparation, and most importantly, execution.… Read more “– Larry Lowry”

- Larry Lowry
Writer/Producer, Nickelodeon
View All Testimonials

Television Writing Evaluation & Guidance

Screenwriting Evaluation & Guidance

Classes & Seminars

Footer

Connect

Contact

CLASSES

Contact the office at 212-600-1115

MEDIA & SPEAKING INQUIRIES

Contact Marilyn Horowitz at 212-600-1115

PUBLISHING & FILM INQUIRIES

Contact Koehler Books at 757-289-6006

  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Home
  • About
  • Writing Services
  • Guidance
    • Writing Evaluation
    • Writing Guidance
    • Comprehensive Packages
    • Ongoing Coaching
  • Classes & Seminars
    • New York University Classes
    • Seminars
    • Free Video Tutorials
    • Movie Breakdowns
    • Online Stores
  • Books & Media
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Word of the Day
    • What is the Word of the Day?
    • Word of the Day Cheat Sheet
    • Free Word of the Day Webinar
Copyright © 2023 · Marilyn Horowitz. All rights reserved.