Choose a writing project with decision criteria

by Jenna | Oct 14, 2015 | Writing Articles

Today I'm continuing a series I started last week about choosing writing projects. This is the first post of the series where I'm delving into HOW to choose a project. In the last post I wrote about the issues and challenges that tend to come up for writers around choosing a project and what underlies them (spoiler alert, it's often some kind of perfectionism!) so that we can start to shift how we're thinking about it.

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More on mindset first

But first, a bit more on mindset before we explore "decision criteria":

I remember when I started the ProSeries at ScreenwritingU in 2011. I was concerned about picking the "right" project to work on. And I remember that our instructor (Hal) seemed to be relatively unconcerned about my choice, which at the time I found somewhat disconcerting. Hindsight being 20-20, however, I can see now WHY he was unconcerned. He knew that -- especially for someone like me, a then newbie screenwriter -- it didn't actually matter that much what I chose. It would be a learning script, and if I continued screenwriting, which is of course an assumption of the program, it would be one of dozens of scripts I would write.

It's hard to hold that in mind when we're choosing projects, especially because of the things we talked about last time ("It's so much work!" "What if I choose the wrong one?!" etc.), but if we take an eagle's eye view of our writing careers we can see that yes, this next project will be just one of many projects we work on in our lifetimes. Will it be a best seller or a runaway hit? Maybe, maybe not. But you can see that if you try to choose on that basis alone, you might get somewhat paralyzed.

Enter criteria

Hence the concept of criteria.

When you use criteria to select a project, you systematically narrow your field of ideas using a list of criteria that you choose in advance to help you make the decision.

Everyone has to choose their own criteria, there's no point in me telling you what they "should" be. I can, however, share with you some of the criteria I use and think about (and why) so that it might spark your thoughts about your own.

(Side note: I'll write about OTHER methods to choose projects in the rest of this blog series, including some intuitive methods. So if this particular method doesn't resonate for you, not to fret, there's more to come.)

Okay, so on to project selection using criteria.

Start with where you are right now

The first step is to think about where you are in your writing career and what you are hoping to accomplish.

For instance, are you trying to:

Establish yourself as a writer?
Figure out your brand?
Choose your first project?
Build an audience?
Break into Hollywood?
Something else?

I think you can see that each of these intentions have different outcomes, and so a project to fulfill them would ideally be picked with a specific intention in mind. And since the project you might choose to build an audience may be very different than the one you might choose if you are working on figuring out your brand, you'll use different criteria depending on what you are hoping to accomplish in order to narrow the field.

Have a list of projects

Also, assuming you're a writer with a ton of ideas you're trying to pick from, you'll want to have a list of projects that you can refer to as you make your decision. (If you're a writer who is struggling to come up with an idea -- any idea! -- that's a different issue that we'll have to tackle another day.)

Choose your writing project criteria

Here are some ideas I've used for writing project decision criteria (and I like to frame mine as questions). Although I've listed quite a few possible criteria, I ask my clients to come up no more than three to five criteria to when we make their project choice. More than that and they just get overwhelmed.

I've listed more than three to five here to give you some ideas of various criteria I've used at different times to get you thinking about possibilities for yourself.

Would I be thrilled to write this project? First off, I want to think about my attachment to the project. As long as I'm committing to a long form project, I want to ENJOY myself. This is my life after all, and it's too short to waste doing things I don't feel excited about. (You can also use the question from The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, "Does this spark joy?" as an alternate here.) This is about thinking about your level of passion, curiosity, interest, and attachment to a particular idea.
Does this project have a high level of clarity for me? Even though I love most of my project ideas, certain projects have more clarity for me. I know what they are about. I know why I want to write them. I know who the characters are. I know what the basic story is. If I don't know those things, perhaps I still have a good sense of the concept and feel that it will be relatively "easy" to develop, as opposed to something that has a lot of blank spots in it and feels hard and/or overwhelming.
Is this project marketable and/or high concept? Going in, I want to have a sense that the project will have legs in the marketplace. This can mean a number of things, for instance, that there's a trend or market interest in a specific genre, or that there's kind of a built-in audience with a high level of demand for a specific kind of project. Personally, I'm not that thrilled about chasing market trends because I know that they can change and/or that I might not catch the wave at the right time (I've read that what's on the marketplace book-wise right now was bought 18 months ago). However, I do like to know that there's a potential audience for what I'm writing, like time travel (my favorite!). I also like to know that I have a high concept if at all possible -- a project that people instantly "get" and want to know more about.
Does this project fit within my brand? Although there's a lot of resistance to branding, it's particularly helpful in the screenwriting world. This is because it helps potential buyers of your work recognize you in the field of writers. Without a brand, you're just one of many in a sea of thousands and thousands of writers. With a brand, people start saying things like, "Oh, yeah, I know a sci-fi writer, you should talk to Jenna Avery." So it behooves me to stick with projects that support and enhance my brand.
What's the potential budget for the project? If I'm picking a screenplay to work on (as opposed to a novel), I'll look at the potential budget for the project. I do this because I want to flesh out the slate of work I have available. Right now, I have two spec scripts that are on the high end for budget, so for my next spec script, I'll want to choose something in the low- or mid-range. Other writers might choose to always write high or low budget. Remember, I'm not suggesting that everyone should do what I'm doing here, but I'm rather sharing the things I think about with the hopes that they spark ideas for you.
Does it lend itself to adaptation? As a sci-fi screenwriter, I'm looking at writing novels and novellas that lend themselves to the screen, in that they are cinematic stories, structured like screenplays, and lend themselves to future adaptation for the screen. I'm exploring this option because oftentimes it's easier to pitch a screenplay in Hollywood (especially a big budget script) that already has a loyal audience in book form.
Does this project challenge me as a writer and will it help me grow my writing skill set? I like to choose projects that help me grow. For instance, writing low budget sci-fi brings a whole new set of challenges (it has to be more character- than plot-driven). I had a fabulous time writing a low budget script on assignment over the summer simply because it pushed my edges as a writer and expanded my writing repertoire significantly.
Will this project be easy to write? and/or Will this project be fun to write? On the other hand, sometimes when I'm on the more tired side, perhaps because I just pushed myself to write a complex, dark, or heavier project, it's nice to pick the next one to be on the "easier" or lighter side (notice I said easier, not easy) to create a sense of balance for myself.

Notice that most if not all of the questions have fairly simple Yes/No answers, they either are or are not true. And again, I wouldn't use all of these, I'd pick three to five to use, depending on what I was hoping to next accomplish in my writing career.

From here, I'd narrow my field of questions, then go over my list of potential projects, and see which of them meet the criteria. Then I'd sort them into an order and see which of them, if any, naturally rise to the top and/or fit the most criteria.

Over the next post or two, I'll write about putting projects in order of "best fit" to "least best fit for now" and a few more intuitive approaches to project decision-making. In the meantime, let me know what you think about using criteria to choose your project. Can you see any questions or criteria emerging for you that might help you choose what's next for you?

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There's an updated version of this post and the two others in the series, assembled into a How to Choose Your Next Book (Or Screenplay) Guidebook with an overview of the process in a PDF format, along with a workbook in a PDF and RTF format. You can import the RTF into Word or Scrivener and work with it there.

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Sci-Fi Circuit: Sci-Fi Storytelling, Part II — Structure & Budget

by Jenna | Nov 2, 2013 | Science Fiction, ScriptMag Articles

My Sci-Fi Circuit article on ScriptMag (part II of II) originally published on August 30, 2013.

This is a continuation of my last article, "Sci-Fi Circuit: Sci-Fi Storytelling, Part I -- Story Type, Mistakes, & Big Ideas", with screenwriting mentor Chris Soth. In Part 2 of this series, we'll explore the classic structure of a sci-fi screenplay, talk about an overlooked aspect budgetary considerations, and look at coming up with the next big sci-fi idea.

Structuring Your Sci-Fi Screenplay

As we discussed last week, Chris uses ten story types along with his mini-movie method to structure a screenplay. For sci-fi, he uses a supernatural story type(read more about what this means and why he uses it in last week's article).

The Opening

First, make it clear this is a supernatural sci-fi story. Chris says, "A supernatural story will have something supernatural occurring in the prologue or opening to demonstrate that the supernatural exists here. In a sci-fi story we might see advanced scientific phenomenon that defies laws of physics as we know them."

For example, Chris says, in the The Terminator, the time travel "bubble" appears right away with the Terminator. "Arriving naked in his blue electric bubble, he appears in our time. We know from perhaps the first frame that something supernatural is occurring."

So the movie begins with something to state the rules of this world -- something that doesn't exist in our present-day lives.

Other examples could include seeing a monster or an alien right away (Men In Black) or an asteroid headed toward Earth (Armageddon), or a space ship mining vessel being hailed from an nearby planetoid (Alien).

Often these openings do not feature the protagonist of the story. As an example Chris describes Men In Black, "It opens with illegals trying to cross the border from Mexico into the United States -- but they are space aliens. In that first scene, we see that aliens do live among us, and that we have an agency that deals with these space aliens and documents them. Those rules are set right away in the first scene." And Will Smith, our protagonist, does not appear in that sequence.

End of the First Sequence

Then, "about 15 minutes into the story (or about 15 pages in), the protagonist will be confronted with a vestige or repercussion of this same supernatural phenomenon and realize that something strange -- something scientifically unnatural -- is going on." The protagonist will be the reluctant hero who doesn’t want to deal with this phenomenon in his own world.

Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) meets Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) at this point in The Terminator. In Men In Black, Kay ( Tommy Lee Jones) meets the future Jay (Will Smith) and invites him to come to work with him.

End of the First Act

By end of first act, "our reluctant protagonist is locked in to taking action to deal with this supernatural phenomenon," like Sarah Connor is locked in to staying with Kyle Reese in The Terminator -- he's her only chance for survival.

At the end of the first act in Men In Black, Jay has become "locked in" to the MIB with the removal of his fingerprints and the erasure of his identity.

The Second Act

In the second act, the protagonist battles the supernatural phenomenon. This might look like a series of battles between alien and human spaceships (Independence Day) or between the protagonist and a monster (antagonist) (The Terminator or Aliens).

"At the midpoint," Chris explains, "classically, there will be an unexpected expansion on the rules of the supernatural or sci-fi phenomenon. For example, in Alien, the creature grows much, much faster than anyone thinks is possible."

"Or in The Terminator, Sarah is told she’ll be mother of the savior of the human race, John Connor. At the midpoint, there's a sex scene between her and Kyle Reese, and we realize he’s conceived then. She is now bearing the progeny of future, fathered by his own best friend -- an unexpected consequence of the supernatural phenomenon."

End of the Second Act

At the end of Act 2, this phenomenon threatens to destroy our hero and the world.

To develop the low point at the end of Act Two (as well as all your structure beats), Chris recommends asking yourself, "What is this idea? How is the world different? What would it be like to live in a world like that? At end of second act, how could that spin out of control and threaten to destroy the world?"

For example, The Planet of the Apes movies delves into the question of "What if we had apes who were our slaves? Then they might revolt and overthrow us and become the masters of the human race" to come up with the low point at the end of Act Two.

The Third Act

In Act 3, "very generally, there is a battle in which the hero destroys and vanquishes the supernatural power or is vanquished and destroyed by by it. Or she or he goes up against an enemy with a similar power. At a minimum, the phenomenon will destroy our hero or change him or her, and the world, forever."

Budget Considerations

Although sci-fi is typically thought of as something only big studios can do, Chris points out that "Everybody makes an indie movie to react against what studios can with supernatural and sci fi, and yes, it's true you can’t do what the studios can do with big budgets. But you can have aliens. You can write to budget. There are movies that feature aliens that look like human beings but are defined as aliens. You could make a movie about an alien who came to dinner for same price as a movie about anybody who came to dinner. Look for sci-fi conceits that don’t rack up huge effects budgets. There are some good low budget sci-fi films out there, like Safety Not Guaranteed."

He also mentions the importance of knowing "what's been done." If you're writing a big budget script, give some thought to "pre-branding" with a novel, a graphic novels, or webisodes if possible. It's useful to have the project perceived as a success in another area before trying to sell it as a big budget screenplay. Luckily, he points out, "there's a lot of precedent for success in the sci-fi genre. It's got the biggest franchises in the world, like Star Wars. The supernatural story paradigm is huge and beats everything up -- it's a huge part of the box office every day."

Be On the Look Out For the Next New Idea

Chris says "the real excitement in sci-fi is coming up with the new idea. As technology advances, that’s where sci-fi ideas are going to come from, like magical cell phones that get smarter and smarter, the technology we all run into every day. Super powers people have that can be given a scientific explanation, like Superman, which is actually a sci-fi conceit -- he is an alien after all, come here from a different planet in a spaceship. Tony Stark of Iron Man is all about the technology. Avatar came the closest to being something new. It was a new type of sci-fi story (that verges on fantasy) made by setting a classic revolt story on an entirely different world."

And while you're at it, Chris advises, "Always ask yourself, what’s this got to do with people and humanity now? How is this a metaphor for understanding the human condition? Use sci-fi to reveal the truth about the world as it is now. For example, you might regret a past action, keep revisiting it, and but then realize you would do it again the same way." That idea could be explored in a time travel story.

Thank you, Chris!

About Chris Soth

Chris Soth is a writer, director, and producer who has authored over 28 screenplays and is a frequent speaker on the topics of story structure and independent filmmaking, teaching screenwriters around the world how to write great screenplays and pitch them for success. Chris is the writer of Firestorm, released by 20th Century Fox, and the independent hit Outrage: Born In Terror. He has taught at USC and UCLA, and has guided screenwriters from concept to FADE OUT using the “Mini-Movie Method” through his mentorship program. He is the author of the ebook “Million-Dollar Screenwriting: The Mini-Movie Method.”

[Original article at ScriptMag]

Image by Reimund Bertrams from Pixabay