As a story-structure nerd, I would absolutely love to hear (and talk!) more about your system outlining plot points/scenes etc. Part of me really wants to explore creating tools to help writers/screenwriters manage story structure - though, as you say, there are such wildly different approaches, that maybe it's impossible to constrain it by software.
I do wonder, though, if taking a 'user problem solving' approach would work, it'd certainly be fascinating to be part of a team where the user/audience are writers, and making things to help them!
I, too, love story structure, but at the moment, it's much easier to analyse someone else's structure than create my own!
I did a script editing for TV course last year which really helped me understand structure more clearly, but I'd already written most of Tag by then, so the process I'm going through now is to go back and retrofit the extra storylines first. And after that, I can do another pass to tweak the structure. That said, I got one of the script analyses back and the editor saw a clear 5 act structure, which I am going to confess must have been put there by my subconscious because I certainly didn't plan it that way!
For any new works, I'll pay a lot more attention, so I'll be plotting out key plot points within an act structure and then seeing if that still works when I come to write. I've never been much of a plotter before, though that might also explain why I've not been that much of a finisher either.
But I think a lot of the learning around screenwriting is about internalising the structure and technique and then letting it pop out naturally. I'm hoping that all the work I've done on Tag will help me to do that next time.
As a story-structure nerd, I would absolutely love to hear (and talk!) more about your system outlining plot points/scenes etc. Part of me really wants to explore creating tools to help writers/screenwriters manage story structure - though, as you say, there are such wildly different approaches, that maybe it's impossible to constrain it by software.
I do wonder, though, if taking a 'user problem solving' approach would work, it'd certainly be fascinating to be part of a team where the user/audience are writers, and making things to help them!
I, too, love story structure, but at the moment, it's much easier to analyse someone else's structure than create my own!
I did a script editing for TV course last year which really helped me understand structure more clearly, but I'd already written most of Tag by then, so the process I'm going through now is to go back and retrofit the extra storylines first. And after that, I can do another pass to tweak the structure. That said, I got one of the script analyses back and the editor saw a clear 5 act structure, which I am going to confess must have been put there by my subconscious because I certainly didn't plan it that way!
For any new works, I'll pay a lot more attention, so I'll be plotting out key plot points within an act structure and then seeing if that still works when I come to write. I've never been much of a plotter before, though that might also explain why I've not been that much of a finisher either.
But I think a lot of the learning around screenwriting is about internalising the structure and technique and then letting it pop out naturally. I'm hoping that all the work I've done on Tag will help me to do that next time.