TREATMENTS...

I used to HATE treatments.

Never used to write them unless I had to. And even then it was usually after the fact, having written a full script, or at least some kind of longer document, but discovering someone else really wanted one.

I still find them problematic. Conveying the exitement of an idea in such a way as to grab the readers imagination, but not giving them every last beat of the script.

Recently I've had a turnaround. I've got so many ideas on the go, that it just seemed practical (and quicker) to write treatments for them all, so that there was something concrete to give to people if they were interested/wanted to read.

My thinking being that - since I still work full time - I don't have the time to just sit down and blast the scripts out, so why not work them up to being ready to go, and let fate/interested parties decide which one goes to script first. And if no one makes that decision, well I'll slowly work my way through them anyway. No harm, no fowl. Everyone's a winner...

In the process, I've had a bit of a breakthrough.

When I first sit down to write a treatment, it isn't just a 'treatment'. It's the first draft of the script.

I write a very detailed, often undisciplined treatment, knowing that I'll cut it back. But that first moment of throwing paint at the canvas, is like an info dump. I write it fast. As fast as I can, pouring everything I think I know about the script/story out onto the page.

That's not to say I don't pay any attention to how it's going to read.

I'd be a very poor writer I think, if I did that. But I don't let it get in the way.

I write to be read. I write to excite - myself as much as anything. And as ever the process of writing, of pouring the stew of ideas out onto the page, seems to act like a sieve, cutting out the fat. Details leap out at me, flag themselves as key. Images and core points crystalise, and push you in more definate, honed directions. The story starts to find itself, define itself. Well, that's writing...

And I guess that's where I was going wrong before. I thought of the treatment as a condensation. Now it's part of the process. A first step to finding what the story/script really wants to be.

The treatment isn't just the 'treatment'. It's the first draft of the script...

Thinking of it that way makes it more integral. More useful. Less like something that's getting in the way. Less like something that seemed like it was just for lazy financers who couldn't be bothered to read a script (come on you know you've often thought it when you're trying to boil a big idea down without killing it dead).

It's an important step in the creative process now. A really helpful step.

It helps to order all my thoughts BEFORE I'm knee deep in the finer details of how one scene cuts to the next, or the implications of a single word of dialogue.

And it's fun. It feels a lot like telling myself the story for the first time again, seeing what works. Why the idea was exiting when I had it. And if I can tell the whole thing (even allowing for some narrative gaps filled in with notes) and make it work, find the shape in the treatment. It's pretty certain I can make it work as a script. Writing the treatment first gives you confidence. By the end of it, you're already partway there.