How does the plot become a script?

STEP ONE

Clearly write out your concept in a couple of lines: eg: "This movie is about "X, a happy dog trainer whose life is thrown into disarray when her faithful doggy companion Shoop is abducted by a rival dog training company." This sets out what your story is about as well as who your primary characters are. You should also try and figure out if this will be a comedy, a drama or horror story. This is called the "genre" of the film. (Producers need to know this or they get very confused.) However today we see more and more mixing of genres in the same film. No dialogue should be added until STEP SEVEN

STEP TWO

Write a paragraph outlining the story in a little more detail - this time adding in a few more characters and important events. Get a stronger feeling for how the thing will play out. We find out X has actually been rather lonely, we learn that there's a hot policeman in there too and there's a climatic shootout towards the end when Shoop is rescued. One could call this paragraph a short synopsis of your story.

STEP THREE

Write a longer outline of your plot. Depending on you, this can be anything from two to twenty pages. (You can also break this step into more steps and write increasingly longer outlines before proceeding to Step Four.). This pretty much establishes the basics of your plot and many of the twists and turns that may take place. Some also call this the "beats" of your script. You can add in stuff about the bad guys, who they are and their motivation for their actions.

STEP FOUR

Take your long outline and begin to break it up into one-or-two line paragraphs. Each paragraph should be a particular unique event. Eg:

What once was:

"X is woken up in the morning by Shoop's long tongue in her face. Later X drives to her dog-training school with Shoop panting in the back."

Becomes:

Paragraph one: X is woken up in the morning by Shoop's long tongue licking her face. Paragraph two. X drives to her dog training school with Shoop panting in the back.

STEP FIVE

Fill in more paragraphs to make the story flow well and add any other paragraphs needed to fill out the story and expand elements that need it. The paragraphs should include more detailed actions on how things happen.

STEP SIX

Turn these paragraphs into scenes. The concept of a scene is very difficult to explain and almost needs to be intuitively understood. I've never seen an adequate explanation or definition to-date. It helps a great deal to read as many scripts as possible to get a feeling for this. Nevertheless, roughly, a scene is an event that happens in a unique place and time.

E.g. The paragraph description:

Paragraph Sixty Five X arrives at the factory and after looking around discovers Shoop's dog leash in the bathroom.

Could be broken down into:

EXT. ABANDONED FACTORY. DAY X looks up at the front of the abandoned factory. A sign atop reads "NUWARE TILES". X walks up to the front door and opens it. INT. ABANDONED FACTORY FLOOR. DAY Walking through the dark factory building it becomes clear that there is no-one here anymore. Rubble and trash are strewn all over the floor. INT. ABANDONED FACTORY TOILET. DAY X opens the door to a filthy toilet and looks in. About to walk away she sees something. A dog's leash. Bending down she picks it up and realises that it is Shoop's leash.

INT/EXT: This refers to the location of the scene. If it is inside it is INT (for interior); if it is set outside it is EXT (for exterior). This should be followed by the location e.g. ABANDONED WAREHOUSE.

DAY/NIGHT: This refers to wether the scene occurs in the day or night. This follows the location.

STEP SEVEN

Start filling in dialogue as well as more detail under each scene. You should have a first draft completed by the end of this process.

STEP EIGHT, NINE, TEN, ELEVEN etc...

There's a corny but valuable saying about writing that goes: "Writing is not about writing - but about re-writing". The first draft will almost always be shit. It's in the refining, re-writing, re-plotting and fine-tuning that great scripts get made. Congratulations - you've written a script! Now wasn't that fun?