Only My Scriptwriting

Three Plus Nine Plus Eighteen Equals Thirty

Three Plus Nine Plus
Eighteen Equals Thirty

I’m not sure how this happened. Especially during a weekday aka Thursday morning. I got a total of thirty single paragraphs written for Part One of the Movie Introduction to my Water Wars scriptwriting project. The last three were three lines long, the four-line long ones there were nine, and the five-line long ones were eighteen.

At least I think that’s how many single paragraphs I have written earlier today. I’m still now sure about their handwriting of them compared to the computer transcription. I think those line numbers will be okay for most of them, but there are a few that I may need to adjust a little. Some I may have to re-write a lot. It all depends on how many characters are in each word and line.

I count each word in a paragraph and multiply it by five. Then I add multiples of fives for the total number of lines a paragraph can be for that scene line number or in the case of Story Outlines like these have been so far character line numbers. Does that make any sense? It’s very, very confusing to me, and I’m the one who is writing it.

Let me try this with an example. Each written line is about forty-five characters long. Multiply it by the number of lines for each character, scene, or Establishing Shot, and I get how many lines I need to write for each paragraph. My three lines for my Teaser and Tag Acts in the Story Outlines and my Establishing Shots for my Scene Outline are three point five written lines.

For my four-line paragraphs, the total handwritten line is five, and for the five-line paragraphs, the total is six point two five. I haven’t done any six-line paragraphs so far because they are only in the Scene Outlines, and I’m not ready to do them yet. If I remember correctly, the total for them is seven point five handwritten lines.

Does that explain how I write my Story Outlines and eventually my Scene Outlines? My scripts are completely different from my Outlines. With my Outlines, there is a pattern to my madness, but with my scripts, they are based on scriptwriting formats and the length limits of each scene within that format. There are some similarities in the length limits, but not that many.

I’m still not sure how I got thirty single paragraphs written earlier today at work. The only thing that I can think of is that I have written so many drafts of these that it makes them easier to write. What draft number is this anyway? It must be in the hundreds by now. I don’t think it’s quite that many, but it may not be too far off from the truth. I have written a lot of them.

Based on earlier today, tomorrow I should be able to get a little over thirty single paragraphs written. After all, the first fifteen are three-line ones. Six to end Part One of this Movie Introduction and nine to start Part Two. Don’t know if I can get three more Acts after that, but if I can that will equal thirty-three single paragraphs at work tomorrow morning.