Recently I received an email from a former online student. He had taken several classes with me, but the entire time resisted my pleas to try any formalized work on story structure before typing FADE IN. Character development? No problem. Working out major plot points, let alone a beat sheet or outline. Not gonna happen.

Well, lo and behold, this student emails out of the blue to tell me that he finally tried writing a script after having drafting an outline. He was musing about his new story and decided to dig out the notes from one of my classes that covered prep-writing. His experience (and I quote):

“It was like night and day.”

Best writing experience he ever had. Felt more confident than ever as he wrote script pages. Understood his story so much better. Cut in half the number of drafts required in the rewrite phase. And here was the money quote:

“I actually had fun writing.”

Now you know me. I’m not going to tell you or anybody else you must do an outline. As I’ve said before many times, there is no right way to write. Every writer is different. Every story is different. But this student’s email inspired me to draft this post providing you with 3 reasons why prep-writing is so important.

#1: You are much, much more likely to finish the script rather than abandon it midway. I’m convinced that the major reason writers quit script projects is because they haven’t done the hard work in the prep-writing phase to crack the story. Anybody can write a first act and get 15-20 pages into the middle part of a script. But around P. 50, when you’re not sure what you’re doing or where to go, either one of two things happens: You try multiple narrative paths to get through the story, oftentimes getting lost and having to retrace your steps, but somehow manage to find your way to FADE OUT; or you do all that, but lose your patience to get to the end and you quit. If, on the other hand, you have cracked the spine of your story in prep-writing, no matter what happens, you always have those major plot points as guideposts at which you can aim as you plow through writing your pages.

#2: The way I teach prep-writing, it’s not just about the plot, it’s also about the characters. Indeed, I believe it works best when your plot derives from the work you do on your characters. With that approach to prep-writing, you not only have the benefit of figuring out your Plotline, you also understand your characters much more thoroughly than if you waited to see what they do and who they become when you start writing pages.

#3: Doing character work and cracking the story’s plot as part of prep-writing is how most professional writers, TV or film, work. Yes, there are exceptions, I know. Go back and read what I said up top: There’s no right way to write. But most professional writers work on their story and understand as much about their characters as they can before they type FADE IN.

At a weekend workshop I led in L.A. a year or so ago, I invited one of my former students Lisa Joy to speak to the class. She wrote on the ABC series “Pushing Daisies” and currently writes on the USA series “Burn Notice.” One of my students asked her about her process in writing an episode for a TV series. Lisa immediately stood up, went to the white board, drew six vertical lines, turned around, and said, “That’s where we start. Six commercial breaks.” Even before they kick around story concepts, the writers know going in that they have to figure out the act breaks. And when do you think they figure that out? While they’re writing? No. They work out the plot and those key act breaks before they start page-writing.

Let me put it another way. Let’s say you are up for a movie writing assignment at Paramount. And it’s come down to you and Writer B. Writer B shows up for her meeting and walks the exec through the story, sequence by sequence, taking them through the story’s beginning, middle, and ending. A tight 20 minute overview of the story structure and key character dynamics. Then you walk in and when asked how you see the story, you reply, “Sorry, I don’t work that way. I type FADE IN, then find the story as I write.”

Which writer do you think the studio exec will feel more comfortable with? Which writer do you think will more than likely land that gig?

I’ve heard pretty much every argument against extensive prep work and especially working from an outline.

* I want to be surprised by the story as I write. Okay, fine. Can’t you be surprised by it as you work it up during the prep-writing phase? Aren’t the surprising discoveries about characters and plot you make before you type FADE IN as valid as those that occur after?

* It feels restrictive. In fact, it should feel precisely the opposite. If you’ve really dug into your story and worked it out in prep-writing, once you type FADE IN, you should feel freed up to worry about the actual pages you write, not frantically trying to find the story. You’ve already found it, now spend your time handling scenes, looking for themes that bubble up, listening to your characters to catch their unique voices, and so on.

* What if my characters want to do something different than my outline? You should be so lucky! That suggests you invested enough time and energy with your story that it’s come alive. Then you do like any sensible writer should do: follow your characters. That may cause you to veer from your outline or you may end up exploring other options only to come back to what you worked up in prep-writing. The thing is you have that choice, you’re not chained to the outline. In fact, chances are that your characters came ‘alive’ in large part due to the fact that you spent all that time working the story in the prep phase.

* It’s too much work. This is simply ridiculous. Yes, it’s work. But all writing is work. Is it any more work if you spend 6 weeks in the prep phase, then a first draft, a rewrite draft, and an edit draft, as opposed to leaping into FADE IN, then going through 5, 7, 10 drafts until you’ve ‘found your story’? In my experience, doing the necessary work in prep virtually assures you that you will spend less time getting to your final draft.

Or as my student said, “I actually had fun writing.”

Let me end by suggesting this: If you’ve never written a story outline before, I strongly recommend you try it, if only once. You owe it to yourself to see if it’s something with which you resonate or not. If not, fine. You know that at least for this part of your writing life, you do not want to work from an outline. But I’m guessing it’s more likely that you will learn to love doing substantial character and plot work… yes, even an outline… as part of your prep-writing.

Here endeth my sermon!