From the idea to the outline to the beat sheet to the synopsis to the full-blown fleshed-out treatment, you’ve got to get your story clear in your head before the actual writing begins. Prematurely cranking out pages without first tending to the heavy lifting is an ideal way to eventually find yourself buried in copious amounts of pain, rewriting, and wasted time. But with a solid treatment, the actual crafting of your novel or screenplay should theoretically be a joy.
While the core idea behind the ‘The Terminator’ (1984) is surprisingly simple, it’s also mind-numbingly huge. The story’s resulting plot is therefore relatively complicated with lots of critical details about its world, so tightening everything up into a comprehensive summary was not a job for the unskilled. James Cameron’s legendary 17,000-word treatment of the piece is regarded as something of a clinic among writers of high-concept fiction. [click to continue…]
