Step 2: Review your notes

Throughout the course, you have recorded in your script journal what jumped out in terms of formatting and style for both Wait List, and the Forgery scrippets.

Today, you will review and collated the notes, and organise them in a somewhat cohesive manner.

Suppose you noted down the following:

• Wait List had short sentences and paragraphs.
• Wait List reads quite fast.
• Characters in WL are clearly defined.
• Jurassic Park used visual and auditory cues
• Juno’s character didn’t speak naturally
• Some scene headings are missing DAY or NIGHT
• Inception focused on visible action.
• Some scripts had typos
• It was easy to write the synopsis from my daily summaries.
• Each time we reached the end of a section in WL, I wanted to continue reading.
• It felt like each section ended on a cliffhanger

Then, you could organise these in the following way:

FORMATTING

• Some scene headings are missing DAY or NIGHT

STYLE

• Some scripts had typos
• Inception focused on visible action.
• Wait List reads quite fast.
• Wait List had short sentences and paragraphs.

CHARACTER

• Juno’s character didn’t speak naturally
• Characters in WL are clearly defined.

STRUCTURE

• It was easy to write the synopsis from my daily summaries.
• Each time we reached the end of a section in WL, I wanted to continue reading.
• It felt like each section ended on a cliffhanger

Tomorrow, you will interpret these notes, and collate them into a few meaningful conclusions.

Doing this, you are literally learning to interrogate how scripts are similar and at the same time different. You will have noticed patterns, trends, and (seeming) contradictions.

All of this is useful in forming your own opinion about what does and does not work. Along the way, you will also choose those style elements that resonate with you, to ultimately develop your own stylistic voice.