Writing for Visual Media, 2nd Edition

The Stages of Script Development

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Scriptwriting is a process. It begins with gathering information, thinking, analyzing, and questioning, and ends with devising a creative visual idea. This idea then needs to be developed through some kind of outline or treatment and then be scripted in a format appropriate to the medium concerned. This script format lays out a set of descriptive instructions in a special language about what is to be seen on the screen and heard on the sound track. We can break the scriptwriting process down into well-recognized stages. In fact, they are so well-recognized that the stages have names that are also reflected in the contractual agreements that sometimes govern professional writing of this kind. Let us outline ...