Script Frenzy tips?

[Baney Cakes]

I am looking for general tips from those who have participated (and hopefully won) before. This will be my first year attempting this and I would love some insight from the more experienced.

[Desi the fuzzy fluffhead]

I did it last year and the thing that worked best for me was a lot of superfluous dialog.

100 pages really isn't that much to do in a month, but you've got to stay on top of it. Try to keep a schedule and a daily quota the best you can and have fun with it.

[enchantedsleeper]

Hey, do we have an official Script Frenzy discussion thread this year? You should make one again, Desi biggrin

@Bane: I think one of the most solid pieces of advice that can be given either for NaNoWriMo or Script Frenzy is to never stop adding to your script. Even if you feel like you're falling behind or having an off day, just 'check in' and add a few lines or read through what you've got, and you never know what you might be inspired to write. Or even if you're not inspired to write at that moment, you subconscious will keep working on it all the same and it'll be that much easier to keep going later on. Just don't delete anything, and don't stop adding to that script. I have a friend who took part in NaNoWriMo for the first time last November, and even though she felt like she was falling behind for most of the month, she suddenly realised that thanks to her adding little bits here and there every day, she wasn't that far off her target after all, and with one last manic push she made the 50k!

Superfluous dialogue will certainly get your page-count up, but I think it's one of those tricks which will see you through the initial challenge of Script Frenzy all right but not necessarily give you a good script later on. Of course, if you've hit a complete block and some superfluous dialogue is just the thing to get you unstuck on a scene and forging on with the script, then it's a completely valid technique to use. It can also help develop your characters in the long run. It's just that I see a lot of fiction writers, often old hands at NaNoWriMo, who write Script Frenzy off as "easy" because they treat it like a novel and churn out 100 pages of description and dialogue formatted vaguely like a script, which is of course nowhere near as hard as doing 50,000 words. The challenge of Script Frenzy is much more in the "script'' part and less in the "frenzy".

Not to discount your advice, of course, Desi xD It's just that you reminded me of something that someone said in one of the NaNoWriMo Facebook groups I'm a part of which annoyed me, but I decided it wouldn't be polite to give her a lecture, so instead I'm rambling about it here. xD

[Supinelu]

I don't know how much of a 'tip' it will be, if you're planning on actually writing a script but I normally use April to continue writing a novel. A rebel if you will pirate

Definitely time management is a good habit to learn. Take advantage of those minutes you have before classes if you're in school/college or those periods of time where you're on hold/in a hospital's waiting room/waiting for someone to come pick you up for some activity etc. etc. I was sort of surprised at all the time I found I did nothing in when I started looking for it.

Keep a notebook or some sort of writing instrument with you generally at all times. Most of all, don't be discouraged if some days you don't end up writing to your goal for the day. You can always make it up (and believe me, I've seen people go from zero words to tens of thousands in the final week) and so long as you have something written that month even if you don't finish it will have had some worth.

Don't revise. Just write. Revising is what December is for.

[Lady-Ecanus]

Well this is my first year doing Script Frenzy but I already finished so I thought I would see if I could help, if you were still doing it.

There are two main ways I work on writing. One I use for NaNoWriMo and one I use for ScriptFrenzy.

For NaNoWriMo, or other very long first draft stories, I like to just write. Find a topic you are crazy about and run with it. Don't stop if you go on a tangent. If you are thinking it that means it was meant to be there. In the case of stories like this the other big piece of advice is never look at your word/page count. You end up getting discouraged easily.

For ScriptFrenzy it is the opposite. To me scripts have a more defined structure so I tend to stop after every big chunk of dialogue to make sure I am still on track. Because with scripts it isn't just a reader reading but someone trying to act out what you wrote, it can't go off into random directions. I stop, as i said, and then I figure out what comes next and how that will affect what I am writing. For example in my ScriptFrenzy my characters grandfather dies, so with that as a goal in mind I made sure to expand on the relationship a few pages prior to his death to make sure the audience felt the same pain the character did.

The only other good advice I have is to make a bet with someone. I have one going with my parents saying I could get mine done before I see them again. I won so they owe me something of my choosing. Make a bet with a group of friends, last one to finish buys dinner. Another good thing to do is to get a writing buddy who you can hash out plot with.

My final advice, find a good playlist and keep it going until you finish writing the entire thing. My iPod has been going 24/7 since I started writing. The constant songs repeating themselves makes sure I stay in the same frame of mind. Even if I take a break the music makes sure i don't forget what I was thinking.

I hope this helps you finish your Frenzy.