Episode 135: A Jumping Off Point: Getting and Processing Notes on Your Manuscript

Recorded on Mother’s Day, this episode is about revision and getting notes. After a brief look at the revision process of Angie’s feature screenplay for Lost in the Middle, including a horizontal notebook, other tangible tools, haptic feedback, and table reads, Angie grills, I mean interviews, Elizabeth on receiving and making use of notes. The discussion tries to go step-by-step and includes understanding notes and making them useful, the importance of not exploding at your readers, the power of lists, the possibilities of editorial brackets, and examples of small systems such as one for tracking cuts and pastes. Offering a glimpse into one person’s workflow, the episode extols one underlying principle: do what works for you! Other topics today include the design process and demystifying creativity, frameworks and constraints, the wild what-ifs v. a logistical execution process. Links in this episode: Designing for Growth by Liedtka and Ogilvie Josh Spector “For the Interested” newsletter “Don’t Think Outside The Box. Create The Box.” “How To Start A Creative Project When You Don’t Know Where To Begin” Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival--everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success. The hosts: Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com. Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.