Treatments

Now that summer is coming to an end, I feel it’s time to get serious about the business of writing. For the last two months, I’ve talked about how the art of dialogue is more than just simple conversation between characters, it establishes a few things.

• Personalities.
• Conflict.
• Action.

As I’ve learned myself, the heart of dialogue isn’t about what we say or don’t say, dialogue is all about story. Knowing the story we want to tell helps shape the dialogue throughout our screenplays.

This month I want to look at a tool that is unique to screenwriting, whether you’re a panster or outliner, you need to know why treatments are so important in this industry and why many find it so confusing or even downright scary.

Treatments!

Treatments are important because they serve many functions in the life of a screenwriter—each of which is imperative to the writing process.

Before we begin crafting our story we must understand our characters:  Their goals, their worlds, their struggles.

Once we get the pieces of the puzzle, we have to figure out how all of them fit together to create our narrative. Thus, the first function of your treatment is a working outline of your story.

You don’t have to have all the answers, just the basics plus your story’s endgame—the message you’re trying to get out. So before you even begin writing a screenplay, you should know:

1. Who the main characters are.
2. Their world.
3. The conflict.
4. Their desires.

I view these four elements as the basics of our story. Around them, we can build a narrative that expresses a theme or plot we want to share.

And that brings me to the second purpose of writing a treatment.

In the writing business, your first audience is an agent. They are the first and most crucial readers you need to impress. While authors send book proposals to essentially market their book to potential agents, screenwriters send treatments to both agents and studios. Both book proposals and treatments function in similar capacities, although they are different.

It’s important to note that like book proposals, every agent has a different preference on length and content for treatments, so be sure to check out the guidelines on their agency’s website.

Your treatment should give the basic elements I mentioned above as well as provide a tease of your story without telling all of the specific details. David Trotter explains, “A treatment is a long synopsis—a written pitch… It emphasizes crucial moments, the key events of the story, and the emotional highs and lows of your characters.”[i] Again this function of the treatment is for marketing and potential sales.

Selling points?

I like to think of treatments as written movie trailers: in a few brief moments we see the characters, their world, and conflict. They not only create interest in going to the theater and getting the rest of the story. Trailers also reveal a movie’s selling points. Below are a few movies I’m looking forward to seeing, I am sold on the stories within a few minutes.

Gemini Man

Artemis Fowl

The Chosen

 This is why many screenwriters are terrified by the process of writing treatments: They know if they don’t nail them, they may lose a potential sale. However, if you stick to your treatment during the writing process you will come out with the key points of the story you’ve created.

• Characters.
• Emotions.
• Resolutions.

Keep these elements of your story in mind as you recraft your treatment into a marketing tool for your story to ensure it gets the best treatment.

Martin Johnson survived a severe car accident with a (T.B.I.) Traumatic brain injury which left him legally blind and partially paralyzed on the left side. He is an award-winning Christian screenwriter who has recently finished his first Christian nonfiction book. Martin has spent the last nine years volunteering as an ambassador and promoter for Promise Keepers ministries. While speaking to local men’s ministries he shares his testimony. He explains The Jesus Paradigm and how following Jesus changes what matters most in our lives. Martin lives in a Georgia and connects with readers at Spiritual Perspectives of Da Single Guy and on Twitter at mtjohnson51.

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[i] Trotter, David Screenwriters  Bible. Beverly Hills, CA:Silman-James Press (1998) pg258.