6 Chapter 6: Treatment Outline

Chapter 6: Treatment Outline

A Treatment Outline is the next tool that I use after the Scene Cards, to help refine and clarify the story. This is an important next step, and essentially the “road map” that you will follow when you finally sit down to write your screenplay.

A Treatment Outline also allows me, the instructor, to analyze your story outline and give you valuable feedback to help you fix any “plot holes,” weak or missing turning points, slow pacing and even missing character arcs before you start your first draft.

This essentially forces you, the writer, to think through your entire story in a present tense, narrative format, so that when you sit down to write your screenplay, the “left brain” work of structuring the story is done, allowing the “right brain” to step in and get to work.

Here are the elements to include in your Treatment Outline:

• Finished Treatment Outline should be about 3-4 pages long
• It MUST BE TYPED using 12 font
• Write in present tense only
• Each scene card will be written as one or more paragraphs in your treatment
• Leave a double space between each paragraph
• Label your paragraphs:

○ OPENING

○ INCITING INCIDENT/CATALYST

○ IST TURNING POINT

○ MIDPOINT

○ 2ND TURNING POINT

○ CLIMAX

○ RESOLUTION/CONCLUSION

Your Treatment Outline, should include more details than your scene cards and include the following:

• Scene Heading – Location & Time – Day or Night (example: INT. BOXING RING – DAY)
• Include/name all characters in the scene
• Goal or purpose of the scene
• Important details, clues or lines of dialogue
• What decision does the character make (1st and 2nd Turning Point cards)

A sample scene card from the movie Creed (2015) might look like this:

Here is an EXAMPLE of how that Scene Card might be translated into the Treatment Outline: