Treatments

Getting Started with your Project

This section includes resources to help you initiate and develop your project. You will see templates, idea formulations & ways to applying these resources to both formalize your content AND transition your ideas into a storytelling process.

THE PROCESS

1. CREATE AN OUTLINE

An outline is the first and best way to start your project. You can create a table and organize your ideas and information into 3 columns and arrange content into a 3-act structure like Beginning, Middle, & End OR use rows and identify story elements within the 5W's of Who, Where, When, What, and Why?

Outlines should be the platform for your project, and if these elements aren't clearly identified, than you can easily get lost.

See Examples Below

2. IDENTIFY STORY STRUCTURE

The structure of an essay is the same as a story.

  • Beginning | Middle | End

  • Intro | Body | Conclusion

  • In theater they call it 3-Act structure.

  • Setup | Confrontation | Resolution

Figure out your method and arrange your support and arguments to each point.

3. CREATE A TREATMENT

What Is a Treatment?

The purpose of a treatment is to communicate your story as quickly as possible in a written narrative. You are striving for brevity, but without sacrificing the overall idea of your story.

What Should be in a Treatment?

  • A Working title

  • The writer or group's name and course or contact information

  • A short logline

  • Introduction to key characters

  • Who, what, when, why and where.

  • Act 1 in one to three paragraphs. Set the scene, dramatize the main conflicts.

  • Act 2 in two to six paragraphs. Should dramatize how the conflicts introduced in Act 1 lead to a crisis.

  • Act 3 in one to three paragraphs. Dramatize the final conflict and resolution.

- By Marilyn Horowitz,