Interesting quote, Adam. Certainly the idea that screenwriters need to have a wealth of content available to them from which to extract the ‘movie’ makes sense. That’s why it’s smart to spend a bunch of time in story prep getting to know the characters, research, brainstorming, plotting, and all the rest. Working up a scene-by-scene outline — or more per Greene’s approach, an extended treatment — is a way of accomplishing that. Reflective of the iceberg approach to writing.

Bottom line, we need to really immerse ourselves in our story universe and especially in knowing our story’s characters.

Thanks for that, Adam. Feels like a blog post waiting to happen!