I'm currently writing a treatment in preparation for writing a screenplay. I'm finishing it up today. It totals 36 pages.

I cannot tell you the value in writing a treatment. It's a much more fluid form of storytelling than a screenplay or short story. There doesn't have to be much form. I wrote mine basically as a screenplay would be written, but without the formatting. The timing is exactly as it will be in the screenplay, the dialogue, everything. I think the best way to describe it is if you had a chance to sit down and tell your story as best you could with all the little details, this would be the transcript.

I had a producer ask for a treatment after receiving the script. As a relatively new screenwriter, I had no clue what a "treatment" actually was. A trip to the Screenwriter's Bible got me through it. I've decided to do a treatment along with the writing of a script. I guess it could really help with editing and discussing the script.

Thanks again Scott. It's always very helpful.

I've seen similar resources to what you've posted, but when a school asked me to write a 2 page treatment "following professional treatment guidelines," I wondered if there was anything more specific.

I guess that's why it says guidelines haha.

I've never written a treatment. Never had any reason to.

I don't use them in my writing process b/c I think using the "bullet point"/outline method works better. You don't have to worry about writing pretty sentences.

I'm not a natural writer & worrying about constructing nice sentences in the story development phase would slow me down. I'd rather just focus on ideas & story.

It might work better for people who come from a short story or novel writing background.

Here are some more resources:

http://johnaugust.com/library

http://www.simplyscripts.com/treatments.html

http://donedealpro.com/members/listing.aspx?content_type=1&action=section&section_id=13

Terry Rossio gives some pointers on treatments here:

http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp37.Proper.Treatment.html

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