Writing: Plotting "Prometheus" Style

So I finally got around to re-watching the film Prometheus, and I took the time to investigate the bonus features on the Blu-Ray disc.  If you get the full-blown 4-disc edition, you'll be gifted with a bonus disc with a massive four hour documentary, which details every step of the film's production process.  This includes some insight on the writing process behind Prometheus, with screenwriters John Spaihts and Damon Lindelof describing how they condensed all their (and Ridley Scott's) ideas into a final draft.  It took months of work and multiple drafts to iron out the final script and get the story straightened out.

A branching segment of the Prometheus documentary provided an insightful little secret that I realized could benefit all writers who may be struggling to get their own stories off the ground.  As the writers for Prometheus indicated, every writing project will have different blocks and different levels of difficulties, and it's very much true.  There are some stories I can blast through pretty easily while keeping track of everything in my head.  But when you start adding on multiple characters, concepts, scenes, settings, and more, it can be easy to lose track of what's going on.

To mitigate such a problem, one of the writers made up a board game of sorts, and "gamed" his way through the plot for Prometheus.  Using a homemade board, checker pieces, and other tokens, he would move the characters around in the different settings as the story progressed.  He flipped the tokens to indicate if a character becomes infected or mutated.  He removed them if they were killed.  He also used pieces to keep track of where certain locations (such as the medical bay) were located, especially since some of them were mobile.  With half a dozen different characters being juggled around in this movie, this process allowed the writer to make sure he knew where each person was at a given time, and what they were doing at their locations.

If you're having difficulty trying to figure out your own plot lines, why not give this method a try? A board or mat, some game pieces, or even just slips of paper, will allow you to tangibly manipulate your plot and make sure you can keep track of your characters.  It may not need to be as elaborate as a game board; you could cut up index cards and arrange them on a table.  You could try outlining the plot.  Different approaches may benefit different stories; the best I can tell you is to experiment with hands-on tools to see if anything can help you, the way it helped the writers of Prometheus.

For more information, check out the special features disc for the film Prometheus, and play the documentary The Furious Gods:  Making Prometheus.  Ensure that the expanded experience option is on, and about 30 - 45 minutes into the program, push enter when the prompt appears, for the video segment entitled The Prometheus Board Game.