However, once they are under the author's spell, instead of discovering a magic solution to their script's conundrums, I suspect they will find themselves working round the clock to write the script they always dreamed they could write. In fact, dreaming about their script is an integral part of the Script Magic process. The author has read thousands of screenplays in her 20 years experience as a story analyst, consultant and executive. This book is a distillation of those screenwriting seminars. The author describes dozens of exercises and techniques designed to circumvent the critical tendencies of the conscious mind.
Some exercises are written, others require observation and interviewing.
Many involve pure imagination or imaginative play. Through this combination of exercises, the writer creates what the author calls 'an evolving story outline'. This evolving outline becomes a parallel project created by the unconscious mind that the writer's conscious mind will eventually transform into the actual script outline. The author's exercises free the write of their story's constructural constraints and encourage the writer to focus on creating detailed characters and delineating the variety of their conflicts. This focus distracts the writer from the conscious pressure to build a foolproof plot and frees them up to expand the range of choices they can make for their characters.