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Flow State Screenwriting

What is the Flow State?

The term “flow state” describes a mental state in which a person is completely immersed, absorbed, engrossed, and focused on a task. As rare as inspiration itself, flow state represents the pinnacle of productivity and the gold standard of performance. The psychologist who coined the term describes how, “the ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.” When an athlete does it, it’s called “being in the zone.”

In a flow state, you create better, and more effortlessly. Sometimes the work pulls details from many parts of your memory with fluid ease, without any hesitation and self-conscious second-guessing. This is the ideal state for writing our first drafts. People in a flow state become one with the activity, as action and awareness sync to create an effortless momentum. Hours will fly by in a blink. 

The Talking Draft Method is the one writing technique that comprises most of the best-known positive triggers to achieving a flow state, while also eliminating the worst blocks for a flow state. Simply, no other writing style will set off a flow state session with greater regularity than the Talking Draft Method.

The Science of Flow

In flow, our perception of time becomes hazy because when we create in a flow state, specific parts of our brains turn off. Specifically, neuroscientists discovered with fMRI machines that inside the flow state brain, an area that is thought to be involved in self-monitoring and self-consciousness turns off – this affects our sense of time. Simultaneously, visual and language areas of the brain turn on, and areas associated with self-expression turn on.

Any time that the self-monitoring, self-conscious part of the test subjects’ brains lit up with blood flow, both the jazz musicians and freestyle rappers lost the groove and stopped flowing. The scientist’s hypothesis is that to be creative, we require a kind of dissociation so that we’re more uninhibited, willing to make mistakes, without constantly nullifying our generative impulses.  

Our generative impulses – i.e. new additive ideas – must not be second-guessed by our self-monitoring brain nor our self-conscious brain. Any new idea must not be fretted over and nit-picked. Instead, each new thought must be allowed to exist and we should quickly continue on to the next idea. For writers who are hard on themselves, this can be very difficult, but it is absolutely vital. We must stop editing ourselves while creating!

Every time our brains generate a new idea, more new ideas will come because we unconsciously feel a slight rush of dopamine which triggers serotonin’s sense of satisfaction that comes after each act of creation. These neurochemicals actually help generate the next clear thought by activating norepinephrine which further locks in our focus. In other words, getting into flow keeps us in flow. 

Getting into a flow state is all about moving with intention, at peak focus and relaxation, letting go of any self-censorship, surrendering to embody the task. It sounds a little metaphysical – like an athlete who wants to “be the ball,” or a dancer who wants to “feel the music,” but it’s true. Storytellers have to try to become one with the story. No distance, no distraction, no friction, and no doubt. 

Artistic creativity is a neurologic product that can be examined using rigorous scientific methods. It’s magical but it’s not magic. We can maximize the conditions that generate flow state creativity and minimize the factors which disrupt it. The primary element for flow is to focus. 

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Improve Focus to Flow

Flow requires very high focus of attention. Improving your focus takes time. The first step is to confront the reasons behind your distractions and come up with a method to confront and defeat your distractions.

First, resist the urge to multitask whenever you seek to enter into a flow state. You might benefit from limiting any sensory triggers. As you get better, you can add them back. For some, this may mean that when you’re beginning to improve your focus, you could try selective deprivations such as dictating in a darkened room or with noise cancelling headphones. Eventually your strength of focus will improve enough that you can flow in completely normal conditions. However, other factors will remain important to limit even when you are expert at slipping into high focus flow. At the top of this list the need to resist the urge to edit yourself. 

Editing, polishing, tweaking, spelling, grammar, all of the fine-tuning of language and syntax is for later passes. When you get going, you must keep going. This is paramount: no distractions, no revisions.

Any time a writer manually types any sentence into a script document, they can also instantly re-read that line and instantly begin to think of the hundred other ways to say the line. Whenever we type, we also make it too easy to edit. Editing is the enemy. Any editing or any self-criticism activates the exact part of the brain that we actually need to turn off. We do not want any of this friction. The freedom to reconsider, rewrite, or delay is friction – not flow.

For this reason, the act of typing itself can be hinderance to flow state creativity because of common typos that are unavoidable. Each typo is like a thorn underfoot that pricks us out of the zone. These moments of sharp discomfort severely interrupt the preferred state of acceptance and surrender that is required for the flow state. The Talking Draft Method avoids this problem altogether by not showing your transcription text by default. 

Flowing Words, Story Flow

Commonly, writers find that they tell stories better to someone, this phenomenon might be because of the dopamine hit with adrenaline that comes from live performance. You can replicate this brain chemistry if you’ve recently taken a light jog or if you do a Talking Draft while pacing around the room, imagining yourself telling the story to an audience member. Simply speaking a story aloud produces more dopamine and the chain of subsequent neurochemicals than would writing in silence. 

When a writer uses The Talking Draft Method, they often embody the story – acting it out with emotion, performing the dialogue of the scene as it appears in their mind’s eye. This is the manner which is more conducive to flow to plain speaking. Soon, Talking Draft flow state writers find themselves so focused on the task at hand that the rest of the world fades away. Scenes appear without consciously thinking about the mechanics. The words flow effortlessly. A writer in flow is at one with their writing. Your sense of self and sense of time dissolve away, you harmonize with the task.

When writers get to a flow state, it feels like you’re in your own little bubble, your own creative world, and no amount of distraction can divert you from what you’re doing. You are present. The result is a blend of happiness and peak performance that is hugely satisfying. Hours fly by without you realizing it. You look up from your desk only to notice the sun has set. Congratulations, you will probably need a lot of fluids and potassium, but you will surely feel ecstatic. 

Now that you’re done, you can begin.

Editing happens in Final Draft. It should help relieve pressure from yourself to remember that all scripts are rewritten many times, but it is impossible to rewrite a blank page. The first draft does not need to be perfect, but it does need to be done. For this reason, a flow state generated by the Talking Draft Method is the absolute best way to create a first draft fast.

For more information about flow state techniques see “The Talking Draft Method: Hollywood’s Secret for a Fast First Draft” by Frederick Gooltz.  

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