After the synopsis, but before the script...

1. Whose story is it?

2. What do they want? Or what do you, as the author know what they need?

3. How do you introduce the story? What is the opening? Does it help bolster the overall feel and mood of the story? Does it set the tone visually? Is it visual?!!

4. How do you introduce your main character? Do we see them in a way that is expressive? Do you get enough out of the first introduction of your main character? Is it visual? Does the introduction help set the tone of the character? How about secondary characters? Do you give them introductions too?!

5. How do you set up the main character predicament? Do you see the main character in their routine? How is that routine broken? Do you make it clear why this is happning to the main character? What about them that makes them ripe for this experience, for this story?

6.When is the viewer drawn into the story? When is the viewer put into the shoes of the main chararcter? At what moment or break in the characters routine? When do we know what the main character wants? When do we empathize with him?

7. When does your main character make a decision to pursue what he wants? (usually end of act I)

8. Are there adequate obstacles to the charicters goal? Complications? Unexpected turns?

9. Do you use the right locations? Make your character go the very place he doesn't want to go? Make him meet the people he doesn't want to meet? Don't make it easy on your main character, rather make his life miserable?

10. Is there a low point? When does it seem your character is farthest from achieving his goal?

11. What does he do about this final obstacle? is it visual? Do they give up? Do they find something inside themselves that they never knew existed? Do they change? How does your main character change? What has the story done to them? How are they different from the beginning of the story?

12. What is the feeling at the end of your story? What is the end? Is it visual?! How will the audience feel when they leave the theater? Catharsis! You should know this before you start the script.

This type of thing is called the Ideation. Many professionals go through these steps way before the writing accually takes place. I like to write all this stuff down so that I have a template to what im trying to accomplish in the end. It works. Tell me what you think...

• Whose story is it? It's the villain's story, told from his POV.
  
• What does he want? What he wants is instant gratification. More precisely he wants to get into the heroine's pants. And if sweet talk and charm will not do the job he will settle for rape.
  
• When do we empathize with him? Never! I hope the viewer hates his guts.
  
• When does your main character make a decision to pursue what he wants? He never makes any conscious decision. He goes after what he wants in a kind of knee jerk response.
  
• Do I make my character go the very place he doesn't want to go? Make him meet the people he doesn't want to meet? Quite the opposite. He goes wherever he wants and meets whomever he wants.
  
• Do I make his life miserable? No. He is making everyone else miserable.
  
• Is there a low point? When does it seem your character is farthest from achieving his goal? Again this is upside down. As the story progresses he gets inexorably nearer to achieving everything he wants.
  

It is only at the end of the story that my villain gets his comeuppance. I'm not sure of that. I'm considering letting him get away scott free. That would be changing my source material but there are reasons for my considering it.

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You say that your character always does what he wants and gets what he wants and nothing gets in his way? Where's the drama?

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Then there is Freddie Clegg in William Wyler's 1965 film The Collector. You may recall that nerdish butterfly collector Freddie kidnaps beautiful Miranda Grey and keeps her locked up in his basement.

On the outside Freddie is anything but omnipotent or even villainous. He's a joke, a social failure. But in his basement he has created a universe where he is God. He thwarts Miranda's every attempt to escape. She threatens, begs, cajoles, Finally she strips herself naked and offers her body to Freddie in exchange for her freedom. But Freddie rejects even this and calls her a ****.

Finally, Miranda gets deathly ill. Freddie can either call a doctor, which means he will certainly get locked up in either a jail or a mental hospital, or he can let her die. He lets her die. The movie ends with Freddie stalking Miranda's replacement. Believe me, this movie has plenty of drama.

The drama in these plays/films does not come from the villain's, but from everyone else's, predicament, which is of the villain's making. In Othello only the audience is even aware of the situation.

My villain is more like Freddie Clegg than any of the others but, unlike Freddie, he is not a nerd. He is a wealthy, handsome, confident Ted Bundy type. My heroine is more like Desdemona, unaware of the danger she faces.