If you can write three sentences, you can write a story.
http://threesentences.herokuapp.com/
You have a story idea rattling around in your head. You're all to set to write the next great book, screenplay, whatever. Great. But where do you start?
John Brownlow, the screenwriter of Sylvia, once shared a technique for taking your story from just an idea to an expression of that idea. And it's as simple as it is effective.
You start with three sentences representing the beginning, middle, and end of your story. That's its essence. After that, all you need to do is expand upon it.
You do that by expanding each of the three sentences into three sentences, adding a bit more detail along the way. Then you take each of those sentences and expand them into three sentences. And on and on until your story starts to take shape. At that point you have a scaffold upon which you can build your story.
We loved the three sentences writing technique so much, we decided to build an app around it. Since the app automates the process, it makes scaffolding out your story even easier. When you load the three sentences, you see three lines: the beginning, middle, and end. Fill them in, and the app will guide you along expanding your story into a usable scaffold, three sentences at a time.
Three Sentences is built with a Rails 4.1.5 backend. To set up:
git clone https://github.com/woolly-bear-caterpillars-2014/threeSentences.git
Run bundle:
bundle install
Start the server:
rails s
The four of us attended DevBootcamp in NYC. Three Sentences was our final project. We hope you find it useful and fun. Happy writing!