Ask five screenwriting gurus how to write a script, and four of them will hand you an index card, a ruler and a strict lecture on the three-act structure. We’re told to outline until our eyes bleed, to nail down our character arcs by page ten, and to never, under any circumstances, start writing page one until we know exactly how the climax wraps up.
But then you talk to someone like Metecan Duren.
At just 19 years old, Duren wrote, directed and executed the micro-budget horror-fantasy Pretty. It’s a film dripping with a very specific, deeply unsettling mood – one that doesn’t feel like it was spat out of an industry structure template. And when you look under the hood of his writing process, you quickly realise why:
“I have a pretty chaotic writing process. I pour out ideas, scenes, and concepts first, and then I slowly connect everything together until it feels coherent.”
For the structural purist, this is nightmare fuel. It’s the ultimate form of “pantsing” – writing by the seat of your pants. Yet, for writers struggling to break out of formulaic, paint-by-numbers storytelling, Duren’s “chaos first, logic second” methodology might just be the creative breakthrough they need.
Finding the Mythology in the Mess
When we outline too rigidly from day one, we often strangle the organic life out of our stories. We force characters to make decisions because the beat sheet demands a turning point on page 25, rather than letting the world breathe.
In contrast, Duren’s chaotic approach allows for the kind of happy accidents that structured plotting often polices out of existence. For Pretty, the entire core of the film’s identity only revealed itself halfway through the journey:
“The story evolved over time. It actually started as more of a stalker film, but halfway through writing, the entire rabbit mythology kind of dawned on me. I kept writing different storylines, and suddenly the rabbit lore and the family twist connected everything together in my head.”
Imagine if Duren had locked down a rigid 40-page treatment before opening his screenwriting software. He would have been too committed to his “stalker film” setup to pivot. The rabbit lore – the very element that gives Pretty its distinct, surrealist edge – would have been dismissed as an off-topic distraction.
By allowing your first draft to be a chaotic dumping ground for mood boards, isolated scenes and half-formed concepts, you give your subconscious mind room to play. The brain is an incredibly powerful pattern-recognition machine. If you pour enough raw, atmospheric material onto the page, your brain will eventually start building bridges between disparate ideas on its own.
The Sandbox Phase vs. The Editing Phase
The danger of the chaotic writing process, of course, is that you can end up with a sprawling, incoherent mess that makes sense only to you. To make this method work, you have to wear two entirely different hats at different times: The Artist and The Architect.
Duren was able to pull off Pretty because he understood that the chaotic dump was only stage one. Stage two requires a brutal, objective look at what you’ve actually built.
During the initial Sandbox Phase, your only job is to focus on vibe, imagery and emotional spikes. Write that cool scene even if you don’t know how the characters got there yet. Let your influences collide. Toss in a bit of Euphoria neon here, a bit of Hereditary dread there and let them clash on the page.
Once that raw material exists, you must transition into the Architect Phase. This is where you look for the thematic anchor. What do these seemingly random scenes have in common? Whether it is isolation, grief, or rebellion, find that thread and use it to prune the weeds. If a scene is incredibly cool but doesn’t feed into the newly discovered central mythology, it has to go. Finally, go back and polish the rough edges; as Duren notes, he had to rewrite his dialogue over and over again to make it feel natural once the structure was locked in.
The Screenwriter’s Takeaway
There is a time and a place for structure. But if your scripts are feeling clinical, predictable, or devoid of genuine atmosphere, it might be because you’ve cleared away all the clutter before the magic had a chance to grow in it.
Don’t be afraid to let your next script start as a beautiful, incoherent disaster. Pour out the nightmares, the strange images, and the half-formed mythologies first. Write the scenes that scare you or excite you, even if they don’t quite fit yet.
Trust that, just like Duren finding his rabbits in the dark, the connective tissue will reveal itself when it’s ready. After all, it’s much easier to sculpt a masterpiece out of a giant, chaotic block of clay than it is to build one out of thin air.