In Treatment

I started to write my first treatment. In screenwriting terms, this is, basically, a screenplay written in long form. There aren't any rules in how you write treatments. You can include dialogue, you can write detailed, to the second, descriptions (back story) of your characters. The writer can describe scenes in as much detail as they would like. For them (damn) screenwriters that get paid for writing screenplays, a treatment is all that it may take, pre or post pitch, to get it sold.

Are treatments necessary? No. It’s the screenplay (story and characters) that gets sold. But can it help? I am in the process of learning this. In reading anything I can get a hold of, in regards to successful screenwriters, I have read that this can be part of their process. Some screenwriters don’t write treatments, some write outlines, and others write both (or a combination of both 'scriptment"). Some of my heroes just stand in front of a computer, or pad of paper, and write scenes and let the story/characters take place in front of them. I have read that some professional screenwriters will write 40 to 50+ page treatments. Other screenwriters are solely into outlines (I hate outlines). I read a treatment of a 2+ hour movie that was written in about twenty five pages where ten or more of those pages had nothing to do with what we saw on the screen.

What am I to do? Are treatments only pertinent to screenplays before they are written? Is this a clue that my current (45 page) screenplay I’m writing isn’t worth the hours I’ve spent at the computer combined with the hundreds of hours thinking about this screenplay? Am I trying to find something that isn‘t there? Is my main character, the story is based on, relevant? Does he have a voice others want to see?

Crap!