“I just write character first. I put plot second.”
Writer/Director Jeff Nichols (Mud)
The reason I’ve spent all week writing about Jeff Nichols and/or his film Mud is not just because he is currently a screenwriter/filmmaker based outside of Los Angeles—but because I think Mud will end up with Oscar-nominations for Best Picture and best original screenplay. In various interviews Nichols has said that the Arkansas-centered story had been kicking around his head for ten years.
“It started with a book in the Little Rock (Ark.) library that was a collection of photographs of people who made their living off the river. Then, the idea of a man hiding on an island in the Mississippi River just struck me.”
Jeff Nichols
The Fresno Bee
That book is The Last River: Life along Arkansas Lower White by Turner Browne.
Then as I pointed out in the post Screenwriting Via Index Cards, Nichols turned to that simple, cheap, tried and truth method of many screenwriters over the years:
“I stumbled backward in my approach to structure. I was trying to hold these stories in my head, and then I started writing them down on note cards to keep it all organized. But what I realized was that’s a great way to break the linear structure of a story. If you have a note pad and you’re writing what happens first, you’re writing what happens next and it’s really hard to jump around. I develop a system where I think about a story for a very long time, writing is the last step. I carry it around for a long time, and then I’ll ambush my friends… You put [note cards] on the floor first, so there’s no linear nature to them. Then they go up on a giant corkboard in my office, and then they start taking form. I think in terms of script days and each column on the board is that day. Some might have three cards and some might have twenty. Then I start to build a story and a card will have the word ‘shoot out’ on it or have one or two lines. By the time I’m done, and I’ve done this for all three of my films, I can just sit and watch the whole movie on the note cards. You get to think about the balance, the shape, and the pace. Then I’m ready to sit down and start writing.”
Jeff Nichols
The Script Lab article by Meredith Alloway
Related posts:
Where Do Ideas Come From? (A+B=C)
Starting Your Screenplay
Screenwriting from Arkansas
Jeff Nicholas’ Other Roots
Directing “Mud”
Screenwriting from Iowa 
Thank you for posting this!!! I may have to employ the notecard idea!! Love that! I am the same as him… I carry my stories around for a long time before anyone ever knows about them.