There are excerpts from his excellent article. It's to pique your interest, go read it. Read everything the man ever wrote about screenwriting. Read his scripts.
1)Should I outline?
You have to understand something: without knowing you, I have no way to know whether or not you are the kind of person who would be helped or hindered by outlining. ...
The Coen Brothers never do. Tony Gilroy always does. How’s this: don’t stress about it. Don’t convince yourself that to do it is to be a workhorse and not to do it is to be an artist. Just try one way. If it works, keep doing it. If it doesn’t, try the other.
2) How do I know when to show my work?
This one I can answer: show your work when you have no idea how to make it any better without getting some kind of feedback. Or when you have gotten feedback from a few trusted readers, have addressed it, and now have no idea what else to do.
... once I barrel through a scene, get to the end, do a quick rewrite of the dialog, I LOVE it. I am sure, in that instant, that I have nailed it.
If you were to read it and try and change even a line, I might hit you.
But about a day later, when the adrenaline and attachment is gone, I see, immediately, where I have written too much, gotten carried away, become redundant. At that stage, I will start begging you to tell me where it sucks.
And then, in about a week, when that scene is just another amongst a whole bunch of scenes, I will have total objectivity. Will look at it like a mechanic might.
3) When and how do I rewrite?
The important thing is to put it away long enough that you gain some objectivity, forget what lines or ideas really jazzed you as you were writing, forget where you kind of lied to yourself that the plot stuff made sense.
But not so long that you don’t feel connected to the over all spirit of the thing.
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