It ain’t workin’ out. You knew it would take time, and you’ve put in your dues, but M-A-N, that fab career in screenwriting just has not arrived.
What can you do differently? How do you shake things up?
What follows are a few downfalls any break-in screenwriter might make. Question is: Is this you.
NOT BRINGING YOUR A-GAME
Nothing derails a good idea so much as not being able to execute it. Before you start working on your screenplay, you must devise a way to find Energy. You’re A-Energy, to be precise. Yeah, you’ve got the story down, it’s all mapped out. You’re ready to go, only…
When will you write?
You’re married with kids. You’re up at 7, on your way out the door by 8. At the office by 9. The office gets the A-Energy. You’re outta there by 5, home by 6. Dinner and miscellanea with wife and kids takes you to 9pm. It’s screenplay time! But guess what: You’re played out! Not even B or C energy. Zero energy. You reach for the clicker and that TIVO’d SportsCenter, and… you wake up about midnight and crawl into bed. And like Jackson Browne said: “Get up and do it again.” You end up looking like this guy…
Life intervenes, folks. This is not unknown to you. When it comes to writing your screenplay, you’ve got to game it to find time to write. It’s one of the most critical decisions you’ll make, and one of the least discussed.
How will you find the time to write? Can you steal time at work? Will you write a couple hours a day, or five hours on Saturday? There is no one right answer, outside the necessity of energy.
I once read in Syd Field’s Screenplay: “You need two or three hours a day to write a screenplay.” Huuuuh?! Wrong. What the Script God meant to say is it would be ideal if you had wealth enough to be able to write two or three hours a day. If you don’t and you can’t, does it mean you can’t write a screenplay? Of course not.
This is a process choice. How, and more importantly, when you write is up to you. So long as it gets done. So long as you bring ENERGY. If you’re limping toward the computer, you’re in trouble. You need to game this.
Find Energy, you might write a good movie.
NOT KILLING THE PERFECTIONIST IN YOU
Don’t misunderstand: Being a perfectionist—wanting to nail down your screenplay—is a noble ambition.
What you don’t want, especially with a spec, first (discovery) draft, is writing and rewriting and RErewriting those first 30 pages. Often times in the scripts I’m asked to consult on I see first acts which have been worked obsessively, only to find Act 2 or 3 to be wanting.
Folks, I beg you: Do not censor yourself with the first draft. Say everything you want to say, no matter how many pages, and do not try to be too perfect at the first writing. With the very first draft, you want to push out. There will be a time to refine, believe me. Critique upon critique will be coming your way. But that first draft—let that first draft be yours. Do not censor yourself. Let it all hang out and do not over-polish the first pages. Just push out, push out…
Remember the scene in Amadeus where Salieri gets his hands on Mozart’s manuscript pages to discover a miracle: No corrections! No changes! The music had come down “from God”, perfectly intact, from Mozart’s mind right to the page.
Folks, that ain’t you.
Let the first draft be yours. Say what you want to say knowing a rewrite will come. Don’t be too much of a perfectionist.
