Easy Writer

If you like to write then writing is easy. Nothing much to it. You sit down and tell a story. It's not much different from being in a bar with your friends and telling them the story of something that just happened. You relate the beginning, middle and the end. Just like writing a story.

Sometimes you stumble and trip your way from one scene to another, but most of the time it flows pretty well. Guy walks into a bar. There's your beginning. Guy meets girl. There's the middle. Guy get's slapped by girl. The end. See how easy that was?

So why doesn't everyone do it? Cause rewriting is really hard. Hella hard. I'll show you. This is the process I'm in the middle of right now.

Past:
Six months ago I had a germ of an idea. It percolated, sprouted and became a story with a beginning and an end. At the time I was writing another feature, so that's where it sat.

Three months ago I began the research. Then I outlined, put together a story board, wrote up complete character histories (yes I can tell you where they went to high school 30 years ago).

A month ago, I started writing. Four weeks later - a masterpiece! Well it was a masterpiece till I reread it the next day! Then it was junk -really putrid junk. Still that wasn't so bad. A month of writing. Told you that it was easy.

Three days after finishing it I printed it out. Then went through it line by line, work by word. Looking for better, more descriptive, action words. That took three days. Again easy!

Then I had it read by a half dozen screenwriters including a WGA professional. They all sent me their ideas and thoughts. They tore it apart. Savaged it and spit it back to me in pieces. Now it's up to me to put the jigsaw back together. So here's my plan to do that:

1) Go through every slugline first. Make sure they are correct.

2) Take every single line of dialogue by each individual character and seperate it from the story. Make sure that each character has a unique voice and that it's a consistent voice.

3) Take every single scene and seperate if from the whole. Make sure that every scene has a beginning, middle and an end. Be certain that there is tension in every scene. That every scene moves the theme forward. Assure myself that it is needed and cut everything that's extraneous.

4) Pull out and seperate every bit of dialogue between the five major characters. Look at every exchange between vharacter A and character B. Then A and C. A and D. Do them all. Be certain that the subtext in these conversations conveys feelings, emotions and pasts of these characters as it relates to just those two.

5) Do a line by line outline. In one line, explain every scene. The look at the structure from that outline. See on what page events happen. Be certain the structure is perfect.

6) Do a complete page one rewrite - retyping the entire thing.

7) Resubmit for more reviews. Eight or ten this time.

8) Do a complete page one rewrite.

9) Consider the best forms of assisted suicide if I have to look at it ever again.

10) Start a new script. Why? Cause I have too.

Hemingway wrote, in his usual loquacious manner, " The first draft of anything is shit".

He also said "Writing is easy. All you have to do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed".

I think he really meant rewriting.

The Most Magical Night of the Year.

No, it's not Christmas (or even Hanukkah). I didn't just arrive to Disneyland or Vegas. I haven't won money, love, or recognition. However, it is one of the most magical nights of the year. Because of two words...

FADE IN

It is those two words that every screenplay writer - neophyte or veteran - writes at the the beginning of every story. For some it only happens once every year or so. For the most prolific, four or five times, but it is the best feeling a storyteller can have.

The pages of notes are set to the side. The agony of the outline behind you. Your characters, right now existing only as 4-6 page of notes, are about to take their first breath. No matter how extensively you have plotted their story, you know they will take you to places you never envisioned. That's what makes it so exciting. Those words start a journey that you take with the characters you fleshed out. It's ending is dependent not just on your actions, but on who they are about to come as well.

Over the next 4-6 weeks I know the following things will be true:

• There will be at least two places my characters take me I never saw coming.
• I will have two (or at most three) epiphanies. Frankly, these will be better than an orgasm.
• In between those incredible moments of being, there will be dark day after dark day. Times when I know I won't finish. Others when I'll question why, who and what I am writing for.
• I will miss a few appointments or obligations due to being up half the night, because I HAD to get a scene or thought down before it fled.
• I will at some point right the worst two words - FADE OUT.

They are the worst because all the magic will be gone soon after. I'll be tired and spent, and soon will realize I wrote shit. Then I'll get to the rewrite.

For tonight though...

FADE IN

All is well in the writing realm - for now

Tonight I just finished polishing the first draft of my newest - The International Space Station. Uploaded it to the copyright office as well. This is the point where, for a very short while, I am content with it. I have gone through it completely and checked off the basics:

• Three acts all in the right places - check
• Inciting incident where it needs to be - check
• Theme stated - check
• Break into two and three handled correctly - check
• Characters have some life to them - check
• Dialogue isn't on the nose - check

For tonight all seems right with it. Over the next week or so it will be read by family and friends, as well as a couple of industry pros. Once those reviews come in I'll realize what an utter pile of garbage it is and the real work will begin.

The Sweet Smell of (Very Little) Success

Got about halfway done on the first rewrite of my current script, The International Space Station. For me, this first rewrite consists of fairly simple tightening of dialogue and action lines. The hope is to cut out a lot of excess. Trim, trim, trim.

However, as I was working at his I realized how much less excess there is on this draft than at the same point on the first two scripts. Two more epiphanies followed. One, I was very lucky to gain a modicum of success (in the form of peer recognition) on my very first script. Second, I suck at screenwriting.

The two actually go hand in hand. I had enough affirmation that I know I'm not a total hack, but I am now realizing how lucky I was to get even that. Script by script I learn. As I wrote my first and second I felt I knew what I was doing. I was wrong, but I can now extrapolate how much better my ninth and tenth MIGHT be.

Now that insight led to the logical conclusion that I should take a break and procrastinate (an area I excel in already). While surfing, I downloaded a script that has just won Script of the Month honors on one of the peer sites. It was good! Really good in some areas. I spent an hour or so studying it. Then went and looked at the writers other submissions (12 of them).

My new goal. Beat that guy! I'll be that good in 8 scripts! (or maybe 9...)

Strike Out - Still in the Minor leagues

The Nicholls notifications came out today. The Nicholls screenwriting competition is a big deal for writers. Sponsored by the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences it is the US Open of writers competitions. 6200 entries and just over 300 make the first cut. Just making the first cut assures most scripts of getting read by producers and agents.

I had sent an early draft of my first script in and gave myself an outside chance to make that first cut. No such luck. I kept up on a few screenwriting forums to see who did make it and was familiar with half a dozen of the scripts that made it through. One of them I really liked myself, but still feel it's not a marketable script. It is however a fine piece of writing. I also found out that scripts that made the top 10 or 15% were given that information even though they didn't advance. I didn't get one of those notes.

I thought about that. I thought about the success that script has already had and the positive reviews. I considered the fact that it was the first one I had ever written. Actually the first real piece of any kind I have written. Then I pulled the script out that I finished days ago. One I know is much better. One in which I utilize a multitude of things I've learned. One that is truly a high concept script and I started the second draft.

I didn't make the cut this year. That just means I have a lot to learn and it's time to get right back to work. The best motivation at this stage is rejection. I'm betting I'll get tons of motivation this year.

The Day After

I'm learning one thing is certain. That no matter the accomplishment, you have to write every day. No days off. It doesn't have to be a marathon session where you vomit out thirty pages. Perhaps it's just forty minutes of staring at the screen and correcting typos. Maybe an hour of research for a new idea, or a quick outline. Whatever it is, I must maintain the routine. Permission for a day off leads to another.

A day away from finishing my third screenplay, I am back to the second again. The third is relegated to a drawer for a week or so. Hopefully it's also somewhere back in the dim recesses of my subconscious getting better as well. Soon enough I'll return and start the real work on it. For now though I'm back to a final (I hope) polish on #2.

Genesis

Recent history: In January of 2009, with all the innocence of pure idiocy, I began writing my first feature length screenplay. In my case ignorance was the well from which sprang creativity. In other words, if I knew then what I've learned since, I never would have started. Perhaps all journeys of creativity start from naiveté. Now that I've started though, I plan on succeeding. Here then is that story, as it unfolds.

Mid-February 2009: I type fade out. Thus finishing my first screenplay - The Last Stand. An action/adventure set during the Republican period of the Roman Empire. Pure unadulterated entertainment. Indiana Jones meets Gladiator. I proudly upload the opus to a peer review site and get kicked in the nuts.

No one cared about the brilliant storytelling, the exotic locations or the wise-cracking heroes. All they cared about was the lack of structure, the errors in formatting and the poor execution of the fundamentals of screenwriting. So I bought a book. I rewrote. Seven times.

Then I received my first affirmation that I wasn't a total hack. Found a different peer review site and the script hit their top ten. Then it garnered a consider from a professional studio script reader. That must mean something, right?

Wrong. No one really cares if you have a well-written script. They MIGHT start caring when you have five or six of them. A few agents and managers look at the script. They don't care. Yet.

April: I finish my second script. The story of those who fought back in the Warsaw Ghetto. Well really it was the story of the present day grandson of one who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto. By the time the fifth rewrite was done the grandson was no more. Actually, sixty percent of the script was no more. I truly hope there is no writers hell where we are sent for all the killing and destruction of characters we do, even figuratively.

July: Just finished the first draft of my third! Woot! Months of rewrite hell to look forward too. Now though I have learned a few things.

I need a body of work. Writing is important, but at least as important is marketing - of the writer and of the material. A screenplay writer that fails to realize who he is writing for is doomed to fail. Writers spout off that they write because they must. They write for themselves. It is cathartic and a deep-seated need.

Problem is screenplays are written to reach an audience. I have learned that once the story is written, it is no longer mine. Subsequent drafts belong to the audience and I now work for them. What I found good and bold, is to them tired and uninteresting. Characters I love, they want to see perish. Endings I admire must be changed to fit the audiences needs. So be it.

So now I have a plan. I'll write. I'll polish. I'll change to fit my audience until I have a half dozen screenplays under my belt. I'll show versatility. I'll show that I can produce. All this by the end of the year. Then I'll market. Let's see how it goes...