Why Does the Screenwriter Cross the Road?. Joe Gilford
suddenly wake up one morning, without any training in dramatic writing and say: “I’m gonna write and sell a screenplay! I’ve seen all these movies. If I just copy them, I’ll be successful!”
Good luck.
Yes, screenwriting (and to a lesser extent playwriting) are “folk” arts. You don’t need a PhD. Nobody who looks at your script asks, “Where’d you study?” You are not certified. There are no cumulative hours for a license (like an airlines pilot). You are free to do it in any way that gives you satisfaction.
But it helps to know what you’re doing. Learning to write scripts is no different than any other craft. You learn the basics and start doing it. You compare your work to that of others around you and find out how good you might be. You might get produced. Or you might earn the support and recognition of other practitioners.
It takes time, training, diligence, and patience. You cannot just sit down and be good at it. I don’t know a single TV or movie writer who just sat down and did it the first time out. I’m sure there are a few, but it’s rare. And I don’t teach rarity or genius. I do the nutsand-bolts approach. I will guide you toward writing a script that’s emotionally and intellectually satisfying; a script that makes sense and, above all, helps you see what it is that makes a script work.
So before you pick up that violin, let’s take a few lessons first.
Why It’s Taken You So Long to Write an Unfinished Script
This so-called script you’ve been working on for over four years??? — that’s a problem. I’m not talking about rewrites. I once spent over eight years on a script (not every day but stretched out over time). Working with a very smart director-producer friend, we kept overhauling this thing to make it better. We also kept submitting it to studios and networks, getting feedback and using what we agreed on to improve the script. That’s a terrific process in my opinion.
That’s not what I’m talking about.
I’m talking about this project you keep going back to you that you’re never satisfied with and that you probably haven’t shown to anybody who knows what they’re talking about.
Here’s some idea of the actual timeline of a professional screenplay.
When a writer signs a Writers Guild of America (WGA) agreement to write a script, the first draft is usually due in about three months — “13 weeks.” In other arrangements it might be six months. And in very rare situations, where there is a long-term development process, it will be delivered in one year. That’s a first draft. Then it spends some time going through rewrites (“development”), sometimes with other writers, sometimes with the original writer(s); sometimes with a director or sometimes with a star and his/her development team.
There’s a bit of a disclaimer here: the actual script can take 13 to 20 weeks. But if you are already doing what you’re supposed to be doing you either know the whole story, from beginning to end, or you have actually created a beat sheet or a treatment that summarizes, scene-by-scene, the entire script before you start writing that script.
So it’s not unreasonable for a buyer to think you can sit down and write it in a few months. And you can.
But first . . .
• You have to come up with the idea.
• Then make that idea “storyworthy” (keep reading . . . )
• Then, research and research and research your story (even if it’s a comedy. Even if it’s your own personal experience; even if it’s all made up!).
• Then, create a beat sheet, step outline, or detailed treatment (all different versions of the same document)
• Then you sit down and write this nuisance of a document called a screenplay.
But if you haven’t come up with a first draft in about a year, it’s because you started out wrong and just went wrong-er. You put yourself on the wrong path and you just kept going and going and going. You lost your way and I assure you, you won’t find your way back or out or any other “right” path because you weren’t right to begin with. You didn’t start off on the right foot and dozens of other euphemisms for “Go back to GO.”
This is totally your fault!
But don’t despair, you can totally fix it if you’re willing to start at the beginning with your idea and then go through all the necessary steps to prove and exploit the most important property of your idea: Is it “storyworthy”? This is like “seaworthy” for a ship. Will it float? Does it work? Or will it sink the minute it’s launched? Or will it just float around without going anywhere?
If You Feel Good Writing It, You’re Doing It Wrong!
I believe that you’re reading this book so I can save you a lot of heartache. And I apologize: I cannot advise you to simply sit down and write your script. If I did, you would write a pretty flimsy script, get it out there and wonder and worry why nobody is paying you an enormous sum of money for it.
Here’s another strange thing to say: your idea doesn’t need to feel good to you. That’s right. Just because your idea doesn’t get you excited doesn’t mean it’s bad. You shouldn’t feel like it’s going to be “fun” to write.
Sorry.
What your idea should feel is:
• Sound
• Solid
• Clear
• Compelling
That last word is the most important. It’s a word that’s thrown around a lot these days. You’ll hear it from other writers, teachers, film people. “It’s a compelling idea” or “That was a very compelling story.” But that’s a pretty fancy word for a medium as popular as movies.
What it means is this: it compels your audience to feel something or to know something that they came to your movie to feel and to know. This thing they get from your story isn’t unfamiliar to them. In fact, it’s pretty everyday. It’s one of those values we listed earlier. It’s something we all believe but for some weird reason, we never get tired of it. We like to see that belief reaffirmed over and over again. It is the feeling or the knowledge that your main character acquired in the process of going through your story.
That’s right. It’s not you (the writer) but you talking through the main character that got this story where it is.
It’s not you saying, “I’m going to get this audience excited.” It’s you saying, “I’m going to show my main character going through something so compelling that my audience is going to thrill, laugh, gasp, or cry, or all of them.” Through the experiences and responses of your main character, your audience is going to love (or hate) your movie. This is pure Aristotle.
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher, scientist, and thinker who lived from 384 BC to 322 BC, the golden age of ancient Greek culture. Aristotle was not an artist, he was someone who liked to study things and then come to profound conclusions. One thing he looked at very closely was drama (and comedy). Playwrights such as Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles were still appreciated, decades since they passed away. They weren’t the only playwrights. There were others. But these guys were the best. They were the Shaw, Ibsen, and Miller of their times. Their work had remained popular for almost one hundred years by the time Aristotle began studying why it was so damned good.
First thing he understood was that their work was compelling. Even though some of their stories were well known and many based on familiar ancient myths and folk history, audiences ate it up, over and over, generation after generation. Aristotle noticed how audiences flocked to see these plays while they stayed away from other playwrights and he asked himself “Why?” (He would have made a great studio executive! I think he would have loved HBO.)
He realized a few basic things:
• These stories were carefully put together so