Sparkling wit, bon mots & smart turns of phrase are right at home here
Another three months has passed, making it a more than fitting opportunity to check in with all of you hard-working writers to find out exactly how that writing is going.
That’s right, gang. Put on your public-speaking pants (online edition) and step up to take part in the world-renowned Project Status Update Time!
(insert triumphant fanfare here)
It’s a fairly simple process. In the comments section below, feel free to share with the rest of us what’s new with you and your writing.
Page count. Logline development. Contact with a prodco or rep. Pre-production on a short. Any and all updates are welcome.
As is the tradition, I’ll start things off:
I’ll still give it one more read-through, but I wrapped up the rewrite/polish on the comedy spec. It’s more of a dramedy now, but still quite a charming little story.
I’m also in the process of giving notes on some friends’ scripts, and once all of those are done, it’s onto a pair of new projects. Exciting times, indeed.
Mine don’t look like theirs yet, but give me time…
Via a writing colleague, I recently found myself in the possession of a pair of scripts written by a pair of pros.
“Open one and read a few words and you’ll be in for the rest of the script,” I was told.
And you know what? They weren’t far off.
I only got a few pages in, but found the writing to be extremely vivid and descriptive. No problem at all in painting those mental pictures with a powerful brush.
My only complaint – all that dazzling wordsmithing got a little too distracting, making it slightly tougher to focus on the story. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to reading both scripts.
But I totally got my friend’s point: the writing was exceptionally engaging. It really grabbed you and made you want to keep going.
Compared to it, my writing comes across as kind of dry and might even be considered sort of dull and lackluster. Not to totally disparage my own work, but these writers are professionals. I, as it has already been established, am not.
But reading these scripts and others like them are good reminders of what I and every other writer should be trying to do. You don’t want a stick drawing. You want a finely-crafted elaborate work of art.
Speaking from experience, this isn’t easy. It’s almost like learning a new way of writing. It requires a lot of work, nor will it happen overnight.
But don’t despair. The good news is you can start working on these improvements practically immediately.
Take the last scene you wrote. How does it read to you? Does it compel you to want to know what happens next? Feel free to tinker with it until it gets to that point. Then do the same with the scene after it. And the one after that. And so on, and so on.
Think of it this way – you want the reader to “see” the scene in the same way you imagined it. Therefore, your challenge is to write it so the actions, images and dialogue in it come as close as possible to matching your version AND that no other description would do it justice.
Reading these professional scripts was at first intimidating in a “I’ll never be able to write like that!” kind of way. But with a continuous effort and a lot of work, there’s no reason to think I couldn’t come mighty close.
To say the past week and a half has been a little hectic would be a slight understatement*. And of course, it involves writing and the opportunities that come with it.
Long story short – Somebody wanted to read one of my scripts. But I hadn’t finished writing it yet. So I wrote, edited and polished it. In ten days. Without taking time off from work.
As you can probably guess, I’m equal parts exhausted and exhilarated at having done it.
While I catch my second wind, here’s the extended version:
A little over three weeks ago, I connected with somebody who works for a production company. They mostly do TV, but are looking at expanding into features.
Emails and pleasantries were exchanged. They took a look at the blog, liked what they saw, and asked for a list of my loglines “to see if my boss might be interested.” So I sent it. This was on a Friday afternoon.
A vital piece of the puzzle to keep in mind – just before all of this occurred, I’d gotten the outline of a long-dormant comedy spec to the point where I felt ready to start on pages. Which is what I was doing while all of this interaction was occurring.
The following Monday morning, the response came in. “Do you have scripts for X and Y? Would love to request if so.”
Naturally, X was the long-dormant comedy spec that so far I had written all of 8 pages, and Y was still in outline form (which I’d already been considering producing in another medium).
My initial thought was panic. Neither script was available, but I didn’t want to blow the opportunity; I wanted to be able to send them SOMETHING. Sooner, rather than later. What to do, what to do?
After a little evaluation and weighing all my options, I wrote back that I was still working on the latest draft of X (which was true), and could have it for them the following week. I’d considered saying a few weeks or a month, but that seemed too long. Regarding Y, I said pretty much what I mentioned above – it was an outline, but they could take a look at it if they wanted to.
They were cool with both options, and were looking forward to reading them.
I’d just thrown the gauntlet in my own face. What had I gotten myself into? Was I totally insane for thinking I could pull this off? Would I be able to pull it off?
Only one way to find out.
I had a script to write, and had to do it faster than I’d ever done it before. I had no intention of sending them a first draft, so I had to crank that out and do a major polish on it. In about a week and a half. Taking time off of work was not an option, so I’d have to be as productive as possible in the off-hours that didn’t involve sleeping.
I explained my plan to my understanding family and got to work.
I produced as many pages as I could per day, averaging 8-10. Those would then be edited & polished during all available downtime at work (it being summer vacation season was a godsend – traffic’s much lighter, so that really helped). I’d get home, incorporate the changes, then move on to the next set.
Write, edit/polish, rewrite, repeat. A seemingly never-ending cycle.
A few things I discovered during all of this:
-Having a solid outline made it so much easier. I knew exactly what had to happen in each scene, and how I wanted it to happen, so there was no time wasted trying to figure it out.
-I sincerely think my joke-writing’s gotten better.
-I’ve gotten much more proficient at coming up with solutions to last-minute script-related problems.
-I seriously wondered if this is what it would be like if I were doing this for a living. I’d actually be pretty cool with it.
After ten days of non-stop effort, I had what I considered a somewhat decent 97-page comedy script. Both it and the outline have been sent.
Of course, they may not like either one. But at this point, I don’t care. Simply having accomplished this is my victory. I set an intense short-term goal and did it.
The script could definitely benefit from at least another rewrite, but that’s not a priority at this juncture. I wrote it in the time I said I would, and that’s the important thing.
Others may scoff at my feeling of accomplishment, claiming it’s no big deal or that they’ve done it or even done it in less time. But their words will fall on deaf ears because it’s a big deal to me. This is something I did, and am extremely proud of having done it.
So what now? I’m taking the weekend off, which will include going for a much-missed and much-needed training run.
But come Monday, I’ll be right back at it, hard at work on whatever project I opt to do next.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to take my time with it.
*I really appreciate everybody’s patience, and hope you enjoyed the throwback posts. And K wanted to thank everybody for the kind comments about her guest post. Yes, I am a very lucky guy to have somebody like her.
It’s going to take just a little bit more than a new coat of paint
It all started with a “Scripts Wanted” listing.
A small prodco with an even smaller budget was looking for a particular kind of script. I felt that one of my earlier efforts was a perfect match, so I sent it in.
A few days later came the response “Just not what I’m looking for.” A bit disappointing, but that’s the way it is. No big deal. I’ve moved on.
It was at this point I realized it had been quite a while since I’d actually read the script. As far as I could remember, it was in good shape.
So I read it.
The result? It’s better than I remember, and a lot of the jokes still work. But what it really needs is just a good, solid edit/polish. There’s definitely some fat in need of trimming, and a lot of that is just extra and/or unnecessary words.
The draft I’d been using for years was 109 pages, which is a little excessive for a comedy. I’ve completed the initial edit, which brought it down to 105. A more thorough red pen edit is underway, and after going through the first third, another page has been cut out, bringing the current total to 104. The hope is to cut out at least another 2-3 pages.
There are at least two sequences (so far) that need rewriting to accommodate some of this editing, and the solution to one of them (a key part of the story) came to me a lot faster than I was expecting. That’s always nice. There’s no reason I couldn’t be done with a much more presentable draft in a week or less, which is also nice.
Since this script is from way back when, it was quite the experience to look at how I used to write with the advantage of having all the knowledge and skill I’ve acquired since then.
Go through your own catalog of completed scripts. Almost-completed and first drafts are allowed. When was the last time you looked at one of your earliest efforts? How does it compare to your most recent project?
I bet it’s super-easy for you to spot the differences between then and now. You might be surprised at how much you’ve improved, or possibly even laugh at how bad you used to be. Happens to everybody.
Whenever I would pass this script along to another writer, I would always precede it with the caveat “This is one of my earlier scripts, so the writing’s not as good.”
After this edit/polish, I don’t think I’ll be saying that anymore.
Here’s a two-part question for you. Pencils at the ready, please.
Up first – Are you enjoying the actual process of writing your script?
Sure, we all like “having written”, but what about getting there?
Do you get a thrill from figuring out your story? Mapping out the plot? Developing characters and crafting dialogue?
Do you get so engrossed and involved in your writing that when you check the time, you discover a lot more time has passed than you thought?
If you’re really excited and enthusiastic about your script, you’re going to feel that way even before you start writing it.
Now for the second part of the question:
Is all the aforementioned excitement and enthusiasm evident on the pages of your script? Could someone read it and think “Wow, they really like this stuff.”?
While it’s often said that you can gauge a writer’s grasp of the craft just by looking at the first page, you can also tell if they’re really into their story by how it reads.
Does it grab you from the get-go? Is the tone of the writing a solid match for the tone of the genre? This is not a case when “good enough” will cut it. What would you think if you read a horror that was “sort of” scary, or a comedy where all the jokes fall flat?
Exactly.
You want the reader to be as thoroughly entertained as you were in putting it together. You want them to be as compelled to keep turning the page as you’d be if you were reading it yourself.
A lot of the time you’ll hear a writer wrote something because “they had a story they had to tell”. That story was so strong and powerful inside them, they had no alternative but to write it out.
As creative types, that level of excitement and enthusiasm exists in all of us. We’re all eager to tap into it, but need to take the time to learn how to do it properly so it can be done in the most effective way possible.
