One of my biggest challenges when it comes to rewrites has always been letting go of what’s on the page now and making whatever changes are needed.
It’s taken time to learn to get better at this.
Such was the case with the current rewrite.
I was going through the previous draft, marking up what needed to be done.
I got to a scene that I loved, but ultimately realized that it simply didn’t need to be there. Broke my heart to take it out, but I had to do what was best for the script, not me.
There were a few scenes that had to be adjusted a bit as a result of that, which in retrospect was a pretty good thing. Those scenes are now tighter and help keep things moving along.
And it’s not like I can’t use the content of the cut scenes again. They’ll just be stored away for potential use in the future – for this script or possibly another.
Cutting that one scene has also resulted in being more open to doing more with other scenes. I’ve enjoyed working with the mindset of “Is there a different way to do this?” and then exploring the possibilities. It’s not uncommon to go through several versions before finding the one that works.
Don’t know how long it’ll take to get through the rest of the script, but I’m quite happy with how it’s going. This in turn makes me want to work on it more, so there’s a chance it could even be done sooner than expected.
I honestly think the end result will be a much better script. All because I was willing to get rid of/change material I thought was already good.
Ask any screenwriter how their most recent draft compares to, say, their very first one, by which I mean THEIR ABSOLUTE VERY FIRST ONE, it’s probably a sure thing they’ll say something along the lines of “It was awful!” or “An absolute mess!”, or maybe even “I don’t even want to think about it it was so bad.”
Taking a look at some of my first attempts, I can say the exact same thing. Scenes that drag on. Flat action lines, or ones that were way overwritten. Big chunks of text on the page. On-the-nose dialogue that’s pure exposition. Spoonfeeding story details to the reader to make sure they understand what’s going on.
Nothing to be ashamed of. There are vomit drafts, and “looks like my printer vomited words all over the pages” drafts. You gotta start somewhere, and the important part is YOU GOT IT WRITTEN.
Nowhere to go but up, right?
So you start working on getting better. You get feedback. You start to understand why things aren’t working and what you can do to fix them. You learn, and all this new knowledge helps shape the next draft to better than the one that came before it.
You put in the time and the effort and it becomes more noticeable how your writing is getting better. All of those newbie mistakes are a thing of the past. Your script seems more polished. There’s still room to improve, but it doesn’t seem as daunting now, does it?
Multiple drafts and seemingly neverending rewrites are par for the course. It happens to even the most experienced screenwriters. The hardest part is getting that first draft written. Accomplish that and you’re already ahead of the game.
There will most likely be a ridiculous amount of rewriting in your future, and the end result may be totally different from what you started with, but think about how far you’ve come. You probably had no idea when you were just starting out that you’d be so willing to put yourself through all of this, over and over again.
And that might even be for just one script.
Sure, you might be a little embarrassed when you look at your earliest scripts, but look at your most recent draft or the pages you wrote last weekend. As if they’d been written by two entirely different writers. Because that’s exactly what they are.
Past You was just starting out and made a lot of mistakes. Present You knows what’s needed and does it.
And just imagine the skills that Future You is going to have.
Despite the recent frustration of figuring out how a sequence should play out, I’ve been having a good time with the rewrite of the sci-fi adventure spec outline.
I’ve been working on this off and on for a while – this is probably the sixth or seventh draft of it. While some of the details have changed, a lot of it remains the same. The core concept of it all was what appealed to me from the start.
I get a certain charge out of coming up with these crazy scenarios and high-octane action sequences, not to mention coordinating and laying out all the pieces of the puzzle that is the plot. I always tell writers to “write something you would want to watch”, and this one definitely falls into that category.
Although my stories tend to lean more towards the fantastical, I try to make sure the characters and situations feel real and relatable – or at least as much as they can within the world of the story. Despite the extraordinary goings-on, it’s still about how somebody reacts to what’s going on around them.
I’m currently at the midpoint, so there’s still a ways to go, but like I said, I’ve got a lot of previous drafts from which I can cherry-pick material. There’ll probably be a few more rounds of rewriting, revising, and reorganizing, but I’m still enjoying it.
It’s quite easy to get burned out from working on a story by working longer than you expected to, but I’m fortunate not to have hit that point yet. If anything, I’m more jazzed about it probably because it really feels like it’s finally all coming together.
Not setting up a definitive deadline for having a completed draft, but if I can maintain this pace and output, there’s a strong possibility it could be by the end of the calendar year. Hoping so.
In the meantime, still having a grand old time with it.
Hope your writing this weekend is chock-full of the same sensation.
After an unexpected break, work has recommenced on fine-tuning the outline of the sci-fi adventure spec.
I don’t know how other writers organize their outlines, but mine tend to be a scene-by-scene breakdown on a Google doc. (Hats off to the users of index cards). Each scene is planned out in terms of what happens, sometimes what dialogue might be involved, and an underlying mindset of “what’s the conflict here?”
Even though I know what I need the scene to accomplish, I may not have all the information I need, so I’ll jot down a note or question in ALL CAPS as part of it (to help me not overlook it). The note or question is something that needs to be addressed, but can’t be answered just yet.
Things like:
-DOES HE KNOW ABOUT THIS? IF NOT, HOW TO DO THAT?
-WHAT CAN SHE DO HERE TO DEMONSTRATE WHAT KIND OF PERSON SHE IS?
-NEED 3 VARIATIONS ON THIS (SEE PREVIOUS DRAFT FOR LIST)
-POSSIBLE CLUE OR HINT HERE TO BUILD UP TO BIG REVEAL
You get the idea.
I find it better to write these down in the outline instead of something separate. I don’t trust myself to be that organized, and my desk/working area is quite a mess. It’s just easier to keep it all in one document.
It’s more helpful to take the extra time to deal with all of these now, rather than jump into pages and have to hit the brakes each time one of these needs to be addressed.
Dealing with these sorts of issues can also prove beneficial because while you’re handling the initial thing, it may also offer a new or at possibly an unexpected solution that can cover a few other things, or add a new detail that adds to or helps the story. It’s happened before.
For the most part, the outline is pretty solid, story-wise, so once all of these notes and questions are covered, it’ll be off to the races. I don’t think it’ll take too long, and shooting for another end-of-the-year finish in terms of completed drafts. One would be nice, two would be better.
It’ll get there, slowly but surely.
-Contest news! My animated fantasy-comedy made Second Round for comedy features with Austin. Another long-time goal achieved, so…yay.
Congrats to all the other amazing writers whose work also made it. I’ll be there to celebrate. How about you?
-As the writers strike continues, it’s taking a toll on the people involved. One of those people is friend-of-the-blog Jenny Frankfurt, who runs the Finish Line Script Competition. She could use whatever help you can provide, so please donate here if you can.
A few weeks ago, I printed a copy of the animated fantasy-comedy, and then posted on social media about holding the actual document in my hands and the sensations that resulted from doing that.
(Quick note – said sensations were of a very positive nature. There’s definitely something to be said about holding a physical manifestation of all the time and effort you put into this draft. It’s exhilarating. Uplifting, even. A true sense of accomplishment. And then eagerly accepting the next step of figuring out what’s wrong with it and how to fix it/make it better.)
The post yielded quite a wide spectrum of responses. From “Totally agree. It’s fantastic!” to “I can’t imagine NOT printing it” to “You still print out scripts?”
As I matter of fact, I do. I find it to be incredibly helpful when it comes to editing, proofreading, and overall polishing.
As more than a few people put it, “Printing out a script is a necessary part of my process. I can see things on a page I’m holding that I might not see on a screen.”
That can definitely apply to me. After I finish a draft, I’ll step away from it for a few weeks, then print it out (double-sided) and have at it with red pen in hand. I go through the whole thing page by page, line by line, marking it up as much as necessary.
Could there be some kind of subconscious connection between holding an honest-to-goodness physical printout in your hands and what it does to your creative process? Beats me, but it seems to really make a difference.
I’m much more likely to spot something that needs to be changed when it’s on a piece of paper rather than on a screen. A line of dialogue that doesn’t work or needs retooling. A scene that doesn’t flow the way I need it to, so I try rearranging it. Or those most common of miscreants – a typo, a misspelled word, or a rogue punctuation mark. It happens.
Sometimes I’ll have a page that’s totally mark-free, or maybe one or two little fixes. Sometimes the page has got more red ink and edit marks than actual text, or my notes and comments occupy a lot of that white space.
All of it – not uncommon.
One interesting side note – many’s the time I’d have to decide about cutting something I was hesitant to cut. I would then figure out what was best for the script and story, and not what I wanted. If cutting this or rearranging that resulted in the scene, and subsequently the script, being better, then so be it. The usual follow-up to that was I’d make the change, then immediately forget about what was cut because the new version was better.
Once all the changes and fixes have been taken care of this draft, I’ll go back to the beginning and start implementing those changes and fixes on the digital copy.
Also not uncommon – trying to read my own handwriting, which can occasionally border on appearing microscopic in size from me trying to cram too many notes on the page. It might take a few passes to read it, but I eventually get there.
Before I know it – voila! A new draft.
Printing out my scripts to do some more work on them in order to make the next draft better is a process that’s served me quite well over the years, and I don’t see any reason to stop doing it.
Maximum Z 