The big project continues, but I’m definitely in the home stretch now. Feeling very confident and rejuvenated about wrapping it up in the next couple of days. Planning to offer up all the sordid details once it’s completely finished.
While all energies are focused on that, here is another throwback post from a long time ago in a galaxy not so far, far away. From me, anyway.
And yes, I still have the t-shirt and chopsticks.
As mentioned previously, I’m up to my eyeballs on two big projects through next week. My wife K suggested – begged – to provide a guest post this week. So, without further ado…
Regular Maximum Z readers know Paul has been at this for a long time. While he comments regularly on what it’s like to be a screenwriter and what is happening in the filmmaking world, he’s never addressed the world around him. As the long-time significant other, it’s my chance to give advice that you can choose to subtly share with those around you.
Although every creative couple is different, after 25+ yrs together, there are definite hits and misses of how to support your partner/spouse or guy/gal who writes.
They are:
First and foremost, they are the writer. Unless you are invited to give notes, you are NOT part of the writing process. It may be killing you inside, but no matter how much you just know it should be written differently, it’s not for you to say. I will confess there’s one script of Paul’s that my only feedback was: did you mean to make the protagonist look like an idiot in this scene? Yes, it was less than constructive notes, but I did wait to be asked.
Which leads to the second bit of advice: if you are invited to give notes, don’t be an asshole about it. The screenwriter is already getting that from so many others, including their own self-doubt. There is what should be an obvious line between giving feedback and ultimately rewriting a script to match what’s in your brain.
Rule of thumb: if you aren’t going to get WGA credit on the script, you shouldn’t be adding enough to have warranted it.
Third, know their writing schedule and style. Does your writer want breaks or is it heads down at the laptop until rewrites are complete? There’s a scene from TRUMBO where Bryan Cranston writes sitting in a tub. He yells at his teenage daughter for bothering him to mention they are singing Happy Birthday to her. Luckily, Paul doesn’t take his laptop into the tub, but we have arranged for the dog not to visit her favorite human when he’s at his desk.
My fourth suggestion is probably the hardest and most controversial. Don’t say “I know you will be successful.” Or, “it will happen with this script, I just know it.” No. You don’t know it.
In Jim Collins‘ book From Good to Great, he talks about the difference between being confident and being an optimist. The gist of it is the optimist believes so much that things will work out in the universe if they believe hard enough. That is a recipe for disappointment. In contrast, being confident in someone’s ability means that you believe they have the ability to do what they’ve set up to do.
That means for as much as I know I’m married to a talented writer and for as much as I love him to pieces, I can’t promise him it will work out. It hurts, but it’s the truth. I do know that if he continues to work as hard as he does and shows his scripts to the right people, he has the ability to be successful.
Ultimately, that’s the rub. We love ’em. We support ’em. Now, we need to get out of their way.
Bye for now.
-K
It’s probably safe to assume you’ve found yourself in this situation before:
A colleague asks you to read their material and give your thoughts on it. “Don’t hold back,” they say. “Be as brutal as you need to be. I can take it.”
So you read it, compile your notes (making sure to be critical, but fair and helpful) and send them off. Most of the time this results in one of two ways.
1. “These are great! Thank you so much!”
Or…
2. “What do you mean ____? How could you miss that? Did you even read the script?”
Urgh. I hate, hate, hate when they say that.
Did you want notes or gushing praise? You asked me for the former, but it sounds more like you secretly meant the latter, and now you’re not happy with the results.
If I think your script is good, I’ll say so and tell you why. On the other hand, I also won’t hesitate to point out what I think needs work, or if there’s something I didn’t understand.
There’s no need to remind me how much you’ve slaved over this for months/years, but I’m not going to say it’s good just to make you feel better. You know every single aspect of the story. I don’t, and only comment about what I can (or can’t) see on the page in front of me.
This doesn’t mean I’m a bad reader. Have you considered the remote possibility that your writing just might not be the perfection you think it is? I’ll fetch the smelling salts while that one sinks in.
Believe me, I’m not saying these things to be mean. You asked me for my opinion, and I gave it to you. There are professional analysts and consultants who do the exact same thing, and you’d pay them for it. Not everybody is going to love your script or pick up on every intricate detail you think is painfully obvious to any moron with half a brain.
If you put your script out there for review, you’d better be prepared for the worst. It’s an unfortunate part of how this works.
And one more important piece of advice: getting defensive or arguing with me because I didn’t like your script or “just don’t get it” isn’t going to change my mind, and will definitely make me not want to do this for you again.
I had lunch the other day with my friend the working writer. Among the many things he’s always reliable for is honest feedback.
After updating each other on our latest project developments, I off-handedly quipped “I hope I’m a real writer someday.”
“You are a real writer,” he responded. He’s read some of my stuff, and doesn’t hesitate to give praise or suggest changes where applicable.
“Okay,” I said. “I hope I’m a paid writer someday.”
Which is really what it all boils down to – making a living at this.
This is not to say I see this as easy money (which it definitely isn’t), or won’t be happy until I make a million-dollar sale (although I wouldn’t complain if that actually did happen).
I’ll assume you’re in a similar situation and just really enjoy writing, hoping somebody will like your stuff enough that they want to buy it, or be interested in having you write (or rewrite) something for them, and being able to do it on a steady ongoing basis.
But it’s not enough to sit around and dream about it. Like our protagonists, we have to be the ones who make things happen.
Are you being active in your pursuit of a writing career? Are you constantly striving to make your script better? Are you a positive and supportive member of the writing community?
This is a massive undertaking, not to be taken lightly. It’s hard work, pure and simple.
My aforementioned friend, the working writer, spent twenty years getting to this point. And now every time we reconnect, he tells me about his latest assignment or some potential new ones. He put together a short he’s considering entering in some festivals, and to top it all off, he’ll be on set for a feature he wrote that begins production in a few months.
He’s not going after the big paycheck stuff – just solid, steady work.
Not everybody can write the box office blockbuster or mega-hit TV show, which is fine. There’s a ton of other stuff out there that requires solid writing skills and a dedicated work ethic.
As much I like the idea of the former, I’d be perfectly happy being the guy who gets to keep working on the latter.
-This is my 500th post. To paraphrase the genius of Monty Python, if you’ve enjoyed this blog half as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it, then I’ve enjoyed twice as much.
So there.
Right now, it’s all about finishing the first draft of this spec. Just get it done. Hopefully this momentous event will occur sometime in the next couple of days.
The script as a whole will of course need a lot of tweaking and reworking – it’s foolish to think otherwise – but it’s also important to get the words on the page to paint a strong mental picture. The more picturesque your text, the more vivid it becomes inside the reader’s mind.
Despite using the “write it now, fix it later” approach, I try to work with a wide variety of words, descriptions and phrases throughout to keep things interesting. Remember – the thesaurus is your friend. Use it wisely.
Changes will be made where necessary in forthcoming drafts. It’s more than likely a word or sentence will be modified several times, then changed back to what it originally was. This happens all the time.
As this draft was put together, the words that met my needs at the time were used. Are there ones that work better, or at least do a better job of conveying the intended mood? Without a doubt, but rather than spend too much time now to come up with the perfect word or phrase, I’m more interested in maintaining that nice, steady momentum. There’ll be time to spruce it up later.
You can have great language in your wide margins or dialogue, but it all boils down to this: if the story’s not rock-solid, the whole thing will fall apart.
I was especially reminded about this listening to a recent episode of Scriptnotes. One of the entries in the Three Page Challenge featured the colorful phrase describing a room: “A dragon’s lair of treasures.” Nice, huh?
I don’t know if the writers had that in there from Day One, but it’s definitely not something I would have come up with the first time around. It’s not hard to imagine this is the result of a little brainstorming. It’s short, descriptive and effective.
Don’t worry about getting it all perfect when you start. That’s what rewrites are for.
