Cave Life

As writers we spend our lives in a cave, hammering out stories. But it’s a misconception to think that we’re alone in there. Oh no, we’ve got our little darlings to keep us company.

You know, our darlings… our cherished characters or moments that got us writing the script in the first place. Sure, other characters and moments come along, but often we like those initial darlings the best because we’ve been with them the longest.

That’s why it’s so hard to kill them when they’re dragging our script down. And kill them we must.

The Tribe of your Script

Most writers know that you have to embrace humanity’s caveman instincts to craft great stories: greed, love, lust, revenge, pride, glory, jealousy,  survival… You have to get primal! The same lesson applies to dealing with your script darlings.

If movies have taught me anything about Anthropology, it’s that life was tough for our cavemen ancestors. If any members of the tribe couldn’t keep up, they were left for the Orcs to eat… or something like that.

The point is — you have to treat your screenplay the same way. In the tribe of your script, it’s all about assembling the ideas most likely to help you succeed in battle (i.e. Hollywood).

How do you know it’s time to get out the cave club?

It may be time to kill (or change) your darlings, if:

1. … every time you try to figure out what’s wrong with your script, you’re led back to that one story darling (e.g. a “cool” character that goes nowhere; a “sweet” action sequence that feels forced or out of place; a “powerful” scene or image that no longer fits with the story or theme or structure; etc.).

2. … you pitch your idea, structure or draft to other writers, etc. and consistently get critical feedback pinpointing that darling of yours.

A Quote From Blake

In July 2009, Debra Eckerling interviewed Blake Snyder (author of the must-read screenwriting book: Save the Cat!) for Write On Online.  I thought I’d give Blake the last word with his quote from that article:

The first mistake writers make is in the concept. We are inspired to write for all kinds of reasons, and not all of them should wind up in the final product. I call this the “smell of the rain on the road at dawn.” You’re driving down the street and see some guy wearing a t-shirt and you go, “That’s a movie.” And maybe it’s not.

The second thing is in terms of story execution, which is corollary of the first idea: you are the small “g” god of this universe. You can change it any way you want to change it. And your prime directive is to tell a good story. A lot of writers—myself included—fall in love with stuff: that scene, that sweater that guy’s wearing; sometimes you don’t realize you can swap it all out for something else and make it work.

I think you’re only real goal is to tell a story about transformation and to make that transformation huge. A guy starts out one way he ends up another way. It’s important to keep those things in mind as you create. Just because you thought of it doesn’t mean that’s the way it has to stay.

Often, just being aware of this bias for your original ideas is the key breakthrough your script needs. Do you have a story darling that needs to be whacked?

The Mantra

Many screenwriting books and gurus have this mantra: “If you start rewriting before you reach the end of your script, you will never finish it.”

They’ll say, “Try to reach the end of your first draft quickly, so you can get to the rewriting process, where it all comes together.”

I call bull$#!+.

Here are the…

5 Pitfalls of Rushing Your First Draft

While it’s true your script’s first draft should serve as a starting point for refinement, here are some compelling reasons not to rush it.

#5: You might be tempted to send it out

I know screenwriters who have hurriedly completed a first draft because they had an agent or industry contact that was eager to read their script.

Bad idea.

I know it’s tempting, and I understand that industry guy sounded like he needed to see it NOW, but if you really want a shot in Hollywood, you won’t send him your rushed first draft. Unless you’re some sort of writing prodigy (and even then…) your first draft is going to need some polishing before it’s ready to go out.

If your industry contact is legit, he’ll be able to spot an unpolished spec script from a mile away. Here’s some Hollywood math:

1 rushed draft + 1 industry contact = 0 industry contacts

#4: You might jump to another project

When the focus of screenwriting becomes finishing that first draft, it’s easily to have an overinflated sense of accomplishment when that first draft is complete. Some aspiring screenwriters rip through their pages, put only a modicum of effort into the rewrite, then happily begin their next script.

Writing scripts is not just a numbers game. Recently, Julie Gray interviewed Jason Scoggins (a manager and partner at Protocol, a Beverly Hills-adjacent literary management and production company).¹ In the interview Jason mentioned that he looks for writers with 2 or 3 strong scripts.

While having written 6 to 8 screenplays still earns you credibility (and means you’ve been honing your skills), when it comes time to sell your script, it’s really about quality over quantity. Take your time and make every script count!

#3: You might not develop the requisite writing skills

As a writer, often your most brilliant work comes only after you’ve spent days or weeks fighting your way through a difficult story problem.

If you get into the habit of hopscotching away from these problem areas, you may never develop the skills necessary to defeat the story demons. Even when rewriting, you might feel the urge to avoid a trouble spot by vowing to “come back to it later.”

Professional-level writing takes patience, fortitude, belief in yourself, problem-solving abilities, creative-workarounds, mental gymnastics, buckets of heavily caffeinated coffee, and a myriad of other things you can only learn by forcing yourself to confront these known problems with your script.

I say the sooner the better because…

#2: You might develop an overwhelming script deficit

Many forces can hamper your rewriting efforts, or, worse yet, prevent you from starting them in the first place. One of the biggest culprits is something I call “script deficit.”

Script Deficit: The cumulative script issues that you know you’ll have to eventually fix.

Ever looked at a pile of papers and felt exhausted just thinking about the time it will take you to sort them out? That’s like script deficit. The more it’s allowed to grow, the more difficult it becomes to address the problems, and the more likely it is that you’ll never fix them.

Efficiency experts will tell you that you should only handle a piece of paper once. When you read your mail, deal with it right away. Don’t put it on the “I’ll do it later” pile, because then you’ll have to reacquaint yourself with the material and thus spend double the amount of time dealing with it.

Screenwriting is like that. I’m not saying that you need to perfect every little issue as you go along, but if you know there’s a fundamental problem with the scene you’re working on, you’ll be doing yourself a favor if you try to tackle that problem now.²

As script deficit grows, it makes the task of rewriting more daunting… and it becomes all too easy to add that first draft to the “I’ll do it later” pile.

#1: You might not want to change something fundamental

Let’s face it, even if you rush through a first draft of your script, odds are you’ve still spent several weeks or months working on it. That’s a huge investment of time.

As humans we don’t like wasting our time. As such we conjure up all sorts of psychological tricks to get out of doing more work. If we spend four hours painting a large room, only to have the paint dry and discover it’s the wrong shade, we might be inclined to say, “You know, it’s really not that bad.”

The same thing happens with screenwriting. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen writers discover and acknowledge a fundamental change that needs to be made to their screenplay, only to reflect later, “You know, it’s really not that bad.”

Obviously these types of problems would ideally be sorted out in the pre-writing or outlining phase. But sometimes you just don’t know how something’s going to shake out until you try it.

If you’re writing a scene, and it just isn’t working, you owe it to yourself to take a shot at finding out why that is, before moving on. You may just discover that something fundamental needs to be changed in your script. If you make this discovery on page 10, you’re much better off than making this discovery on page 110.

Summary and Exceptions

Just to be clear — I’m not saying that you should perfect every scene and detail before moving on to the next. I’m saying that you shouldn’t feel pressured to push forward in order to meet an arbitrary daily page count, or out of fear that you may never finish your script, or out of a mistaken belief that finishing your first draft equates to success.

The fact of the matter is that good screenwriting is really hard work. If you’ve got what it takes, come hell or high water you’ll finish that script. Writers write.

Whether you fix your scenes as you write them or after you’ve finished the first draft — you still have to fix those accursed scenes! And even the best first draft will still require multiple rewrites and passes after you’ve solicited feedback.

Don’t worry about crossing your t’s and dotting your i’s as you go along, while at the same time, don’t let some “finish that script” mantra stop you from rewriting a scene until you’re happy with it. Everyone’s writing style is different.

Feel free to rush to the finish line of your first draft if you fall into one of these categories:

• You’ve written a bullet-proof outline, and already know the ins and outs of every scene
• You’re a first-time writer and just want to see if you can write a feature screenplay
• You write or rewrite to find your story (outlining just doesn’t work for you)
• Everything’s flowing and you’re “in the moment” with a blast of creative energy (you can whittle it down later)
• You treat your first draft like a true “rough copy” — knowing that wholesale swaths of it will need to be rewritten

How about you? Do you wait until you’ve completed your first draft before rewriting anything?

My lousy way of getting it done is better than your great way of not doing it.
- Terry Rossio

My Formula

I was recently mired in the dreaded outlining process for my latest script. I tend to be quite zealous when it comes to figuring out the structure of my screenplay in advance.  That comes from seeing first-hand what happens when writers don’t.

Here’s the diabolical formula I swear by:

• 1 hour of outlining, saves 1 day of rewriting
• 1 day of outlining, saves 1 week of rewriting
• 1 week of outlining, saves 1 month of rewriting

I have no scientific proofs for that formula other than my experience and observations. You can see, though, there are diminishing returns. So if you spend a year outlining, you may be missing the point (or have a reeeally tough nut to crack).

Getting It Done

As great as outlining is, there comes a time when you just have to hunker down and write. If you wait until you have every single detail, of every single scene, in place before you write, you may be waiting too long.

You may be encountering “paralysis by analysis.” It can be crippling. I know I’ve suffered from it many times. And usually the best way to get over it, is to start writing.

Sometimes it’s just that simple.

By starting to write something, anything, you’re no longer dealing with a daunting blank page. What’s more is that your brain now has something tangible to sink its teeth into.

An athlete can do all the visualization in the world ahead of time, but on game day, their brain will be working ten times harder and filling in pieces that couldn’t be conceived of beforehand.

When doing it wrong is doing it right

When you’re stuck on a scene, you need to give yourself permission to write it the wrong way.

This concept is one of the many great things Blake Snyder talks about in his new book: Save the Cat! Strikes Back. Just ask yourself, “What’s the wrong way to write this scene?” If you know in advance that you’re writing something sub par, it takes all of the pressure off.

But a funny thing happens — before you know it, you’ve spruced up a few sentences, given your character a missing voice, and wouldn’t ya know it — you’ve even figured out that sticking point in the scene. Presto! You’ve just overcome your writer’s block.

And even in the worst case scenario, the “lousy” way you’ve written the scene is far better than the greatest way of not writing it.

Some of my friends have had great success as a writing team. Perhaps they answered all of Steve Kaire’s key questions at the outset of their partnership:

There’s a list of questions that has to be answered before both parties make the final commitment to work together: Do your writing styles mesh rather than conflict? Do you have personalities that work well together under pressure? Can you both invest the amount of time required from inception of the script to the ultimate marketing of the material? How will major disagreements be resolved when you reach an impasse? Will you be doing an equal amount of work and splitting the money equally, or will there be some other kind of financial arrangement? And if the worst-case scenario occurs and you both decide to go your separate ways, who does the material belong to?

The full article on ScriptMag.com