While I’m thinking about the script in front of me, staring me in the face, casting its shadow across my every day, I know full well why it might be difficult to write a great screenplay. What are the common reasons it’s so challenging? Why can’t we seem to cross that last stretch and finally complete a script that changes everything for us?
Here are five reasons why:
Boredom
You started your script on fire, telling everyone about your crazy new idea, blowing yourself away with how many pages you wrote so quickly, enjoying every new line and moment, convinced this script is superior to anything you’ve ever written. But suddenly, one day, you’re bored as hell. You’ve run into a wall with all the problems the script has, you’ve gotten a ton of conflicting notes on what to address and you don’t want to work on it any more. Honestly, you’re sick of it. The characters and the story, even the scenes that work so well and everyone loves—–those scenes do nothing for you now. It’s official—-the work of writing your script has lost all excitement and you’re bored out of your mind. Time to move on?
Absolutely not. Boredom is a sign you’ve done a whole ton of work and you need to keep going. If you’re not bored yet, then you haven’t worked on your script nearly enough.
Plans
You got your outline ready and completed and you’ve figured out your ending before you’ve even written a word. You’ve nailed your beat sheet, the one everyone uses. You’ve written character sketches. The theme of your screenplay. The genre. You’ve picked a title and you’ve changed the title and you’ve gotten a better title. You’ve worked very hard on a logline, because you’re told it’s good to have one before you write. Now you’ve started writing and it’s become annoyingly difficult to follow what you designed. You’re completely veering away from what you intended. Or maybe you’re following your plans to the letter, but it feels wrong, even though you’re writing everything you told yourself you would write. In short, you planned your story the right way, but the screenplay isn’t right at all. What happened?
Well, it’s not called screenplanning. Beat sheets and outlines should not be used to prevent extra work or keep you from “wasting time.” If your screenplay doesn’t read as cool as you projected, adopt a pro attitude and keep writing. Writing will solve your screenplay problem if you let writing drive the car.
Time
You’re too busy to write. You have children. You have a job. You have a husband, or wife, or partner, or friend, or mother, or sister. You have a medical issue. You have no time in the morning to write and you have no time during the day to write. Can’t write at night and you can’t write on weekends. You can’t write on the train. You can’t write on the plane. You can’t write in your bed. You can’t write at home. You can’t write at a coffee house.
No matter where you might be able to find time to write, there’s a reason why that time simply doesn’t exist. Maybe you have all the time in the world. All day. All week. All weekend. You have too much time to write. In short, time makes it very hard to write a screenplay and often makes a screenplay never happen.
Yet when it comes to time, you have all the time you need to be a professional screenwriter, if you write today. Writing today leads to everything you’ve always wanted. Writers have forever if they write before tomorrow.
Patience
Your screenplay has problems. People don’t understand it. They don’t like the characters and think the story isn’t logical. And you might even agree. You know when you’re writing the screenplay, you’re not making sense. You’re writing whatever pops in your head, because you want to finish. You’re making an implausible choice for your story because you can’t think of something better. You’ll go back and fix it later. You want the process of writing a screenplay to be over. You want to write a great screenplay now. You want to hurry up and write an amazing script that will take you to the next level. You can’t wait for better ideas, better choices, a better screenplay, let alone the very best you’re capable of. You want it to end soon.
The quickest way to a professional career writing for television and film is to take a long time on your script. That’s the shortcut. Writers who do fewer rewrites always start their careers over, even if they are on their 10th script. Have patience with your script and you’ll meet your dreams very soon.
Pain
You thought it would be fun to write a screenplay. You have a dream and now you’re doing it, it’s actually happening and it’s clearly more fulfilling than anything else you do. But storytelling is not toes in the sand. You find moments of conflict difficult to write, because conflict makes you squirm. You struggle with telling the truth about how your characters feel, because you have to actually experience emotions that you might not want to feel today. Delivering authentic human emotion per the truth of the tale you author is not easy, in fact, most writers can not be this personal or vulnerable. Yet the screenplay needs the truth, and the truth hurts.
If you wanted to know what professional writers do, this is it: they play with the pain. The labor of writing is not typing a bunch of words, it’s relaying emotion to an audience, and this is not easy work. The job of the screenwriter is to share precisely the act of living through challenges. Define the rigors of what this is for you, accept the job requirements, and deliver like a farmer.
You might have noticed that what makes it hard to write a screenplay isn’t the elements of the story, like structure, dialogue, character or plot. It isn’t about finding representation, or financing, or actors. It’s about you. But there are ways to meet these challenges, and with each one, a new opportunity to know ourselves as artists and write a remarkable script.
Good luck with your stories!
You made my day. Thanks
Sorry-must disagree. A great screenplay (as opposed to a by- the -numbers competent script) requires great writing talent. Any reasonably smart,well-read individual who takes a bunch of how-to workshops, reads “Saving the Cat” and three or four
other excellent texts, studies a couple of Goldman/Black/Esterhaus scripts, then writes no fewer than a dozen drafts of a dozen scripts of his or her own, should be able to produce a decent piece of writing, perhaps even one that blows the writer’s paramour away. There’s an ocean of solid, respectable ,pedestrian efforts out there now and rising.But “great”? As rare as are great writers, composers, boxers, and burgundies; and sadly, greatness can’t be invented. Or taught. It is already there–or more likely, its not. MB
Well stated!
MB, I agree with some of your comments, but not all. True, a certain level of talent is innate. But that’s not so much writing itself, but the creative mind and vision. There are amazing storytellers out there who can’t string together a cohesive sentence to save their souls. But, they can tell a story that pulls you into their world and never lets you go. It takes hard work and refining their writing skills to fully realize their visions.
One of my college professors once told me “I can teach you the mechanics of quality prose, but it’s up to you to give those prose meaning.”
Neither Arthur Miller nor David Mamet’s works were formed out of whole cloth. It took a lot of failures for their greatness to be realized.
What made Bruce Lee, Jimi Hendrix, Robert DeNiro, John Lennon, Miles Davis great? Repetition. It’s like Bruce Lee once said: “I don’t fear the man who’s practiced 10,000 different kicks. I fear the man who’s practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
Still, your points are well taken.
JW
Great post, both inspiring and discouraging at the same time, as what’s proposed is a tough act to follow. Yet, apparently one must…
Rarely have I seen the guts of the work so clearly rendered. A lot of people discuss the ass + seat conundrum, but few delve into the fear, discomfort and uncertainty–the messiness. When thinking about taking creative risks, it’s more helpful to me to think of them in terms of emotional risks. When I start felling sick to my stomach, angry or sullen, chances are I’ve hit a vein.
This article truly resonated with me. Perhaps it doesn’t entirely work for others. We are all at various levels, and various interpretations. But personally , I can appreciate this, it’s what I needed to listen to this morning . Thank you much!
It really resonated with me too, as a person who wants to be a screenwriter and director someday. I know it’s hard, but it’s what I want to do with my life. I’m great at writing, most of my teachers have said so themselves. But it’s not raw talent that gets you anywhere, it’s how hard you work to get to your dreams. And I am willing to pursue my dreams endlessly until they come true
You know why it’s hard? Because Gordy and Martin are both right. And a thousand other reasons.
Screen writing is more than knowing the story you want to write. It’s having an understanding of human nature, the good the bad and ugly. It’s understanding humans are two faced or more maybe. It’s understanding we all have hidden agendas and try to portray what we want others to think of us. No human at any given time is 100% authentic. Understanding that helps one shape a good story. Of course there other mechanics 100s of them one must know to deliver a powerful story this is where one needs to study movie and other great writers and learn how they put their stories together.
Gordy’s thoughts remind me of an old Pete Seeger song: I’m Going to Wrap Myself Up in a Letter and Send It to You. Who was the author who said great writing was like taking off your clothes and standing in the city square naked so people could laugh at you?
Great article.
Screenplay writing is a monster.
It’s hungry, savage, and relentless.
It growls, spits, and pokes you in the ribs wherever you are, whenever it takes a fancy.
It’s furious and greedy, passive and frugal.
It doesn’t allow structure, only blood. Structure and ‘finesse’ comes much later when you have tamed it.
This monster is vile in it’s demands, then leaves you on the edge of a cliff – you can feel the hooved foot in your back.
And I love it.
Agree with the insight of Taj
Screenplay muses are the “S” of s and M
The writer is the M
Goading us to rewrite that dreaded scene 25 times
If we ignore that we shall waffle
The human psyche is complicated- That’s for sure. Writing is not all that complicated though. It’s clean and it’s therapy if we allow it to be. I’ve noticed how not getting down on myself for doing the dishes, taking care of to-do lists, dealing with illness, family, etc. because it’s like surfing around the internet, watching any type of video clip, going to the frig for a snack…in short, doing ANYTHING except allowing myself the gift that is clean and can pass for the greatest therapy: writing story. We dance around what we truly know is the key to satisfaction. Whether a story will be “great” is not the question. The end game will decide all that. It’s the process that gets us there.
Thanks for the reminder!
He’s right, not everyone can sit there and do it, the most well read, brilliant, smart, educated people can’t sit there and do it. I get paid to do it and I’m not well read or brilliant but I’m smart but I can sit there and bang it out. I’m a story teller. A good one or bad one is another story
Writing a screen play requires more time than I had thought, and using my time effectively is becoming an issue.
Thank you !!
I was a bit lost today when I was writing. But after this article I am felling more confident with the work I have done until now.
!00% Correct! Guilty of boredom with my script… Agg … Thinking I have lost the passion of what I started with, losing interest in my characters… Oh man yes I did! I had to reach a little to put layers on my characters. I realized I need to just go for it! Enjoy feeling afraid to walk out on that limb. Writing is difficult, conflict is difficult and yes, it DOES make me squirm. After I have conquered a scene, anguished over it, hated it, cried with it and ultimately loved it! I can’t wait to do it all over again in the next scene. I’m writing my first screenplay, I am scared to death! It just reminds me I’m still alive… 🙂 Seems like I’m giving the teacher an apple…:) But your videos inspire the hell out of me! Thank you!
I’ve written poems. I’ve written novels. I’ve written none fictions. I’ve tried my hands on screenwriting. None is as challenging as the latter. But with practice, persistency and determination. It is an attainable goal
Thanks for sharing. my Friend suggest me your blog
thank you for sharing such a nice article.
Olivia: “I’m great at writing, most of my teachers have said so themselves.”
This has to be the quote of the century.
I’m sure every young girl’s teachers have said she’s “great at writing” sometime or another, from middle school through grad school. Yea, verily, what else might she be great at? But, as far as writing at least, how many of them actually are?
I shall leave the drawing of that inescapable conclusion to you.
The article is exactly right. I have my ending before I write my first line. I write for me and no one else. A book or a screenplay is a tremendous task that takes real time away from your job, relationships and family. To finish for me is a very full filling accomplishment. I’ll let you know how I feel when I finally get a sale.
Thanks, Gordy. I am actually right at the bored moment you are talking about. Instead of putting in the drawer I will belly up to the desk and re-engage.