Almost 20 years ago, I was hired to teach screenwriting at a university.
I had been writing screenplays for 10 years, and had some success, and I wrote some articles about the craft, and this institution hired me.
I saw myself as a creative, open minded, flexible writer who was not tied to any system of development, habit or pattern.
But I was not.
I had a very narrow idea of how to write a screenplay which involved starting an idea with a blank page and writing whatever comes and following the plot from there. I later read in Stephen King’s book that this is how he has written everything, unearthing a buried story from his soul, heart and mind.
Yet I am not Stephen King.
I discovered that I could not write everything the same way.
I thought when I was hired to teach writing that my career as a screenwriter was over—–I was washed up.
The opposite happened—–I continued my own education when I began to teach others.
What I learned was there are many ways to write a beautiful story and none of them are right or bad.
When I knew little about screenwriting, I saw different books on various methods—–some of them became sensations! Very popular. And I derided them as gimmicks and unlike how I wrote.
But as I began to have to explain to people how a good script works, I learned that every method works.
For somebody.
And most importantly, If I stay open to how everything works for all writers, I can learn from it all.
With every screenplay I continue the journey of my life of how to write a screenplay.
Today, I will work on a story that is very painful and raw and personal, and it’s been with me for some time now. I have written some by hand, I have researched, I have prayed. I have written an outline and followed wherever it wants to go, and it’s still early.
Today, I don’t want to fear how the story will change for me and how I might have to change how I am writing.
Isn’t it funny? If I knew how to write a screenplay, why do I always find my way to being completely baffled as to how write the one in front of me? If there’s one thing I know, I will not know what is coming or how to get there.
That does not mean I do not know how to write a movie, despite feeling like I am missing something every day.
Frustration comes when I am unhappy being frustrated!
Stephen King does not appear to have a problem with those changes in what he might have thought was on the horizon.
But I do. I am impatient and want to know what the story is and how to write that story.
Why am I in such a hurry?
Someday long from now I will know I will never be able to write another page. And what I will miss and wish I could do once more.
I will want to try to write a movie. I will wish I was lost and didn’t know how the story ends. I will ask for a character that won’t make sense. I will remember when I could not see the page for the tears in my eyes.
What’s that I hear outside my evening window?
Oh, it’s rain.
The new and unexpected.
Gordy! I am profoundly touched by this inner reflection you are sharing. Though we have never really been close, I can always say that I have witnessed your light, even when it is cloaked in your shadow. I am eager to see where it takes you.
Writing for everyone is different. For me, it’ s finding the mood. Most of the time it comes quickly. Other times, it creeps in and drags me with it. The location, the antagonist, esp. if he is in a horror script– one who perceives he/she’s normal ( for we all think we are close to that.) gives us a peek at who we think he/she is. It’s fun filling in the ways satire/subtext, imagination and imagery occur. The protagonist is slung in the midst of conflict and deals with all kinds of headaches. Metaphors follow the empty spaces and I forget about time, supper, the garden or the laundry piling to the ceiling in the laundry room. I appreciate the way you deal with your writing. Every story is different. Writing takes me places I may never go, and that is a good thing, sometimes. Other times, I’m not so sure…
“I could not see the page for the tears in my eyes.” – Love that rare recognition that comes when I know the script is working, but it will never get made. The tears sentimentally come because I am a human being living, loving and learning. Thanks for the reminder of why I stay sober and write!
You once told me (or maybe you said told me one hundred times) that the way to get something written was to sit in a chair and write it. “Ass in chair” you said and I believed you.
Because of that advice (so simple and so difficult) I learned that the story unravels over time – and it’s usually (always) different from the original one I was convinced needed to be told.
Thank you for sharing with us what you learn along the way. We are listening and you are making us better
Woody Allen recently commented, saying, “I never made a great movie. I made some good ones, but never great.”
To most of us, this self-assessment by Allen is absurd. But even to the incredibly advanced, “mastery” is a spectrum: they see how much more there is to accomplish. Keep joy, keep curiosity, keep “incomplete.” You’re further along than you think…
Thanks, Gordy. I really appreciate your insights into writing and your own personal journey.
Despite the fact that you’ve been far more successful than most writers, you’re willing to share your ups and downs; I imagine a lot of people (myself included) find inspiration and the strength to move forward in your observations.
Best wishes for continued growth and success!
There’s a darkness and a hope, an ebb and flow with that blank page. Here today, gone tomorrow. Kilroy was here.., thanks for all your inspiration! I have been the director of Sedona Int. Film Festival Screenplay Competition for six years… You’re a fine artist, still searching.
I don’t know you. But I was struck by this. “The new and unexpected” got me.
I don’t know where my writing journey could go. It’s still early.
I’m no expert and may never be.
But I’ll keep my eyes and heart open for the new and unexpected. The “not yet”.
Thanks for the reminder in this post. It was needed.
Go forth expectant,
A couple years ago, I realized that my then 4 screenplays were all written with different processes.
The 1st was inspired by a comment in Goldman’s Adventures In Screen Trade” that caused me to stand up and pitch a story that I’d never previously thought of as though in front of producers. I liked it so much, I grabbed a yellow legal pad and started writing .
The second was inspired by a rediculous and impossible notion, until one day an exciting & remarkable ending came to me, and I couldn’t stop writing.
The 3rd was a “contained script (because of COVID) that developed while texting a friend as we listened to our teacher on a mass phone call lesson about covid compliant scripts. Later I transcribe my text notes into Final Draft.
And the 4th was an extreme difference dramatic romance between a stranded astronaut and an alien single mom. It is much more a love story than SciFi. That one became so epic with so many intereguing characters (to include the spacecraft’s onboard AI) that a single full length feature couldn’t contain it… This new TV Series “Astronomical Attractions” NEEDS to be produced! . . .