Fade Out
January 16th 2007 11:12
For reasons too… something… to get into here, I’ve decided to bring The Scriptwriting Blog to an early conclusion. Some are personal, some are audience related, some are others. Let’s just say I’m going in another direction. But rather than just stop, I’m going to give you in point form the gist of what the next series of columns would have been, so if you have been following this, it’ll point you in the right direction, and hopefully you’ll get it finished and out there.
Editing
So, you’ve cut the first draft. It’s at his point you should remember Hemingway’s words: “The first draft of anything is shit”. You may very well think it’s good, even great, but it isn’t. The words aren’t chiselled into stone, they can be changed, and probably should be.
At this point I make a soft copy of the script, and call it Draft B (all of your first drafts are ‘the first draft’ until you give it to The Powers That Be), and begin reshaping it. What this means for me is printing out a hard copy, getting a red pen and looking hard at it, really hard. Are you repeating points? Is the dialogue easy to speak? Try it for yourself – you’d be amazed how often something that reads fine is actually quite difficult to deliver convincingly. Are you using too many ‘explainers’? “As you know, because of point a, we had to follow point b, which led to…” and so on. You don’t want them. Well, very few of them. Your audience is smarter than you think they are, if you keep the action flowing and deliver the key plots points through action as much as dialogue, they’ll get it.
Once you’ve made all the changes in the hard copy, go back to Draft B and type the changes in. Read it onscreen. Does it look better? Are the characters coming across clearer? Does it flow from scene to scene?
Editing Again
And you’ve finished. Well, no. Actually, you need to start the process all over again. Put it aside for a couple of weeks. Maybe a week. Some kind of grace period to get it out of your system. In the meantime, work on something else, a new story outline, another script, reviews of movies and tv shows (for your own research into why these do and don’t work), a series of haikus dealing with the development of the garden around your house, anything.
Then open it up again and start reading. How does it feel? Does it read as well as the professional scripts you’ve read? Because that’s the style and quality you are trying to match. If you can equal or surpass what they are doing on that level, and come up with engaging, original stories, you at least have a chance of being read.
Does it work? That is the crucial question. Keep building it up and cutting it back it until you are as happy with it as you can be. Always keep in mind people will want you to change stuff, even give it to other people to rewrite (once you’ve been compensated), so everything is fluid. This can be a good thing: my experience has been that most of the time, when changes are suggested, they only improve the final product. On the other hand, if you are asked to change a point you feel is vital to the story, explain why is brief but very clear terms why you think so. Some you will win, some you will lose. If you do lose, try to minimise the damage.
Readers
At this point, you now needs friends. People you trust. Because they have to read your script.
As you probably know by now, reading a script is a bit of a speciality, it’s not like a novel or a short story, you have to fully grasp what a bunch of technical terms mean, how they work, what effect they have on the flow of the story. Not everybody will get this, even if you take the time to explain the terms. More than likely you will have to find people who already ’get it’.
If you’re already writing, this shouldn’t be hard as you’ve probably met other writers, even if only online. And if you’re lucky, you may know people with other skills in the industry: producers, directors, actors and so on. You may be surprised how many live in your area. If you trust these people, ask them to read and critique your story. I can’t stress enough that if you have good friends that can say anything to you without hurting your feelings, then your script will be sharpened significantly. That has certainly been my experience. But the bottom line is, at the end of the day, they may say some things you disagree with. Again, go with your instinct and skill and knowledge of what works in your story.
The Final First Draft
With all changes now factored in, you now have, hopefully, a finished first draft. It should look and feel significantly better than your very first draft. And if not… why not?? Go back and start again!
Your script has to be as good as all the sample scripts you’ll have read, and probably better than most of the other spec scripts. And ask yourself the question: Is It As Good As It Can Be?
Into The Big World
This is the tricky part, if you have no contacts in the industry. You need to get it out there and known. Don’t worry about ‘people stealing your idea’. If you live in the States the WGA has ways of registering your script, and there are similar safeguards in place. But more to the point, if your script is good they’ll pay you for it, and if it isn’t, you’ll get it back by return post. Or they’ll shred it.
There are plenty of websites out there to offer advice and contacts in the industry. One good place to start would be to Google ‘Absolute Write’, because when you join, you have access to an ebook of agents. Most of them will say “no thanks”, but if you’ve done the hard yards and don’t gush to much in your introductory letter, you may get away with it.
And now I must head off to other points. There is much to be done and, really, not a lot of time to do it in. I hope that some of this has been of some use. I’ll be answering any posts if you have questions or the next couple of weeks.
So write, don’t stop writing, keep pushing until your scripts stand out… and then we’ll see what happens next.
Australis
Editing
So, you’ve cut the first draft. It’s at his point you should remember Hemingway’s words: “The first draft of anything is shit”. You may very well think it’s good, even great, but it isn’t. The words aren’t chiselled into stone, they can be changed, and probably should be.
At this point I make a soft copy of the script, and call it Draft B (all of your first drafts are ‘the first draft’ until you give it to The Powers That Be), and begin reshaping it. What this means for me is printing out a hard copy, getting a red pen and looking hard at it, really hard. Are you repeating points? Is the dialogue easy to speak? Try it for yourself – you’d be amazed how often something that reads fine is actually quite difficult to deliver convincingly. Are you using too many ‘explainers’? “As you know, because of point a, we had to follow point b, which led to…” and so on. You don’t want them. Well, very few of them. Your audience is smarter than you think they are, if you keep the action flowing and deliver the key plots points through action as much as dialogue, they’ll get it.
Once you’ve made all the changes in the hard copy, go back to Draft B and type the changes in. Read it onscreen. Does it look better? Are the characters coming across clearer? Does it flow from scene to scene?
Editing Again
And you’ve finished. Well, no. Actually, you need to start the process all over again. Put it aside for a couple of weeks. Maybe a week. Some kind of grace period to get it out of your system. In the meantime, work on something else, a new story outline, another script, reviews of movies and tv shows (for your own research into why these do and don’t work), a series of haikus dealing with the development of the garden around your house, anything.
Then open it up again and start reading. How does it feel? Does it read as well as the professional scripts you’ve read? Because that’s the style and quality you are trying to match. If you can equal or surpass what they are doing on that level, and come up with engaging, original stories, you at least have a chance of being read.
Does it work? That is the crucial question. Keep building it up and cutting it back it until you are as happy with it as you can be. Always keep in mind people will want you to change stuff, even give it to other people to rewrite (once you’ve been compensated), so everything is fluid. This can be a good thing: my experience has been that most of the time, when changes are suggested, they only improve the final product. On the other hand, if you are asked to change a point you feel is vital to the story, explain why is brief but very clear terms why you think so. Some you will win, some you will lose. If you do lose, try to minimise the damage.
Readers
At this point, you now needs friends. People you trust. Because they have to read your script.
As you probably know by now, reading a script is a bit of a speciality, it’s not like a novel or a short story, you have to fully grasp what a bunch of technical terms mean, how they work, what effect they have on the flow of the story. Not everybody will get this, even if you take the time to explain the terms. More than likely you will have to find people who already ’get it’.
If you’re already writing, this shouldn’t be hard as you’ve probably met other writers, even if only online. And if you’re lucky, you may know people with other skills in the industry: producers, directors, actors and so on. You may be surprised how many live in your area. If you trust these people, ask them to read and critique your story. I can’t stress enough that if you have good friends that can say anything to you without hurting your feelings, then your script will be sharpened significantly. That has certainly been my experience. But the bottom line is, at the end of the day, they may say some things you disagree with. Again, go with your instinct and skill and knowledge of what works in your story.
The Final First Draft
With all changes now factored in, you now have, hopefully, a finished first draft. It should look and feel significantly better than your very first draft. And if not… why not?? Go back and start again!
Your script has to be as good as all the sample scripts you’ll have read, and probably better than most of the other spec scripts. And ask yourself the question: Is It As Good As It Can Be?
Into The Big World
This is the tricky part, if you have no contacts in the industry. You need to get it out there and known. Don’t worry about ‘people stealing your idea’. If you live in the States the WGA has ways of registering your script, and there are similar safeguards in place. But more to the point, if your script is good they’ll pay you for it, and if it isn’t, you’ll get it back by return post. Or they’ll shred it.
There are plenty of websites out there to offer advice and contacts in the industry. One good place to start would be to Google ‘Absolute Write’, because when you join, you have access to an ebook of agents. Most of them will say “no thanks”, but if you’ve done the hard yards and don’t gush to much in your introductory letter, you may get away with it.
And now I must head off to other points. There is much to be done and, really, not a lot of time to do it in. I hope that some of this has been of some use. I’ll be answering any posts if you have questions or the next couple of weeks.
So write, don’t stop writing, keep pushing until your scripts stand out… and then we’ll see what happens next.
Australis
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