Screenwriter-to-Screenwriter.com

Floating on an Ocean

This year was like floating on an ocean. At first, it seemed peaceful. Sacred, even. Not here nor there. The expanse. Then, as the chill bit and the solitude weighed, any lingering thoughts of peace flew out the window and it was like, get me the fuck out of here.

As 2011 comes to a close, many of us are probably thinking, fuck yeah! Did anyone have a really fantastic year this year? Well, 2011 maybe did have a high point: Game of Thrones. Oh, yeah, and Homeland.

I’m loathe to admit it – even to myself – but I really got shit for writing done this year. 2009 was a stellar writing year, 2010 was not wholly bad, and this year was abysmal. I’m pissed about it. Pissed and also disappointed.

But I have to remind myself that there is an ebb and flow to the creative process. Sometimes life takes over and pulls us in a direction that may take us away from something that is incredibly important to us, or so we think at the time. However, sometimes writing can happen in the times when we’re not actually writing. The creative process moves us forward in spite of ourselves.

This pause in actually writing every day has allowed me space. Space to shift gears, reevaluate and organize myself a bit. I’m growing a larger vision for myself that I certainly wouldn’t have hatched if I had been in the trenches every day all day.

A good friend of mine who is a photographer once told me that the creative process shouldn’t be hard. If it’s too hard, we don’t engage fully. We procrastinate. We find reasons not to. She encouraged me to just write what came, write what wanted to come out. I actually have quite a bit of judgment around this because there are only so many hours in the day, and I find I can only write one piece at a time and outline others. If I’m writing one, there isn’t time to be writing what wants to come out.

But, I actually think that for me this is part of my journey. I do need to teach myself to schedule my day so that I am working on a passion project and also a discipline project. The discipline project might also be a passion project – but it probably just less closely mirrors where I’m at emotionally in the moment. So it feels like heavier lifting, even if it might not really be.

Perhaps if I can balance the two, I will be more productive moving forward.

Perhaps if I can just sit my ass in the chair, I’ll be more productive.

2012 is on the horizon and I’m ready to hit land.

The Seed of Your Story

I personally think in many cases the difference between a script I love and a script I’ll pass on is the emotional density of the project. When reading, do I feel deeply for the characters – does their journey make me feel? Do I laugh and cry with them or for them? Do I want [...]

Emotional Density

Many times screenplays are simply dry. They may be cleanly written, even well written to some degree. The plotting can make sense. The characters may even be charming. But they leave me feeling thirsty for more. The experience of the script feels like tissue paper – it just has no density. As a reader, I [...]

Nominations for the 83rd Academy Awards

Just in case you missed them, the Oscar nominations were announced for the Academy Awards earlier this week.

Here is a complete list of nominations.

2011 “Where I’m From” Short Film Contest

The 2011 “Where I’m From” Short Film Contest for the Austin Film Festival and Texas Monthly is taking submissions now.

For all you writers out there who are really directors at heart…

Click here for more details.

2011 CineStory Competition – Enter Now!!!

It’s not too late to enter the 15th Annual CineStory Screenwriting Awards.

Approximately 20 finalists and semi-finalists of this competition are invited to participate in a weekend retreat wherein writers work closely with Hollywood professionals on their material. Previous attendees have gone on to accomplish great things in entertainment. It is a really wonderful mentorship [...]

Okay, Fine… But What’s Your Story About, Really?

Anyone who knows me well can probably tell you that sometimes I can be wholly oblivious to the most obvious points but pick up on subtleties the average person wouldn’t even think to look for. This is an interesting character juxtaposition and probably what makes me a writer before anything else. Documenting and chronicling the [...]

Be Your Own Audience

When I’m writing and rewriting something – a script, story, manuscript – it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. Much of the time I get so inside my story that it’s hard for me to step outside of it and think rationally if what I’m trying to construct is working or not, and [...]

Screenwriters Are Storytellers First

A professional screenwriter said to me recently, “If someone reads my script and says, ‘Man, I really loved the writing,’ I want to punch them in the face. What I want them to say is, ‘I really loved your story.’ There’s a big difference.” He explained that the difference is that we’re primarily storytellers – [...]

The Season of Weird, Chatty Dramedies

I can’t say I totally understand it but this year was definitely the reading season for the Weird, Chatty Dramedy.

I’d estimate that approximately 20% of the scripts I read this year involved an ensemble of types sitting around, chatting about various personal issues that were of absolutely no interest to me.

Many of these [...]

Dunne: The story is the journey for truth. The plot is the road it takes to get there.

I’ve just started reading Peter Dunne’s “Emotional Structure: Creating the Story Beneath the Plot” and it’s giving me a lot to think about.

Dunne writes in Know Your Story, Know Your Plot, Know the Difference:

When we think about great stories, about great movies, we remember first and foremost about whom the story is told.
The answer [...]

Beat Sheets

I’m going to start working on posting some beat sheets to the blog – requests, anyone?

I’ll try to do one film in each genre grouping to start.

And if any reader has some beat sheets they’d like to share, please send them on over!

Thanks!

Don’t Forget Film is a Visual Medium

The visual medium is the essence of “show, don’t tell.” A lot of scripts I’m seeing this year seem to have disregarded the fact that these stories should be a blueprint for something visual.

This reading season has been the season of the chatty dramedy. By dramedy, I mean stories that at their essence [...]

AL Kennedy on the Ideal Writing Day

Author AL Kennedy on the ideal writing day.

Women’s Romantic Fiction in Film

I am not a huge consumer of women’s romantic fiction because I like a good story – and so I can’t speak intimately to the ins and outs of the genre. It would appear superficially that this genre is formulaic in the extreme so that the story is something secondary (contrived) and the primary focus [...]

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