One of the many of jobs of today’s motivated pro filmmaker is writing scripts, something I think I might eventually become good at it, if I write three screenplays a year for the next forty years (assuming I have that long left).  Not allowing for holidays, trying to sell or make one or days where I can’t be fucking bothered I could theoretically write a eighty to a hundred scripts and still not know what I’m doing, which seems to be the case for the majority of scriptwriters currently working today.

When I started my first screenplay twenty years ago (on a typewriter) I didn’t take heed of the standard screenwriting advice (except to use library cards) and I’m still not finished it.  For my second screenplay (two years ago) I pretty much vomited/ejaculated the contents of my imagination which had been gestating for five years into Final Draft, I stupidly thought the cool auto formatting would gloss over obvious issues with structure and character.  About halfway through this I bought (the excellent and highly recommended) Write & Sell The Hot Screenplay by Elliot Grove, instead of starting again I tried to shoehorn some of the theory into my script.  Consequently parts of it are excellent (the first and last ten pages and some bits in the middle) but overall it needs some, shall we say, retooling.

So now with my current two scripts (a no budget horror I can shoot myself and a sci-fi/thriller/rom com to try and sell) I’m following the lessons, because I realised screenwriting is not about writing ability (which without being arrogant I think have in abundance).  Screenwriting is about creating and following a plan, and if that plan is followed you can write a very serviceable screen play (I fucking hope) and maybe even get some of that abundant writing ability squeezed in.

I had thought planning would slow and restrict the fun I have when I write, but I’m actually finding the opposite, writing character studies and the scene plan is actually colouring in some of the vague ideas I can’t paint in my imagination.  I’ve been struggling with my first proper plan, I felt like I was getting nowhere but after three days I’m about a third of the way through and picking up momentum every day, which means after a week I’ll have the basic structure.   If I’d followed my previous methods I’d have written about ten pages of shit and drawn some stick men killing each other.  In a couple of days I’ll just need to add dialogue (the really fun part) and I’ve got a first draft.

The biggest factor in my slow transition from dabbler to (possibly/hopefully/someday) professional screenwriter has been William Martell’s excellent website www.scriptsecrets.net which totally encapsulates what it actually is to write a film on a day to day basis.  Consequently I’ve realised that although (as I keep saying to my girlfriend) I’m always (fucking) right, I’m shocked to discover I don’t actually know everything about everything, a bitter pill to swallow.