Essential Screenwriting Craft

You've been thinking about a film script forever, it seems. You've even written some scenes, but, darn it, you keep getting stuck. Life takes over and leads you away from that dream. It seemed so easy in your head to see a full movie, but now that you want to put it on paper...argh! What a mess!

EVERY SCREENWRITER GOES THROUGH THIS AT SOME POINT.

Screenwriting is a craft first and an art form second. It is a business venture. When you are in business, you learn skills that will support your business. This means you can learn the bits and pieces that you need to know, and you can practice the craft until you become its master. You want to become a master crafts person so that you can succeed. Once you are a master crafts person, then your work is so indelible and unique, it becomes art.

I have been teaching screenwriting for more than half a decade. I have seen it all. The big resistance I get almost every single class is the idea that "formula" is a bad thing. "Damned rules! I became a writer so I don't have to follow rules!" Ehscoose mi? sense win deed righting stup folouching roools? The "formula" behind a screenplay is so ancient that it precedes celluloid. The fact is that we start training in it beginning with the first fairy tale we see performed by puppets. It is ingrained in our expectations of every genre that certain milestones happen when we watch a story unfold. The rules allow us to participate as an audience, and to experience catharsis. As a writer, you want to move people, right?  All, I am doing is cluing you into the hidden structure beneath every successful story you have ever seen.

My class is chock full of insight and technique, and will make your brain explode with helpful lessons. I am not just saying that. I've seen the light bulbs turn on in front of me in the bright-eyed and renewed enthusiasm of my students. I love teaching this information, and I want nothing more than for my students to be wildly successful screenwriters.
I mark that success in many ways:

• You get out of your head and onto the page
• You understand the hidden structure of film writing
• You are more excited to share your story
• You have a holistic, beginning-middle-end plan for writing your script
• You are ready for the next step

There are a few spaces left in my screenwriting class that starts Monday. Go to the Events for Screenwriters tab and click on it to sign up! See you there.

Beginning again....at the end

Writing movies is a sometimes harsh and mystifying process, and why would you do that to yourself if you didn't want to see your script actually become a film? Yet, it seems as IMPOSSIBLE to get from here to there, as it does to write the story down. As with the story itself, there's a beginning, middle and end to breaking into an industry that thrives on nepotism, and insider information.

The problem is that writers are often so daunted by learning how to write a screenplay that they cannot see the forest for the trees. Just like any hero, the vague feeling that they've gotten themselves into a pickle only happens when they've actually committed themselves to the process. It comes as a total surprise, for instance, that making movies is a BUSINESS proposition. It's not only about making a beautiful, entertaining story into a charming film that is highfalutin' and award-winning. In fact, the real reason for wanting to win awards has nothing to do with art at all. It has to do with distribution, sales propositions, and ROI.

Argh! What's a creative writer to do? Think about it to begin with! Take a moment to consider your personal end-game before you start. Who will your audience be? Is your audience actually going to the movies regularly??? Maybe your audience is more likely to watch a TV movie? Maybe your audience is more likely to watch free YouTube clips? Don't be afraid to look at films in similar genres that have been successful. Take what's been done as nourishment rather than as competition. Take what's been done and twist it into something new.

Here's an example: If you know your story is about a 45-year old woman and it is not riddled with sex and violence, then it is unlikely to be able to stand alone as a film business proposition. That doesn't mean you don't write it. That means that you work the story and build an audience as you go. Write your outline and look at what you've got. If you like the story, and you feel it could be award-winning, then write a novel first and ePublish it. Send that novel out to everyone you know who will like it and ask them to read it and recommend it. Get it reviewed on Goodreads and Amazon. Build the audience whilst you are developing that screenplay. Or write it as a play, and get it produced and reviewed, and take it to Broadway. When you've got the attention of an audience, then send that screenplay query letter to an agent and include your numbers. That will get you some attention.

It's not that Hollywood doesn't want to make movies about 45-year old women in crisis. It is that they want to make movies that have a likely return on investment. It's that simple. If you're going to be a screenwriter, you have to think of the business end of things right from the beginning.

Writing is not merely about "art," it's about a willingness to work really hard. So, what's your end-game and how are you going to make that happen?