Some have writing backgrounds as freelancers, journalists, copywriters, essayists. (Is essayist still considered a vocation, or did that die out in the 1800s?) Most have no writing background beyond typing passwords into sketchy websites. All can't wait to get working on their idea... someday.
My response to their screenwriting ambitions is the same regardless of their background: Go for it, but don't expect your first script to be anything other than 110 pages of -- how to put it diplomatically? -- dreck. Actually, this being their first script and all, I usually pad it out to 180 pages of dreck.
A suck-ass first script is, in my humble opinion, a universal constant. It's a rite of passage, a learning experience. It's many things, but it isn't a script. Trust me, I speak from experience.
The first script I wrote was a thriller called INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING (henceforth referred to as IPO), an adaptation of the unpublished novel I completed in 2004 and mentioned in my first post.
In February 2007, I dusted off the novel with the intent of rewriting it and taking another stab at gaining representation. Incidentally, this was around the same time that my publishing company was crashing down around my ears. Perhaps you heard it. Can anyone say denial through distraction?
Anyhow, around 100 pages into the novel and 100 pages into a copious set of notes on how to fix it, I hit a wall. It sounded something like this:
“Sweet Mother McRee, do I really want to spend another two years rewriting this frickin’ brick?”
Then it hit me. Why not adapt the novel into a screenplay?
Why not indeed. Never mind that I’d never seen a screenplay before. Never mind that I’d never adapted a novel into a screenplay before. Never mind that my bank account (and my wife’s, as it was and is joint) was hemorrhaging coin like the U.S. Treasury. Let’s make a movie!
Intermission: A month passes while I read every article ever written on screenplays that’s available in English on the Web. No actual screenplays though. Duh…
Stay tuned for Part II. Hey, if Tarantino can deliver Kill Bill in two parts...
In February 2007, I dusted off the novel with the intent of rewriting it and taking another stab at gaining representation. Incidentally, this was around the same time that my publishing company was crashing down around my ears. Perhaps you heard it. Can anyone say denial through distraction?
Anyhow, around 100 pages into the novel and 100 pages into a copious set of notes on how to fix it, I hit a wall. It sounded something like this:
“Sweet Mother McRee, do I really want to spend another two years rewriting this frickin’ brick?”
Then it hit me. Why not adapt the novel into a screenplay?
Why not indeed. Never mind that I’d never seen a screenplay before. Never mind that I’d never adapted a novel into a screenplay before. Never mind that my bank account (and my wife’s, as it was and is joint) was hemorrhaging coin like the U.S. Treasury. Let’s make a movie!
Intermission: A month passes while I read every article ever written on screenplays that’s available in English on the Web. No actual screenplays though. Duh…
Stay tuned for Part II. Hey, if Tarantino can deliver Kill Bill in two parts...
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