And we're back. If none of the following makes sense, please read Part I of this post.
After chopping away 75% of the novel’s plot, subplots and characters, I was left with a viable story that could be told in less than 200 pages, which was only 80 pages longer than the absolute upper limit for a spec script. This stage, incidentally, took nearly two months. And I hadn’t written a word of actual screenplay – just outlines.
When the time finally arrived to start writing the script, I downloaded free screenwriting software from Celtx, cleared the decks, and got busy crafting the opening scene. Finished it 17 pages later. Can anyone say First Act?
First of many lessons? Choose fewer words that do more work.
Two months after crafting that opening scene, I completed the first draft. It was 162 pages of, to paraphrase Hemingway, shit. But it was also a start – something to hold, mold, cut and hack.
Two months later, after dropping the E-plot and combining a few characters, I had a 137-page second draft that seemed impossible to pare down any further without undermining the story’s foundation.
One month later, a pathological focus on widows, orphans and arriving late/leaving early in every scene trimmed 10 pages from the script, landing it at 127 pages.
One month later, a pathological focus that made my previous pathological focus look like A.D.H.D. relegated eight more pages to the dustbin of history. At last – a viable page count under the magical 1-2-0!
Now all I needed was a viable frickin' story. Discovered this irritating fact after letting the script cool for a few weeks and then re-reading it in one sitting.
Another two months was needed for scene shuffling, scene deletions and scene additions in order to fill yawning plot holes and to defuse some massive logic bombs. But at long last, IPO was done…
Or was it?
Spent another month polishing, polishing and polishing. And another month incorporating my wife’s observations on the story, its coherence, characters and so on. Also cleaned up the dozen typos she discovered, planted I’m sure by an al-Qaeda sleeper cell bent on keeping me out of Hollywood.
Lesson? A fresh set of eyes to review your material is a must – as is unrelenting vigilance to root out terrorists who think nothing of substituting “form” for “from” in unsuspecting spec scripts.
In case you stopped counting, that’s about 12 months of ass-in-chair time to get from outline to “completed” script. (I read somewhere that screenplays aren’t so much completed as they are abandoned.) Here’s a more compact, three-stage breakdown of the process:
1. Noodling and Outlining: Two Months
2. Writing First Draft: Two Months
3. Turning Vomit into Something More Palatable: Eight Months
In 2008, I lobbed IPO at several screenwriting competitions, mostly to see if it would stick anywhere. On the outside, I kept my expectations low whilst awaiting the results.
“Oh, I’m not expecting to place or anything,” I told my wife. “I just want to see how I stack up against my peers.”
Complete bullshit, of course.
On the inside, planted in the same mental fertilizer that grows every late-night/hair-brained scheme into a million-dollar idea, I harbored fantasies of a well-publicized win and all the fame, fortune and Larry-King interviews that would follow.
Also complete bullshit, of course.
IPO didn’t advance or place in any of the competitions, but it did garner some incredibly insightful notes. Turns out “hyper-technical” dialogue is a bad thing. Who knew?
The contest judges, that’s who.
Lesson? Feedback from those working in the business is a good thing – especially if you get it before sending your material to anyone in the business. More on this apparent contradiction in a later post.
Despite its many flaws – and like any first script it had many flaws – IPO cracked the top 10% in the 2008 Nicholl Fellowships. This silver lining only came to my attention because the Fellowship’s director, Greg Beal, took the time to pen a short note below his signature on the “Sorry, but your screenplay did not advance” letter. (a.k.a. the “Sorry, but your screenplay bombed like the Enola Gay” letter in less polite society.)
Lesson? There are people in Hollywood who care about nurturing fledgling screenwriters. (Sure, they also say you can die of encouragement in Hollywood, but sometimes a little extra buoyancy is all we need to weather the storm.)
And sometimes a clichéd metaphor is all we need to end a blog post.
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