The Hard Work of Writing—One More Thing

Last week I talked about how hard writing can be when you don’t feel like doing it. Whether you’re depressed or feeling like what you write isn’t good enough or are just feeling lazy, bottom line, it can be hard to drag that laptop out and keep writing. But, if you’re a writer, that’s what you do—you keep writing, even if what you turn out isn’t great. Think of your screenplay like a child, a living, breathing entity. And as such, it needs to be tended—that’s your job. So you just write, hoping to make it better—just like you’d tend to a child, hoping to make her better.

The finished product may not be fabulous. But remember—it really IS just words on a page and in the process of rewriting, those words are easily changeable. But you do have to get that first draft down—get it done. That’s your first goal—just do the hard work of writing to get it finished.

But once you do have that finished screenplay, well, a second kind of hard work begins. And this part often isn’t fun at all. This is where you make that first draft better. And it requires at least these four things:

1—Solid characters

Do we know who these people are? Is each character distinctive and unlike any other character? What does each character want from life? What do they need? Two completely different things. What is important to them, what scares them, what do they love or hate? Dig deep. Ask yourself, do you know what their past is like? What happened to them to make them who they are today? You don’t necessarily write about any of these things in your script [though flashbacks and talks with other characters are possible to reveal some of this] but you, as their creator, know absolutely everything about these characters. Doing so will make them richer as you write them. Promise.

2—Perfect structure

A professional script reader wrote a book about what a reader looks for in a script and said that he opens the script in the middle and if something exciting, revealing, surprising, etc., isn’t happening right in the middle, he knows that person doesn’t know how to write a screenplay. Unlike any other writing format, screenplays have a particular structure. As the great William Goldman once said, there are three important things to think about in screenwriting: structure, structure and structure. This is a very hard step to perfect, but you must do it. It just takes time care, and a true understanding of the three-act structure.

3—Not a wasted word

Every single word is important in a screenplay. And your goal as a writer is to be as concise as possible. So you examine every slug line, every line of narrative and every line of dialogue to see how you can streamline them. If you CAN leave a word out, do. If something is unclear and you need to add words, do. Ask yourself, If I left out this line of narrative, or this bit of dialogue, or this entire scene, would my story suffer… and if you can’t answer “No” to that, then you cut. Every single word/line must move your story forward.

4—Proofread

Anyone can do it, it just takes time. Spell-check, for sure. But it’s more than that. Spell-check can’t tell when you’ve left a random “there” in a sentence and the reader has to go back and reread the sentence to see what you meant… and the result? You’ve lost the momentum you had going with that reader because of that error. There are thousands and thousands of scripts out there; a professional reader/agent/executive won’t read your work if it’s not perfect. Period.

These are the four minimum things you need to think about as you complete the hard work of writing… Sure, as I’ve said, it’s just words on a page. But, to get to that final draft, those words need to be as perfect as you can make them. So go to it!!

Copyright © Diane Lake

16Jun19

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com