Sorta.

I know someone who writes for Paramount and Disney. Yes, you've heard of his films. The reason I've spent so much time here is it's one of the links I go to when writing drives me crazy.

Writing is hard. Writing well drives you crazy. It's never right or perfect. One change here affects another change there. Then you can't find where the first change was.

So, 120 pages of crap later, I emailed it to him with every apology known to man.

I wonder if he'll ever speak to me again.

The way I view such ventures is that the journey is often the richest part of the trip. At least with your last breath of life you won't be thinking, "Gee, I wish I had..."

Good luck on this, Rob. Let us know what comes of it.

Good luck, Rob! If you ever need another reader, I'm a jerk.

Best of luck to you! We'll be anxious to hear how things work out.

Writing is definitely hard indeed. I'm having troubles myself, heh.
I wish you all the best on that, Rob!

More good wishes here, from yet another Rob.

"It's never right or perfect", true enough, I suppose, but I find it's also never done. Sometimes never started. Be happy you could come up with enough material to fill a hundred and twenty pages, good or bad. I have about a page and a half.

Whether you're a hardened veteran, or a bushy tailed newbie, whether a famous writer likes your script or not, you must put this in perspective: writing that much, heck, writing anything is an enormous accomplishment to most of us. Be proud.

How comforting that is coming from someone like myself, I have no idea, but I do share your first name. That's gotta count for something.

It's funny how the script came about. Well, not funny haha.

Last summer my son asked me a question about something in history. While answering him the whole concept for the script played in my mind. An old man living with another, ala "The Odd Couple". This was last September. It's final version has the protagonist as a 30-year old stock broker living alone.

I think they call that organic writing.

The sad thing is I was so sure I knew how it would work from beginning to end that I just sat down and started typing away. Most of my frustration and time wasting was spent trying to make all that typing fit together well.

At one point I let my son read it and got into a fight with me about how purposeless one scene was. Really pissed me off what a bratty kid he was.

Last week I threw that scene out. Man was it a stinker. What was I thinking?

Damn kids.

Rob,

CONGRATS! Pat yourself on the back, shake your own hand and pour yourself a drink. You have crossed the threshold and entered the enchanted world.

Prepare yourself for the descent into the belly of the beast.


(Apologies to Campbell)

Seriously, it's no small accomplishment to make it to "FADE OUT" and hand your child over to some stranger. I know, been there -done that, been paid for it, AND paid to butcher my child.

I think Heinlein said it best - "There's absolutely nothing wrong with writing, as long as you do it in private, and wash your hands afterwards."

Take a deserved rest, and steal yourself for the feedback.

The hardest part is letting it go; great for you and no matter the word keep writing.

"I hate to write but love to have written" - agatha christie?

Hey, anything Heineken says is fine with me!

Oops. You said "Heinlein". Oh well. Beers all around!

Actually, I've been in and out of the system for many, many years but this is my first writing venture.

<<<-- Originally posted by John Hudson : The hardest part is letting it go; great for you and no matter the word keep writing. Big time props for finishing the work.

"I hate to write but love to have written" - agatha christie? -->>>

Letting go is hard. But chopping scenes, especially one you loved
or always wanted to happen seems to be even harder. Or so I
read/heard.

I've written four screenplays, numerous short stories- one of which I put in the mail last week (I feel your pain Rob) and a couple of novels- one of which I am writing now for the fifth time- I've been at it (the novel) for over ten years and I have come to "The End" now on four seperate occasions- this is not adding countless revisions into the final tally- and I have figured a thing or two out after all this. Er- maybe.

I always cut my favorite scene. It is always crap. Always. Usually it's something that has survived from an earlier draft. Once it had a point, but by the final version it is usually just taking up space; like a vestigal organ, it, at best, adds nothing, at worst it is poisinous to the whole, like an inflamed appendix.

Writing is like sh**ing a sea urchin. And then picking it up and swallowing it. Only to repeat the process twenty or thirty more times, unitl you give up trying to digest the thing, and pass it over to some other sap, hoping he'll mistake it for steak.

One word of advice, never, ever apologize for your work.

I salute you Rob, welcome to what William S. Burroughs refered to as the "Shakespeare Squad".

Michael

Michael,

Funny about apologizing. I did some last minute swapping around of things before I emailed it and felt like I totally screwed it up. But I sent it anyway thinking that if I don't then I'll swap things more and screw it up even more. Hence my groveling with apologies to him.

After a good nights sleep and feeling more relaxed, I re-read what I did and thought, ya know, what I wrote was pretty damned good. Then I went to page one and read the first act and thought, ya know, this is pretty damn good!

I just jinxed myself. Maybe it'll make a good novel. Or a Playboy short story. If they'll have me.

It probably won't make that much of a difference if you know the guy reading it. BTW I have to stop myself from doing it on every cover letter, every time. My best groveling apology of all time is,
"Please accept my sympathy for what you are about to endure."
Heh, I should probably preface all my posts with that one too...
Best of luck,
Michael

At one point I let my son read it and got into a fight with me about how purposeless one scene was. Really pissed me off what a bratty kid he was.

Last week I threw that scene out.


The first time I read that I mistakenly thought you threw your kid out on to the street after that comment ;)

I've tried to write a lot more these days, and it is definitely tough. I'm in the Agathie Christie camp: I usually hate writing it, but I love that I even have a few relatively finished scripts.

I always approach it like a sculpture. You can't sculpt the clay into something good unless you have clay to begin with. With that in mind, I try to write unmediated and get everything out on the first run. Even if it's terrible, at least I have something to revise.

Hey Alex, I see you're in Vancouver.

Ever thought of submitting your script to Praxis?

Finally, I got a response to my submission. It only took four weeks but he's been working on a Disney project. As it turns out, he accidentally deleted Acts 2 and 3 so he only read Act 1. Arrgh.

His comments:

"It's very readable--moves quickly, the dialogue is natural and flows quite well, interesting and well-drawn characters. You obviously know a lot about the subject. I like the main character and the way he's a bit of a jerk, I like the setting, I like where I think the story is going. "

The bad is he thinks my scene descriptions are overly long and I need more white space. The problem I have with that is the scenes are very visual and technical and I'm not sure how else to write them.

More importantly, he said that it's "definitely worth working on" the fixes and resending him Acts 2 and 3.

Anyway, I thought I'd let you know where it is and I'm back to work.

That is wonderful! Keep us posted and Ill keep my fingers crossed for you!

"White space" is good. I forget where I read a description of how to create white space... but it started with a typically overwritten description of a motel room. The paragraph was seven or eight lines long, explaining the stains on the bedspread, the tacky painting on the wall over the bed, the mismatched lampshades and the cigarette burns on the carpet.

Now, the same paragraph written the correct way -

INT:MOTEL ROOM

Crummy



I tell my screenwriting students that if a picture is worth ten thousand words, in screenwriting every word has to be worth ten thousand pictures. "Stop thinking epic poetry, and start thinking Haiku". This is usually what I do in the rewrite. I go through the long loving descriptions of scene or action, and try to cut them in half. What can I say that will convey this concept in the least ammount of EFFECTIVE words. Think Raymond Chandler. "She gave him a look you could pour on a waffle." - Entertaining, instructive, visual and you get an insight into the character.

Kudos for the compliments you received. Take them seriously and pat yourself on the back. Keep going, keep writing.

Congratulations, Rob! Keep us posted.

Keith: I haven't looked into it yet, but that's a good idea. I'm a Film major at SFU right now so I think we actually get our script reviewed by them in 4th year.

<<<-- Originally posted by Richard Alvarez : "White space" is good. I forget where I read a description of how to create white space... but it started with a typically overwritten description of a motel room. The paragraph was seven or eight lines long, explaining the stains on the bedspread, the tacky painting on the wall over the bed, the mismatched lampshades and the cigarette burns on the carpet.

Now, the same paragraph written the correct way -

INT:MOTEL ROOM

Shitty



I tell my screenwriting students that if a picture is worth ten thousand words, in screenwriting every word has to be worth ten thousand pictures. "Stop thinking epic poetry, and start thinking Haiku". This is usually what I do in the rewrite. I go through the long loving descriptions of scene or action, and try to cut them in half. What can I say that will convey this concept in the least ammount of EFFECTIVE words. Think Raymond Chandler. "She gave him a look you could pour on a waffle." - Entertaining, instructive, visual and you get an insight into the character.

Kudos for the compliments you received. Take them seriously and pat yourself on the back. Keep going, keep writing. -->>>

Thanks for insight. Makes sense to me and my screenplays always have action that just drones on and on. Next time Ill keep this in mind.

Alex, Praxis also takes interns who become Story Editors. The head of Praxis is Patricia Gruben so you may have already had her as a professor. Sweet lady.

I agree whole-heartedly about keeping it lean, but don't go overboard. Take a look at some scripts from great films and you'll see that verbose descriptions are pretty common. Take this opening sequence from "Thelma and Louise" for instance:
FADE IN:

INT. RESTAURANT - MORNING (PRESENT DAY)

LOUISE is a waitress in a coffee shop. She is in her early-thirties, but too old to be doing this. She is very pretty and meticulously groomed, even at the end of her shift. She is slamming dirty coffee cups from the counter into a bus tray underneath the counter. It is making a lot of RACKET, which she is oblivious to. There is COUNTRY MUZAK in the b.g., which she hums along with.

INT. THELMA'S KITCHEN - MORNING

THELMA is a housewife. It's morning and she is slamming coffee cups from the breakfast table into the kitchen sink, which is full of dirty breakfast dishes and some stuff left from last night's dinner which had to "soak". She is still in her nightgown. The TV is ON in the b.g. From the kitchen, we can see an incomplete wallpapering project going on in the dining room, an obvious "do-it- yourself" attempt by Thelma.

INT. RESTAURANT - MORNING
Louise goes to the pay phone and dials a number.

Not much white space, eh? But damn descriptive. Or consider this example from "The Big Lebowski":

ON THE DOOR SLAM WE CUT TO:

BOWLING PINS

Scattered by a strike. Music and head credits play over various bowling shots--pins flying, bowlers hoisting balls, balls gliding down lanes, sliding feet, graceful releases, ball return spinning up a ball, fingers sliding into fingerholes, etc. The music turns into boomy source music, coming from a distant jukebox, as the credits end over a clattering strike. A lanky blonde man with stringy hair tied back in a ponytail turns from the strike to walk back to the bench.

MAN
Hot damn, I'm throwin' rocks tonight. Mark it, Dude.

We are tracking in on the circular bench towards a big man nursing a large plastic cup of Bud. He has dark worried eyes and a goatee. Hairy legs emerge from his khaki shorts. He also wears a khaki army surplus shirt with the sleeves cut off over an old bowling shirt. This is Walter. He squints through the smoke from his own cigarette as he addresses the Dude at the scoring table. The Dude, also holding a large plastic cup of Bud, wears some of its foam on his mustache.

Same goes for many other scripts I've read. The most lean script I've ever read was "A Fish Called Wanda". It was almost completely void of scripting format and the descriptions were very brief...of course, when you're John Cleese, you can get away with that.

Read other scripts (the "scripts"...not the transcriptions)... that's the way to get your finger on the pulse of what will and won't sell.

Both those scripts were written by the film's directors. So, they want to be as visual descriptive as possible and include camera movement, etc as you saw in the last one. Spielberg did the same on films that he wrote and directed.

Anyways, there are really no rules. Just get the formatting right....most of these people that read the scripts are 22 year old story-editors trying to work their way up the showbiz ladder.

The hardest part is to think like a writer not a director. It used to be when I'd get bogged down in a scene 7 out of 10 times its because I'm trying to direct it. Now it happens 3 to 10 times so I'm getting better.

Also the best advice I ever got was from Oscar winner David Ward over lunch one day.

Now remember these are his words not mine.

"F**K, the studio, f**k the producer, f**k the director, f**K your friends and write for yourself."

Taking his advice I rewrote a draft the way I wanted and the scirpt became a 200% better.

Now once they buy it that's another story.

Good advice Gary.

My last script went through a great review process. At the very end of it my Producer mentor told me that the chances of my script getting produced were nil but that I have to finish it as a calling card. He said that, ironically, scripts that are used for calling cards have to be much more polished than scripts that are actually produced. I originally wrote that script just for myself and it got enough attention that I owe it to myself to make it even better. That's what all writers have to do. Write the best script possible. The rest is up to fate, other people, money.