Do you want to be a more productive screenwriter, without giving up quality? Here are the top tips based both on my own experience in writing more than 100 episodes of TV as well as TV movies, a feature film, and script doctoring, as well as the experience of top writers I’ve interviewed.
Seven Steps to To Being A More Productive Screenwriter
1.) You don’t have to write the script in order:
Sometimes you get stuck on the best way to open a script, or on a scene where you’re not quite sure exactly what a character would say. There’s no rule that says you can’t jump forward or backward and write the scenes that you do know how to write at the moment. As a productive screenwriter, you may find that writing other scenes helps you figure out the ones that were stopping you.
2.) You don’t have to do all the research before you start:
One successful novelist I interviewed puts an X in his draft when he encounters something to research and keeps on writing. When he’s finished the first draft he goes back to all the X’s (using the search function to locate them quickly), does the necessary research and incorporates it into his second draft. This won’t work all the time, of course, because sometimes you need the information before you can write the scene, but when you can delay it, bunching the research is a great time-saver.
3.) Set daily or weekly page goals, not time goals:
If you say you’re going to spend an hour a day working on your script it’s easy to spend that hour reading the trades or checking out a few sites that relate to writing your project but not actually get any writing done. Once you’re in the writing phase, set a page goal for those sessions—e.g., to write 3 pages a day, 3 days a week, or whatever fits your schedule.
4.) Don’t keep going back go revise what you’ve already done:
Instead, as a productive screenwriter, if you know you want to change something, make a note in the margin. Then change it when you write the second draft. The note might be something like, “Have this take place in Joe’s apartment instead,” or “Make Millie more aggressive.”
5.) Instead of writing character biographies, discover your characters using your imagination:
I adapted this from a method Alvin Sargeant told me he uses. He writes scenes in which his characters experience a variety of things, just to see how they react and what it reveals about them. These are not necessarily situations that will be in the script. I do the same thing, but in my imagination (it’s faster). For instance, imagine your protagonist saw someone trying to break into a car. What would he or she do? Call the police? Ignore it? Try to stop the crook? Usually your intuition will give you an answer quickly.
6.) When it’s time to evaluate your first draft, print it and make notes:
When you are at your usual writing location, you are in a creative mode. To evaluate your work, you have to switch to a critical mode and it’s easier to do that when you’re in a different place, with a different posture (perhaps sitting back in a comfy chair). In the critical state, identify the problems. Then go back to your usual creative state to figure out and implement the solutions.
7.) When rewriting, tackle the big issues first:
As a productive screenwriter, don’t start doing little dialogue rewrites. This is especially true when the bigger fixes mean the scene may be deleted from your script… Or the scene may require drastic changes.
This weekend, take a day to declare your writing goal at the start of the day. Then devote the whole day to getting it done. Please plan for this now. Saturday is not far away, and I think you’ll find it will be a most productive and enjoyable exercise. And if you like this screenwriting stuff, make sure you grab a copy of Writing Treatments That Sell.
