I started to write screenplays when I was in my twenties. During that time, I’d been working as a sound and lighting technician at The Oregon Shakespearean Festival. I’d gotten to know one of the actors, Wesley Bishop (terrific actor), as he was in two of the shows I worked on. I found out he was also a screenwriter, having sold a couple of scripts by that time, so I was especially keen to pick his brain.
One day before a show I nervously approached Wes to see if he had any screenplays I could look at so I could get a handle on the unique formatting. He good-naturedly said he’d be happy to lend me a couple and later that week I was looking at my first real live shooting scripts.
Fast forward a few years later and the key pounding on my old Smith-Corona Selectric had given way to a word processor. I’d published some stories and articles but was still toying with completing a full-length screenplay. I had an idea for some time that tumbled around in my head, festered and finally demanded to be written. Months later when I had a draft completed I called up Wes and asked him if he’d be willing to look at the script. He graciously said yes.
Proud that I’d fathered my first real screenplay, I thought Wes might actually be impressed by the story. I waited anxiously for his response.
He finally sent me back a couple pages of notes. He began by telling me he recognized how hard I’d worked on the script. He then wrote, saying something that drew me up short: I’d have to work even harder.
He then went through the script and gently but firmly showed me where I had fallen down. In quite a few places as it turned out.
It was a wake-up call, to be sure. Wes also said something I’ll never forget; that your first effort for producers has to be your best as you may only get one crack at it. Completing something, as wonderful as that might feel, doesn’t mean it’s any good. Your best efforts will take way more work and time than you think they will.
Malcom Gladwell is famous for saying you have to have devote 10,000 hours to a subject in order to be an expert in it. He also said something even more telling: “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” Sage words.
Terry Rossio (co-screenwriter of Pirates of the Caribbean, Déjà Vu, Aladdin) said something to the effect that when he started writing screenplays he figured it would take him ten years to become good at it. He and his writing partner, Ted Elliott, slogged away a long time before they felt that had a script that they truly considered to be worthy of being a good screenplay.
And that’s the thing about writing. It really is rewriting. And writing. And writing. And writing some more. It’s a trade and a craft and an art. And you never stop trying to get better at it. You never stop trying to get the images in your heart and mind to be fully realized on the page. It’s usually never there and sometimes it’s not even close. But every once in a while it does get close. And that’s when the writing becomes joyful.
But it doesn’t come without apprenticeship. Over a period of time. Usually a long time.
So be patient, even though it’s hard sometimes. The work will pay off. But usually not as soon as you’d like it to. The writing will have its fruition in its own time. When it’s supposed to.
Take heart.
And write another draft.
