Screenwriting : Overnight Success? by William Martell

Great reminder to keep on trucking!!

i'm enjoying your videos William. I do have a question that pertains to one of them. You mention in one of them that wrote at least a page a day to and this lead to three screenplays a year. How much of your process is rewriting and outlining? Or at least, how much of it was at the time you were banging out three specs a year while still working a full time job? Even with the way you broke it down, I was still somewhat amazed. If I get one spec out a year that's at a polished standard that I feel good about, then I'm pretty chuffed with myself. Two is the most I feel I could realistically achieve in a really solid year. Three???? Holy Moly! I could do it, but I doubt they'd be much good. Hell, they might not even make any sense. Because tone can misconstrued in postings, I want to go out of my way to stress that this isn't a critique of your working methods. I realize that you've been at this for a lot longer than me and have had a lot more success at it. I hold you in high regard, good Sir! If you had a moment to elaborate on your three screenplays a year process I'd really appreciate it. Are you happy with these scripts or do you now see them as something that helped you learn but that needed more work to shine? With hindsight, do you think those scripts would have benefited from more outlining and rewriting? How much of your current process is rewriting and outlining? Thanks for all the nuggets of wisdom this far. ;) Sorry to bombard you with questions. I hope I'm not taking the Micky.

yep, every single A-List writer I interviewed for my class had the same story - they were overnight successes that took 15 years. There's no such thing as the 5-year plan unless you went to Harvard or have a close relative at a high level in the biz.

I think outlines are critical if you are doing things a piece at a time because you have to have some idea what those pieces are. So I had a modified beat sheet style outline so that I knew where those 1 pages a day were going. And even once they were finished they were first drafts. Some days I'd write more than a page, so I "saved up" days for rewrites and also used vacation days (I was working in a warehouse, a good paying job with paid vacation days). I alternate scripts, so I write script B then rewrite script A, then write script C and rewrite script B on the "saved days". I'm not saying that any of this is easy, but the over all lesson is that you can make progress even if you don't have a lot of time. Some folks get overwhelmed by writing 110 pages, but you can get there one page at a time. The pages add up. I got an agent from those screenplays, optioned a few for real money, and eventually sold one to a company on the Paramount lot (not through an agent, it was passed around town). One thing you have to realize is that screenwriting is a business and you need both speed and accuracy. You will be writing on tight deadlines sometimes, and you still need to turn in a great script. I had a production rewrite where I needed to totally rewrite Act 3 overnight when we lost the rooftop helipad everything was moving towards for the big end action scene where the villain fell off the roof of his building and went Splat! New location: Ground level courtyard where the helicopter could land. I pulled an all nighter and they were shooting those pages the next day. So being able to write good material against the clock is an eventual part of this job. Nothing to worry about now, but eventually you will have to write a script people love in six to eight weeks. Here are some examples of my outlines. I spend some time working out the story in outline form to make sure it works so that I can focus on the details of character and story and dialogue when I'm writing. My outlines are modified beat sheets broken into proposed five page segments (these days I shoot for five pages a day) so that I can get a handle on pacing. http://www.scriptsecrets.net/tips/timelines.htm

Really interesting to see you outlines. Thanks so much for expanding on your process. :)

From observations of others more than my own experience, but you can significantly speed up the process by 1) working harder than everybody around you (it's the hours of development more than the years; do more hours of writing in the year than everybody else); 2) take direction from people further along the path than you are; 3) take risks; and 4) be willing to change your approach and try new things until you find what works best for you...and then change that up, too, when it gets stale.

What Terry said. That answers the "right track" question, too. You want to be open to change and do what gets the best results instead of stubbornly stay on the wrong track because it's easier for you. Sometimes the most comfortable way to write gets you nowhere and the best path may be doing something different and outside of your comfort zone. Be willing to try that. The mistake I often see on message boards are people who want to write movies who are writing things that are like no movie out there (or like two percent of the movies out there, making it an extreme long shot). I have read scripts from new writers and wondered if they had ever seen a movie before! I met an older writer who had not seen a movie in a cinema since THE SOUND OF MUSIC... and all of her scripts were perfect for the mid 1960s but completely out of touch for today. The way to find out of you are on the right track is that things happen. No contests or any way to get feedback when I started, so I would read my 4 favorite screenplays and then read mine and ask myself if one of these things was not like the others. When I reached the point that I could objectively see the flaws in my scripts and correct them and they read very close to the others, things began to happen. Part of getting my scripts to be more like my favorite pro scripts involved changing my methods and also realizing my mistakes. I think in one of the earlier clips (or maybe it's one coming up) I talk about writing typical genre stuff when I should have been writing "break the mold" genre stuff that was more creative and imaginative than "typical". Took me a long time to figure that out. I used to do a pitch class for Sherwood Oaks and I'd bring the newspaper entertainment section and ask people after their pitch to find the movie that was similar to their story in the movie section. Many pitches were like none of the movies playing in cinemas! You might find stories like them in the TV section or the Stage Play section or the Book Review section, but they were not natural movie ideas. My early scripts would probably be found in the TV section rather than the movie section: small ideas for a small screen. That was a big lesson I had to learn, but I was (eventually) willing to learn it. So, what Terry said: if what you are doing isn't working be open to trying something else. You don't get anywhere if you stay on the wrong track.

Damn and I thought it only take me two years since I was and am a genius who knows everything. (Sarcasm here) Anyway it's probably good that it is laughable more than discouraging. I do however think it takes dedication, time consumption and networking in the right places causing a bit of acceleration of success though. Then there is level of success to consider too. Sometimes I think I may be making things just a bit harder for myself by focusing on the mass media, the Big Six and wanting to break-in as a freelancer. Just knowing what I want to do has taken that couple of years. Peace out all, back to work for me again. Freelance managers, know any good ones guys? Agents are much easier to find with a good freelance manager who can find ya piece work. At least that's what I heard and the avenue I'm exploring.

Guilty! I treated my writing like a hobby with great passion and I always as a child writer envisioned my movie's (screenplay I mean) with my dream cast, director, soundtrack. Now I write and write. I put it away and write some more then come back to do what I hate most which is proof read and edit. But for the first time I'm following a business approach like Steven says. I totally agree. Thanks.

Agree with William. Writing and writing plus writing some more makes perfect.

Boomer, that "What else have you written?" is something. Even when you have other projects, it might not be something that the asking party is interested in. So it's nice when you've got various projects worth pushing. I'm still working on building my list.

Becoming an “Overnight Success” takes an awfully long time. Some while back I read a study on attaining proficiency at pretty much anything. The conclusion was that it takes something like 10,000 hours of practice before mastering any craft. And it’s just the writing part of screenwriting is the craft.