Screenwriting : Co-writing by Elisabeth Meier

Here's a good article on this from the Wall Street Journal and while it deals with co-writers of a novel, it applies to screenwriting: http://www.wsj.com/articles/war-of-the-encyclopaedists-debuts-may-19-143...? Not sure if WSJ will allow you to view the link if you're not a subscriber, but worth a try. You might try a search for Joel and Ethan Coen (or Coen Brothers) on writing -- they're famous, maybe the most famous, US co-screenwriters.

My ideal co-write situation would be to be in the same room with a camera recording an improvised session where we live some character dialogue and create conflicts. Then we review, outline, write, and re-write... Not stuck in any role as its a co-writing partnership.

I've worked in a few staff writing situations. Where an outline is made by everyone, one guy goes off and writes the script, then everyone makes revisions until theres a solid finished script. It always worked well for me.

John your spamming is very uncool.

@Richard 1. WSJ link works without being described 2. Coen brothers - who doesn't know them? Great example. But: as siblings everything is easier as you know the strengths and weaknesses of each other. 3. Who knows how they really work on a screenplay?

@Christina This is the way which I think would work for me too. Good to know that it works. :)

@Diao Yes, that is a cool idea and both writers will get a better feeling for the characters. But how do you share the writing? Always a brainstorming before one or both write is pretty time-consuming.

@Tyler And all get paid the same? I also can imagine this way being frustrating for the first writer. You never know whether you were delivering good work or not as one in the line.

@John Timothy: Spamming is a no go in this community. Pls stop and delete it. TY

Yes, we will sign a contract. @Christiana - Thank you, I'm sure it will be fun as we seem to be on the same wave length.

Elisabeth, Joel Coen on how they co-write: "It's always been the same. We don't split it up. You know, You write this scene, you write that. There's a lot of just sitting around talking ideas before we start writing anything. So there's kind of a long period of that and then we generally start at the beginning and just kind of start hammering the scenes out. We don't outline stuff or any of that, although there are some movies where we kind of have a pretty good idea of the shape of it, or we even know how it's going to end when we start, and then others where we just have no idea whatsoever and it goes where it goes. They don't all...get finished. They get put aside for awhile, you know." I agree that being siblings may help with the process, but what they describe is also my experience doing two very different scripts with co-writing partners.

I always wondered about seeing multiple writers per script. Multiple writers, especially in big budget films, mean one star or another is comfortable with the way a writer in particular writes their dialogue.

@Richard Toscan. Thanks for sharing this. And yes, that is also a great idea to let both first write what comes out of their fantasies and then grow together.

@Michel This also happens in case the producer or director is impatient of the screenplay. Then he/she rewrites it or let it rewrite. In addition also the writer of the original story (maybe a novel) is partly mentioned which leads to a long list of 'co-writers' who actually just rewrote the screenplay. Actually I wouldn't call this a co-writing. To me this sounds more like: 'A camel is a horse created by a committee'.