Screenwriting : When A Writer Is Stuck On A Story and Doesn't Know What To Write Next by William C. Martell by Clare McGlinchey

Oh... that's what I said. (I found out this segment was up online when a friend of mine emailed me about it last night.)

So what do you do if a screenplay isn't working?

Actually the two screenplays I talked about (and everything else on "the shelf") had gone all the way to FADE OUT. It's so much easier to fix a screenplay that is written than one that is not. The shelving thing only works if you don't abandon them! And doing the dishes or taking a shower or trying to fix something is the best way to figure out story problems, because you aren't focused on trying to figure out the story problems.

That is so great, Fiona, that you are able to work on different screenplay at the same time and go back and forth between two or three different worlds. I have never tried it and don't even know how to dive into another world/s while working in my head an incomplete story. Kudos to you.

While you are experimenting with methods, trying to find out which works best for you, remember that the goal is to finish screenplays. Many people try the "switching from one project to another" thing and end up abandoning all of their work eventually and never finishing anything. The key to success is accomplishing things, that means finishing things. Whether your accomplishment is finishing 2 pages today or finishing a screenplay, it's all about finishing stuff!

I only switch onto another project after I have finished the screenplay and between re-writes, at the moment, I am in the middle of re-writing a draft of a script and just finished doing beats for another.

In the past, due to having too uncompleted scripts, my rule is to work only on two at a time. When I can no longer see the wood for the trees, down it goes for however long necessary (could be a day, week or longer). After I've gone boss-eyed, down it goes, the other gets picked up and so forth. My problem (which I'm grateful to have) is I'm always thinking of new ideas. Before I would have stopped what I was working on to brainstorm. Now, I just add ideas to my growing list and when I'm ready to start a new project see whether any of them are worth pursuing. That way I will eventually have another two completed scripts rather than five unfinished ones.