Screenwriting : Reworking older material by Phillip E. Hardy, "The Real Deal"

I am looking at one of my old scripts as a setting for a new one. May use the same characters. The first story is just too surface. No matter how much I polish it, it’s still the same story.

Well...I don't know if this counts, as I don't yet have years under my belt. But I'm now working on my 3rd script, and intend to go back and polish up my 1st soon as I'm done writing and fine tuning my 3rd. Now that I've improved in my writing and learned a lot more, I cringe at the amount of errors in my 1st script lol

Well, right now, I'm polishing up three more of my 1980-1994 screenplays...and once the refurbishing's completed, that'll make eight refurbishments of my pre-Internet scripts here in 2019 (in addition to the new script I'm working on and still-to-be-made refinements to the screenplay I started on in 2016).

All my scripts get rewritten, sometimes months after they were originally "finished," sometimes years.

I currently turning an old novel I wrote that never got off the ground into a screenplay. It's a bit of a pain in the ass because I've been over it a thousand times already. But at the same time it's a little exciting because I'm also rewriting it as well, turning it into a different story altogether.

Hopefully yours is more excitement that agony, Phillip.

Always. Rewrites are so painful but obligatory because material can date itself so quickly. One of my first screenplays had the protagonist, a young girl, high-school dropout, blue hair, piercings, sleeve tattos, etc. You know, rebel, other-side-of-the-tracks. She's invited to an uppity debutante ball and very quickly feels the stigma. Today this look is your average teen and a fourth of the soccer moms I personally know. So ya, rewrite.

I met an agent a few weeks ago and I ran a few of my projects by him and he said to send one I wrote over 3 years ago. I spent a week tightening and polishing it up before sending :^}