Challenging but rewarding.
I have written three feature-length screenplays. I wrote the first one in 2016 as I was finishing my freshman year of college. It’s about a group of refugees surviving in their old high school two years after a zombie apocalypse broke out on the night of their graduation. I called it RAZE. My first draft was very rough, but I was ecstatic when I finished it. It was 96 pages and I indulged myself by including any and every “cool” moment I could conjure up in my mind. When I came back to it about eight months later, I finally realized how bad it was. So, I rewrote the first 15-20 pages of the script and switched up some things in the middle while overhauling the dialogue throughout the whole thing (the dialogue was fairly atrocious). After a couple months of editing, I had a much better second draft. It flowed better and I crossed the 100 page mark. However, it still wasn’t very good. I came back to it again a third time to tweak a few things here and there before finally moving on to something else. I’m very proud of RAZE and I think it would be a good movie, but it would definitely need a rewrite.
My second screenplay was heavily influenced by small to mid-budget action thriller films like Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire. I called it Covert. The storyline was a lot more straightforward than RAZE’s. Covert agents get wrapped up in a mission that has a personal connection to the squad leader and the leader has to decide whether to complete the mission or pursue a vendetta. Covert came out to 95 pages in the first draft and I immediately knew it was better than RAZE. I had an easier time writing it because I took extensive notes before I started. I took notes for RAZE as well, but nothing like Covert. I had less characters to worry about too. I let it sit before going back to do revisions. I was initially hesitant because I knew that feeling when I saw that the first draft of RAZE wasn’t very good, but I was pleasantly surprised by Covert. It definitely still needed work but there were stretches of 12-13 pages that barely needed any polishing. I was getting better.
My second screenplay was heavily influenced by small to mid-budget action thriller films like Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire. I called it Covert. The storyline was a lot more straightforward than RAZE’s. Covert agents get wrapped up in a mission that has a personal connection to the squad leader and the leader has to decide whether to complete the mission or pursue a vendetta. Covert came out to 95 pages in the first draft and I immediately knew it was better than RAZE. I had an easier time writing it because I took extensive notes before I started. I took notes for RAZE as well, but nothing like Covert. I had less characters to worry about too. I let it sit before going back to do revisions. I was initially hesitant because I knew that feeling when I saw that the first draft of RAZE wasn’t very good, but I was pleasantly surprised by Covert. It definitely still needed work but there were stretches of 12-13 pages that barely needed any polishing. I was getting better.
My third and most recent screenplay was Coalesce, a young adult romance that took place over the course of one night in a theme park. I basically had this whole script mapped out before I even started typing. This was the best time I had writing a screenplay. It was 91 pages and I was able to pepper my indulgences throughout the script so it never felt like too much.
Writing a screenplay is a frustrating, but immensely rewarding experience. I wrote those three screenplays just for fun and to see if I could do it and I plan to write more. Screenwriting, like any form of narrative writing, is a balancing act. You have to make sure you are giving enough time to your characters to let them develop while advancing the plot forward and also making everything interesting enough to keep the attention of your reader/viewer. When you’re brain is on fire and you can’t stop thinking of good ideas, then just keep going because when you hit a wall and can’t think of anything, you start to doubt yourself and you wonder why you even started writing in the first place.
Sometimes, I ask why I’m writing and wasting time if I’m not getting paid for it, but I try to remind myself that every great writer wrote for the fun of it first and they worried about money later. They worked hard as hell to get their material published or optioned into a film project. As long as I keep working and honing my skills, I’ll get to where I want to be.
Writing a screenplay is a frustrating, but immensely rewarding experience. I wrote those three screenplays just for fun and to see if I could do it and I plan to write more. Screenwriting, like any form of narrative writing, is a balancing act. You have to make sure you are giving enough time to your characters to let them develop while advancing the plot forward and also making everything interesting enough to keep the attention of your reader/viewer. When you’re brain is on fire and you can’t stop thinking of good ideas, then just keep going because when you hit a wall and can’t think of anything, you start to doubt yourself and you wonder why you even started writing in the first place.
Sometimes, I ask why I’m writing and wasting time if I’m not getting paid for it, but I try to remind myself that every great writer wrote for the fun of it first and they worried about money later. They worked hard as hell to get their material published or optioned into a film project. As long as I keep working and honing my skills, I’ll get to where I want to be.