Film Courage: How does someone who wants to be a professional screenwriter approach it
like a professional screenwriter.
What is their mindset?
What is their time like?
What are they doing that is different from someone who says “I want to be a writer”
and both have equal talent?
But one’s approach and mindset is different from the other one that “Ahh…I want to
be a writer” but doesn’t do that.
Scott Myers, DePaul University Professor/Screenwriter/Creator Gointothestory.blcklst(dot)com: That’s a
really good question.
I had one of my students is now a very successful TV runner and soon to be directing a movie
that she wrote, Lisa Joy.
She was co-executive producer of WESTWORLD and she came to a class that I taught at Westwood
for a weekend seminar and that question came up and they posed that question to her.
And she said “Well I was working as a lawyer and before that I was going to law school.”
And the way I approached it was I am going to act like I’m a professional screenwriter.
I am going to approach this like a job.”
And so obviously how do you do this in terms of hours.
But set that aside, that’s the mentality they have.
You have to really immerse yourself in it.
It’s not just about writing the script, it’s about learning the craft.
And so one of those things and I came up with them years ago for my blog which is watch
movies, read scripts, write pages.
Those three things are absolutely essential.
You’ve got to watch movies sometimes you just kind of kick back and enjoy it.
But then there are other times where you stop it scene-by-scene and you write a scene-by-scene
breakdown and you are looking for where the plot line points land, the major events that
push the plot into a new direction, you are looking at subplots, and those little mini
stories (m-i-n-i stories) and how they play into the ‘A’ story.
You’re looking at characters and their transformational arc.
So there are watching movies and sometimes you do it in a very rigorous fashion.
Then reading scripts similarly.
You can just kind of sit there and go through script and enjoy it but then also do the same
thing, you can do a scene-by-scene breakdown.
You’re doing the same sort of analysis that you would if you were watching a movie.
Reading scripts is absolutely critical, particularly scripts written in the last five years because
the style changes constantly and there will be people who tell you well you can’t do
this or you can’t do that.
It’s much more important for you to read scripts where you are seeing how professionals
approach the writing and you are then taking that knowledge and bringing it to bear on
your own writing.
And then of course writing pages.
I have this thing that I came up with on my blog that seems quite popular which is 1 - 2
-7- 14.
One is read one script a week.
Two is watch two movies per week.
Seven is write one page a day (7 pages).
And 14 is fourteen hours a week (basically two hours a day) you should be researching
another project, you are rewriting a project, you are doing character development, you are
doing story development, you are generating and assessing story ideas, you are tracking
trends, you are reading the trades.
If you want to do this, if you really want to do this, you have to understand that you
are competing against people who are very serious-minded and have a lot of talent.
It’s not easy in fact the odds against success are just enormous.
But the way to do it is to approach it like you’re a professional.
And so if you can carve out 20 hours a week (let’s say 16 hours a week, 2 hours a day)
as opposed to going and eating lunch with your buddies for an hour and a half.
Well no…use that time to actually do some work as a writer.
You need to learn the craft and then exhibit what you’ve learned on the page so that
when you’ve written that script, it speaks to someone.
Someone will get it and see that this is a professional writer.