Christian Elder, Screenwriter: Two hours,
three hours. Once I'm spending like six hours a day on it it's happening.
Film Courage: Christian, what's more fun for you, writing your screenplays or reading them?
Christian: Sometimes I don't even know if I like writing my screenplays.
Usually starting a screenplay, sucks. That part usually sucks. When you get in the zone oh yeah
that's it zone of writing a script that's when it gets really you get jonesed that means that
you actually enjoy waking up at seven to eight a.m even sometimes earlier like around six and
you put on the coffee and sit down in front of the computer and keep keep moving it forward
because you're you're confident as to where all the pieces fit and where where you're going and
even if you're not confident that you're it's like you're getting in the car again after a pit stop
running the Le Mans and you're and you're going to win the race if you if as long as
you keep the lug bolts on the on the tires so so that's that's that's when it's fun but sometimes
it takes a while to get to that place I do realize that for some people it never is fun
in the process it's it's it you can be slogging it out quite a bit and I do recall
when it was for me it was never fun writing it until I got to the to the second draft
until I got to rewriting then I'd go oh wait no this is no this is not that bad [Laughter]
I feel like I was like digging through a pile of trash that I'm salvaging some
articles that didn't need to be thrown away but but
yeah that's that's when for me now that it gets fun
I don't take any particular pride out of reading anything I've written I don't
it's I don't know I guess it's sort of like like watching yourself on screen
which is a meta thing to say as this is occurring I don't think I it doesn't occur to me to want to
read anything I've written other than to check it for mistakes or errors and to to make sure that
it aligns properly in accordance to to structure and that sort of thing so writing the first draft
at times can be it sounds like energizing but at other times not well I mean it's energizing
when you're like I said when you're in the zone so the meaning like so you start writing and for me
and I'm going to preface this by saying because you referenced this before we we
start talking about the debate of of outlining and when I was when I was a kid or when I was
younger I should say I did quite a bit of outlining and I learned a specific method
on how to outline from some very reputable folks
and I've abandoned them entirely I don't recommend that to anyone if if somebody's new writing
outlining is absolutely essential in my mind I know people have differing opinions about that
but it's absolutely essential but I do think that once you have a grasp of what you're doing that
you can feel absolutely free to get get rid of it when you're ready when you find your voice
there there's there's a thing it's like it's like it's like the Picasso analogy it's like
it's like once the rules you can throw them away Picasso was a fine naturalistic painter at age 10.
Okay age ten all right by the time he's in his early 20’s he can start to experiment a little so
thing applies to to screenwriting I believe so for me I start a script and I have like a satellite
number of notes those notes are usually jotted down in on something these days they're in my
phone I use the note field and I throw little ideas in there sometimes bits of dialogue and
things like that when they accumulate to a point and there's a number of these going on
at once I mean a number of story ideas when they accumulate to a point I open up a a a file on my
my computer and I start I start stringing those notes together once though I start stringing
those notes together I'll transfer those to a final draft file and I'll start spacing them out
like I'm piecing together a puzzle like like you take a puzzle and you start with the edges first
I will go oh this might go like around here in the story and this might go around here in the
story and this might go around here and then I repeatedly return to that final draft file
and stare at it and go let's put something in here and let's put something in there
and let's put something in here and continually build it based on that rubric
and then when it starts to become something fulsome and it I start to get energized by it
I might spend more time on it so like two hours three hours once I'm spending like six
hours a day on it it's happening I'm at that point I'm in the zone and I'm just I'm like
forgetting sometimes to get lunch because I'm so and I'm so wrapped up in the story there you go.