The Unlikely Road to Becoming a Screenwriter

[B-Lister]

well, now that one of us has done it, can you please provide me with info on where to send MY work, so that I can finally get it copyrighted, and begin work on it?

[measle]

Blis, just send me the 275.00 fee and I'll take care of it for you.

[Scot Eric]

Probably should take up Meas on his offer.  Sounds good to me.

Otherwise -- google "copyright" and "Library of Congress" and wade through the morass of sites that claim to assist you in doing this -- I honestly forget how I did it (it was nearly 2 years ago) -- but I think I did it directly through the US goverment's sites/forms -- and didn't use any "middle-man".

[Scot Eric]

Anecdote for the day -- showing the trials and tribulations of trying to be a screenwriter in one's rare spare time...

A few months ago, I had entered my first work ("The White Whale") in the Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting competition.  It's one of the more prestigious contests for budding screenwriters (i.e. -- people who haven't been paid by anybody as of yet).  A sizable number of people enter...they had 6,304 entries in total.

Had a restless night and woke up at the horrific time of 5:25 in the AM -- and I decided to check my e-mail to get rid of the usual spam (1 800 Flowers, the latest crappy offer from Amazon, and so on).  I saw that I got an e-mail informing me that I didn't make the cut to reach the quarter-finals.

I was kinda sad -- although I had no true expectations of making the "finals" -- I had hoped to make it to the next round.  I fell back asleep -- and I woke up a few hours later even more depressed.  Morose thoughts had sunk their tetth into my brain.  Sure, I can WRITE -- but maybe I'm just not original enough, maybe I'm little more than a wannabe hack.  I set off for work with a serious mope on.

It wasn't until a short time ago -- when I checked out the organization's Facebook page -- that I saw a few different messages informing all the entrants of the procedures and what was taking place.  They mentioned, that out of the 6,304 entries, 1,900 also received a PS (postscript) message on the e-mails that went out last night.

"Great," I muttered.  "It didn't even rate that.  I really do suck."  Relaying the story to a friend at work at that moment -- I called up the e-mail from home...and that's when I saw the postscript following the nice form letter rejection.

'PS: Your script received two positive reads but was not among the top 20% of entries.'

Sure -- it didn't make the top 326 -- which would have been incredibly awesome -- but at least I know it finished in the top 30% (although to 20% would have been better).  I've suddenly gone from being highly discouraged to at least a wee bit hopeful I can still make a go of this.  Although I do need to develop a thicker skin.

Still...considering it was my first screenplay -- maybe that's not so bad after all.  Just hope my second "opus" doesn't take half as long to complete (hoping to be done by late August with the first draft) -- and maybe next year -- I'll enter that one too!

AMENDED:  Actually, just did the math again, as there were 326 quarter-finalists, and an additional 1,900 received some sort of "PS" message.  So...means I made the top 35%, not 30%. 

And this isn't about hoping/looking for any "congrats" -- as much like the copyright from a month ago -- I don't really think it merits any such thing.  It just means out of a pool of 6,304 scripts -- mine was at least graded better than 4,078 others. 

[Scot Eric]

Just posted this on FB because one of my friends asked me about how my current project was coming along...and I thought since there were two or three folks who who'd give a darn, I'd tweak it a bit and post it here...

(sidenote -- as of Monday night -- I had gotten to the 55th page)

Regarding my progress with "When The Sun Goes Down"...

I'm certainly happy with parts of it and concerned about other sections...it's almost too bad I can't really have someone read a partial script for advice -- because I just don't think that makes sense unless they know the "full story".

In many ways -- it's a bit more difficult to write than the previous one.  I have concerns that it's going to run WAY too many pages, that it takes too long for the main character (and others) to actually know "what's going on", and other things.  

I actually went over the 54 & 1/2 pages I've done (in screenplay form) so far late last night, and I italicized about 8 1/2 pages which could probably be edited down, put somewhere else, or deleted entirely.  But I'll leave those sections (and future ones I feel the same way about) in italics and push on instead of constantly going back.  That's already a realy bad habit of mine that hugely prolongs completing any draft.

It's tough -- juggling the cliches and conventions of a western combined with the horror motif -- as written (and in my head) -- it does take a while before shit really starts to happen, especially if you're trying to breathe life into several characters.  

You worry about it dragging and you worry that your "hero" has disappeared for too long a period of time (and if he IS truly your main protagonist).  You worry that perhaps you have too MANY characters and it's too "ambitious" -- (like I said, it's essentially Deadwood meets Salem's Lot -- and jeez, I realize I've got fuckers analogous to Seth Bullock, The Man w/No Name AND Maverick all running around in this yarn) and then you worry that maybe you need MORE people to populate the story.  

You worry about too much exposition, you worry about a lack of forward-driving story during the daylight hours, you worry about wordiness.  Worry worry worry.

I realize (and always need to remember) that a first draft is usually FAR from perfect -- and that's where you find any number of issues, but it's still a mite frustrating.  And I haven't even gotten to what I anticipate is going to to be the "problem area" in the story.  Writing ain't easy -- and I haven't even gotten to the hard part yet!

I know I just wrote a TON here -- did I mention "wordiness" earlier?  But -- I wanted to give a real look into the trials and tribulations of trying to write a screenplay with very little free time to do so.  That said, I've definitely gotten WAY more done in the past month than I did in the previous five (combo of laziness & not having true blocks of time to work on it).

[Coffee Joe]

Now THIS... THIS I definitely want to read when it's done.

[Scot Eric]

Sometimes writing is like a puzzle: I did a slew of chopping, deleting and total rearranging -- so though my page count dropped by 3 1/2 pages, I actually feel a bit better about it.  Still, my fear is about 20-30 pages from now -- writing will go from being a puzzle -- to just puzzling.  Guess I'll know for sure in a week or two...

And Joe -- assuming I don't feel it's a TOTAL piece of crap -- once it's done, I'll be OK with sending a PDF of it to a few folks -- who genuinely WANT to read it.

[Scot Eric]

Update on the status of "When the Sun Goes Down" for the couple people who are interested...

As I've said before -- the hardest thing other than the actual writing...is finding real time to do it.  I generally don't like writing after I get home from work -- as I'm already worn out from the day -- and my evenings are not as long as I'd like them to be.  I can't write for most of any given weekend -- because I don't like writing with the GF around.  So -- the bulk of what I do is done on my sporadic days off, and maybe for a few hours every Sunday. 

However -- I've been cutting and pasting sections and e-mailing them to myself at work -- where I tinker and tweak -- and sometimes even find time (in-between actual work tasks) to write an entire scene -- all of which I e-mail back to myself at home.  Despite what I said earlier in this monotonous rambling -- as a result, I actually have been writing anywhere from one to three hours on several random evenings.

ANYWAYS...

As of late last night...I finished what would be considered the 2nd Act (which leaves one more to go -- duh).  Page count wise -- I'm tentatively on page 83, line 41...although page counts can change anytime I go back and start editing things out.

I've gotten past a lot of what I felt were the major obstacles looming on the horizon a few weeks ago.  So -- I think it's a bit better than I originally thought.  A few gorier moments than I had anticipated -- but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  I do think the story takes its sweet-ass time for almost an hour or so -- but I rationalize that by the fact that (a) westerns tend to be paced in that manner and (b) most good horror stories slowly build to when the shit starts going cray-zee.

I am unsure if I can make my self imposed deadline for next week -- especially with my attempting to participate in the LOST auction on Saturday & Sunday.  Of course -- when I made that deadline -- I thought I was going to take a few more days off than I ended up doing.  I am CERTAIN (barring any unexpected derailments) I should complete the first draft by the end of the month.

PS: this is probably the main reason I was hoping to avoid the whole "Critical Response" responsibilities...plus everyone else has already been picking the Q&A apart -- I haven't even had time to go check them out, much less write about them!

[Scot Eric]

Worked on it through the night, and again this morning -- and as of 10:30AM -- I declared the first draft of "When the Sun Goes Down" to be DONE.

Not sure how good it really is -- I know there are problems with it, and I'm not sure I like the final few pages as much as I should.  But -- I don't think there's a screenplay that has EVER been done -- that hasn't gone through AT LEAST a few drafts/rewrites.  Of course -- I think I need to take a break from this for a while -- not planning to dive into a second draft anytime remotely soon.

And that's that.

PS: the "auto-signature" or whatever we call the thing that appears under our messages here -- that's one of the more (if not most) florid descriptions from one of the first few pages of the story.  Perhaps a bit "much" for a screenplay, but fuck it, I like it -- and not planning to edit it out when I DO tackle "draft #2" unless a consensus of feedback dictates otherwise.

[Rod Keith]

Congrats on getting it done!  Looking forward to hearing more about it when you get some distance.

I always found the fun part in my own writing was the second draft, because you already have a completed thing that runs, and now it's just tinkering with it to make the ride smoother and more comfortable.

[Scot Eric]

Thanks man.  I'm actually fine with talking about it all the live long day -- just don't want to start doing the rewrite any time soon.  You're right though -- it is actually easier and in some ways, more fun working on the subsequent drafts -- you've learned what needs to be fixed -- and you always feel that whatever you're doing -- it is better than the first time around.

I'm probably more nervous about the reaction to this one than the first one -- because it's so different than that piece, and due to the nature of the piece (vampires + western), putting aside all the blatant unoriginality and such -- there's less opportunity to fuse the story with my own experiences and life-perspective (as I definitely did to a certain extent with "The White Whale").

Anyways, thanks for acknowledging my post here.  I sometimes worry that when I post stuff about something that is clearly so "self-centered" -- that it just disappears into the ozone here and no one notices or really cares all that much (I don't mean that as a knock on ANYBODY -- as I feel I'd probably be that way myself).  It's not like showing off a new action figure display or describing an encounter with someone folks would have a geek-asm over. 

BTW: I didn't know you wrote as well -- you'll have to fill me in on what sort of writing you've worked on -- always nice to commiserate with a fellow writer, no matter what media or format they write in.

[Coffee Joe]

Congrats, Scotty!

When you want a pair of eyes to look it over, gime a jingle.

[Scot Eric]

Sure thing -- being the very first draft -- this is the sort of thing where feedback is definitely appreciated, so I can make it better in subsequent rewrites.

I wasn't going to foist it upon people (I see how well that worked out last time), but as I said earlier -- I'm probably more worried/less secure about this piece than I was about "The White Whale".

I figured whoever honestly want to read it (and will actually be able to do it in a somewhat timely fashion) -- they can let me know here (or via PM, or even FB)...and I can have a PDF sent to them.  I've hardly even proofread it -- already discovered a glaring error when I opened it to a random page earlier today at work -- and I can't make corrections until I'm home again, most frustrating for an anal-retentive fucker like myself.

You had said earlier you were interested in reading it -- so you were one of the folks I had in mind this time around.  Now, you don't have to be too brutal with any critiquing, because I am a sensitive lad and all.

I was thinking of giving a sneak peek here -- essentially copying & pasting the first three pages (which is less than it sounds) so anyone could get a feel/taste of "When the Sun Goes Down".  If a few people give a  to that idea -- I'd be more than happy to do that.

[Scot Eric]

Is it kinda pathetic of me to be somewhat disappointed that only two people have posted here in response to me finishing the first draft of the new screenplay?  I'm not saying there should be dozens of kudos and what-not, but still...

I almost feeling like I'm working on some sort of Silver Age compendium of DC characters or something...

[Coffee Joe]

Yep.  That was points.

Points.
Points.
Points.
Points.
Points.

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