Help!

Yes, you should. But ask yourself: WOULD I WATCH THE STORY I AM WRITING? If it's something you are passionate about, and think is worth telling then it is your OBLIGATION to finish. Don't be down on yourself. You should also read scripts, and watch movies as well as read script writing blogs (my favourite: www.complicationsensue.blogspot.com - Alex Epstein is a Canadian writer!), and get books on the subject from your local library. Don't stop. I know, it's hard, but you can do it. You have to keep telling yourself you can.

Chances of a first script being bought? Around zero.

It really comes down to this. It takes years to get the hang of the craft. There are so many elements to it. Then once you have the craft nailed down, you need several scripts that are your absolute best work. On top of it only a few hundred films are made a year, a lot of those are independant films you will never hear of. It's a very competetive market that just got worse with this recession. The money pool has become tight. A lot of production companies went under, William Morris had to combine forces with another agency. A lot of shake ups.

Then you have to learn how to pitch your scripts and get them out there.

My point? This has to be something you really want to do. If you don't really want to do it there's probably better and more likely things you could spend your time on. If you really want to do it, then nothing can stop you. It's all about choices.

Good luck, I know I'm like a wet blanket. Sorry.

As Icerose is saying script writing is not easy stuff at least for me. You should be passionate and be prepared to take strong criticisms.
padma

You said you want it blunt so here it is. This is how it was told to me and it has stuck with me since.

(In reference to trying to sell it) If this is your first script, sit on it for about a year and then reread it. You'll find that it is probably bad.

Yes, this is a very competitive market. I have been writing full length scripts since I was in the Sixth grade, and haven't sold one yet. I truly feel that my first few scripts were simply practice. It wasn't til I got to college that I found my method.

Once I completed my first script though, I feel in love with it (scriptwriting, not the actual script I wrote). Like Icerose said, you really only need to pursue it, if it is something that you are truly interested in doing.

This might be something that only I have run into, but if you are planning on learning scriptwriting for any purpose other than writing for stage, film, or TV, It's not very useful. It is a very special set of skills that you learn that can really only be applied to script writing.

Now, I'm sure if you became very creative you could find a way to apply it to something else. But at that point is it truly scriptwriting?

I know I have kind of rambled with this so I'll sum it up.

Should you get back to work? Yes. If it is something you really want to do.

What is the point? That is up to you. Just know, the odds are overwhelmingly NOT in your favor.

On the other hand, If you are maybe on the fence about it. Write the first one. The first one is always the hardest. If by the time you finish that first one, you don't want to quit; then you're probably like me and somethings wrong with you.

Seriously though, it's a lot like sex with a stranger. If you don't love, or are interested in, it after your first time; chances are you never will be.

Sorry If I was TOO blunt.

Gonna be blunt...

OK, I’m being blunt. Here it is: Give up now. Why? Well, it’s kinda obvious you’re only thinking about selling a screenplay. If selling scripts is what it’s all about, if that’s what it’ll take to make you happy, you’ll be in for an awfully big disappointment. Unless you’re some extraordinary talent, you have a long way to go before you’re ready to start selling anything. Sure, some (very, very few) will sell their first or second screenplay, but for most it takes many screenplays. You might have to churn out ten or twenty before you’re able to write anything that’s truly marketable. It’s also very possible you’ll never write anything that’ll sell. (Sad fact: Most people can’t.) It really helps if you just love writing. When I first started writing scripts, I fell in love with putting my stories down on paper. I was NOT thinking about selling and making money. I just loved the process. Even now, when I come up with a story idea, I don’t first think to myself: “Wow, I can make a million off this idea!” No, I think, “Whoa! That’s a cool idea! I want to work on that!” That’s kinda where you’re head’s gotta be in this business. You just gotta love writing. If you’re lucky, you’ll make some decent money at it.

Give this some solid thought...then decide which way you want to go.

Good luck!

Selling any piece of writing is hard going. The market is competitive. That said, if I thought about this whenever I start writing something and give up, my chance of selling anything is going to be even less.

Do it because you love to do it. Not for the money. Not for the dream.

Most who do it never see the money or the dream.

If you do it because you love it, you will never have wasted your time. In twenty years, when you look back at a pile of unsold scripts on your shelf, you can remember how good it felt to create, write and finish those scripts.

As someone said, the odds of selling your first script are slim to none. But the truth is the odds of selling your tenth script or twenty-seventh script are almost equally as impossible. Not to mention the longer odds of getting the film made. And the even longer odds of getting it released theatrically.

There has to be personal satisfication in the arts.

Because in the very end, when you've never made a dime from any of it and you remain anonymous, unsold, unproduced and unheralded, you won't be able to imagine having ever done anything else.

Gardenia31 said:

Okay. I need someone to lift my spirits or just be blunt, straight with me. I live in Canada, I have never written a screen play in my life but for the past few years I thought I should take a crack at it. This past spring I began to work on an outline/rough draft of a RC, but stopped somewhere mid summer bc I just thought WHAT IS THE POINT? SERIOUSLY??? What the heck are my chances of someone buying my script? Well, anyone?? I have been reading s cript after script out of interest and out of wanting to see how it's done so that I could eventually write one properly. Guess what I am asking is: Should get back to work?

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I guess there are two ways to answer -- what are the chances of someone buying your script? Extremely poor, but enormously greater if you actually write one then if you don't. And much, much greater if you write two, five, ten, twenty screenplays and learn from the scripts that you write then if you only write one. Much better if you get in the habit of writing every day then if you simply agonize about writing then actually do it.

The world is full of people who like the *idea* of being various things -- writers, actors, sports heroes, millionaires, but who really hate the idea of actually doing the thing itself -- doing the writing, doing the acting, playing the game, or doing the hard work of earning the money.

They want the eat the bread but they don't particularly like baking the bread.

But the fact is, if you want to be a cook, you can't just like to eat -- you've got to like to cook.

If you want to be a screenwriter, you can't just like the idea of *having written a script* -- which then goes on to sell and gets made into a movie.

You've actually got to like the part where you sit down for hours and days and weeks and months, alone at at computer and do the writing, live with your characters, live in the world that you create, the part where you build that world and create those characters from the inside out.

If you don't like doing that -- then stop now, because you probably aren't going to be very good at it.

And if you like doing it -- then you need to ask yourself why you have to come to us to get jazzed up to do it.

NMS

That wholly depends on what kind of job that person has. If you know a director or producer the chance they can get a film made is a lot bigger than if you know an actor or boom operator. And while they could read a script out of courtesy, it still needs to be good before they risk their career and forward it to others.

Stijn Hommes said:

That wholly depends on what kind of job that person has. If you know a director or producer the chance they can get a film made is a lot bigger than if you know an actor or boom operator. And while they could read a script out of courtesy, it still needs to be good before they risk their career and forward it to others.

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What he said. I could be the daughter of Stephen Speilberg, if I don't have a story and script worth filming, he wouldn't take it on. Knowing helps, it really does, but they're not going to destroy their reputation on a bad script simply because they know you. It's still your job to get the craft down and make a workable story.

Which goes back to, just how much do you want to do this?

Do it!

Ditto to everything that Creativexec said above. That is exactly what I wanted to say, but he beat me to it.

You can write for fun. It is not all about doing it for money.

Also, try your hand at writing some stage plays. You stand a better chance of seeing a production of your play than a film of your screenplay. William Goldman (Google the name if you do not know who he is) advised this, too, just as a means of developing skills in dramatic writing.

Gardenia31 said:

What happens if you know someone in the business?

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If you're someone who's just fiddled around with a treatment and agonized about whether it's even worth writing and you're pegging all your hopes for success on a personal connection -- you're not going to be any better off than anybody else.

I'm not going to say that there are scripts that, but for someone being the right person with the right personal connections at the right time, probably wouldn't have gotten made.

If you write a script like Rachel Getting married and you happen to have Sidney Lumet as a father and he can pass the script to Jonathan Demme and he likes it and he can pass the script to Anne Hathaway and they both agree to do it for much less than their quote -- hey, lucky for you.

Lucky for you that you happened to be born with one of the biggest directors in Hollywood as your father, because if you'd been nobody from nowhere and you'd written that script, the chances of your script, Rachel Getting Married every even getting in the door would have been pretty much nil.

And the tougher part is -- I don't even know that Rachel Getting Married, even *with Anne Hathaway and Jonathan Demme* would sell today, given how tight the market for indies is.

So the real answer is -- the best way to sell a script if you've got some great connection is to write a script that would sell even if you had no connection at all.

NMS

Gardenia31 said:

What happens if you know someone in the business?

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Networking is half the game. It's not what you know, but who? You'd better believe it's true. That goes for any career you go after, even the so called day job...but that's another story.
Now the bad news. Accomplished professionals in the business are having a tough go at it. Not just Sidney Lumet's daughter Coppola, Jim Jarmusch, even hotshots like Ben Stiller and Elmore Leonard had movies that never got out of the gate. Imagine what a go you'll have at it.

Question for the OP: Have you considered filming it yourself? Would you have the connections, the discipline, the people skills to go indie? How much do you think it would cost to film your scripts?

Everything others have said applies.

If you have to ask this question, then the answer is don't continue.


I would ask the OP what age he/she is? what life experiences they have garnered? have they ever done anything in their life that they truly and absolutely hated doing, but because they realise that the benefits outweigh the 'cost', gritted their teeth and finished the damn thing, even if it had taken him...ooh, 2.5 to 3 years?

then translate this experience to something that he truly loved and obtained great joy from, and finished the damn thing, even if it had taken him...ooh, 2.5 to 3 years?

if the OP is still in school, or 'young', I would say give it up, and go and purposely experience some of this infernal, asinine merde that we call life.

This, and go and use this forum's archives with advanced search. It is your friend--there's a treasure to be found here to help you answer your question

ATP said:

if the OP is still in school, or 'young', I would say give it up, and go and purposely experience some of this infernal, asinine merde that we call life.

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I wouldn't advise someone not to continue based on their age. A little bit of effort goes a long way and some kids who really applied themselves have made quite a name for themselves. All the OP needs to do is ask themself if they REALLY want to do this.

I can't really speak from the point of view of a screen writer, as that's not really my focus, BUT... from your original post, it sounds like you have already started doing the research it takes to learn HOW to write a screenplay. That's a LOT more than most people do! It sounds like you already have the guts to try to do this the RIGHT way and you aren't afraid to do the research to get it done. That tells me that you have more gumption than the average person who shows up here, posts 3 times, then gets depressed and leaves. Ya know?

I personally say, GET BACK TO WORK! Like others have said, the first screenplay might not sell. Hell, you might get inspiration for something else all of a sudden and leave this one in the dust or incomplete. But who's to say that if it's a great story that you won't go back to it and really work hard at rewriting it when you have more experience under your belt? Just remember - there's no magic equation on how to make a screenplay successful. It doesn't just happen. It takes work. But it sounds like you have already started working at it. If you enjoy it, by all means! DO IT! WRITE IT!

Gardenia31 said:

I have been reading s cript after script out of interest and out of wanting to see how it's done so that I could eventually write one properly. Guess what I am asking is: Should get back to work?

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This is what I'm referring to. Like I said... it sounds like you are willing to do the work to do it RIGHT. That's more than most people I know do...

sommemi said:

This is what I'm referring to. Like I said... it sounds like you are willing to do the work to do it RIGHT. That's more than most people I know do...

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Reading scripts is an important part of the learning process, but that alone probably won't teach how to write one, just like studying blueprints won't teach you how to design a house.

Screenwriting is a craft. In order to do it well you need to know the elements of that craft. What is necessary to create drama, what subtext is, etc. Reading scripts will help you see how to do it right, but it won't necessarily teach you what to do or even make you understand how to do it.

Some of us are born storytellers and innately know how to weave a good yarn, but most of us need to learn. And learning starts with understanding the elements.

Take classes or seminars - there are some decent ones online. Read books on the craft - there are many good ones out there. Commit to learning the craft, and then commit to honing your skills. You must not only understand the craft, but you must master it if you are to write scripts that are of a professional caliber.

Dev

I have always been told I'm a natural storyteller. Even as a little girl.

That didn't prevent me from having to slave just as hard to learn the craft. It's much more complicated than it looks and there's a whole lot that goes into it.

So here's a second to Dev's post. Master the craft.

And there's all different ways to tell stories. Novels, poems, music, dance, non-fiction, stage plays and so on.

Not every writer is suited for screenplays. Even a playwright might have a difficult time dramatizing in a cinematic fashion.

So being a natural storyteller doesn't necessarily mean you're well-suited for the craft of screenwriting.

I've read a lot of scripts and I can say with confidence that just because you've written a screenplay, doesn't mean you've written a screenplay.