Unfinished scripts

This is a very personal and tough question to answer or give a blanket statement to. I have written many script to completion and many which haven't.

Generally, you should be able to write an entire first draft in a few months, even if writing an hour a day.

How much do you write a day? Every day? If you write once a week for a few hours, you may end up rereading your work and back peddling all the time.

What's holding you up?

Did you outline first?

Not motivated?

Well I've only written two scripts and both I finished fairly quickly. How far are you from finishing it? What are you stuck on? What is holding you back? I would suggest hammering out a rough draft (even if it is short on page count) and getting it out of your way so it isn't out there. You have on finished script. It might take several editing sweeps to get it where you want it, but at least it would be finished.

Everyone's different. Weeks, months, years? Who's to say what's right or wrong, there's only what suits you.

If I know how a story ends, I can write the story.

It often helps if, as a stepping stone, I write a treatment including snatches of conversation and goofy action to capture what the characters are feeling. Expanding this into a script is a hell of a lot easier than facing a blank screen and hoping for inspiration to hit.

My first script was an adaptation of a short story, 3 weeks. Second, an adaptation of a stalled half-completed novel, the script wrote itself in two weeks. If a treatment or outline doesn't do it for you, consider writing the story as prose -- short, long, doesn't matter, it could give you ideas and a fresh perspective.

But I'm pretty sure that knowing the ending, and dramatically building up to that ending, is the key to finishing a script.

Having said that, I have as many unfinished scripts as I have finished scripts... but most got sidelined because a more interesting story idea got my attention, they're still viable, I will go back and finish them.

If that depresses rather than helps, bear in mind that your one script, when you get it finished, could go further than all mine put together. That's how the lottery works.

-Derek
Derek's Web Page - stories, screenplays, novels, insanity.

There lies your problem.

Your trying to write a finished script as opposed to a first draft.

Just write it out and forget about making it perfect. That comes in the rewrite.

I find it that when I rush to finish a screenplay, my ideas tend to be cliche, or resemble scenes from bad sci fi or lifetime movies, so I find it better to just wait it out until something good comes to me.

As for the script I'm currently writing, I think I've been stuck for about two weeks on what direction to make it go. I'm not actively working on it so to speak, I just passively and randomly think about it until something comes to me.

Usually I get inspired one way or another by watching movies or tv, so I go to blockbuster and rent movies that passed me by when I feel like getting ideas but don't feel like actually writing the script. I'm currently watching the Alien series, was decent til I got to part 3, but that's another story.

Oh and hey IceRose, when I saw the picture of the female character w/ the sword on your post, I kind of thought of the main female character in my script. Who is that a picture of, or is it just a random drawing?

Many times I find it's easier to write something quick, although cliche and trite and then make it better in the rewrite, then to sit there with nothing on the paper. Just as a screenplay is a blueprint for a film, a first draft is a blueprint for a final draft.

Maybe I'll try that Joe. I'm more plagued with the smaller details of my story, like setting and time period, etc which leads to much more problems than you'd think. Maybe once I get those squared away, I'll just sit down and force it all out.

Oh and Joe, not sure if you got my private message or not cuz I didn't get a read receipt. I left some feedback on that script you emailed me.

I got it. I thought I PM'd you back. Thanks as it was very helpfull.

As for the details, like setting and time period items that are bogging you down.

A story should be timeless and the elements or items of research that goes into a script should flavor it, not be the story.

I use place holders when I write. Like: "John walks to the fireplace and grabs a (**Rifle used in 1800's England) and aims it at his guest."

Later, I'll research the appropiate weapon and stick it in.

That helps in a way, however I meant more in terms of a future or past Earth vs another created world. I don't think it'd be believable to have it set on Earth, but creating another world in the limitted format of a screenplay is probably the hardest thing I've ever tried to do writing wise :: grumble::

So many 'little things' to worry about, yet so little room for it all.
Maybe I'll start another thread for this.

Hey Steph,

I was recently in a similiar situation in regards to having a difficult beginning keeping me from going forward with a script. The script I'm currently writing I must've re-written the first 8 pages three or four times in as many days. But finally I said, hey, you know what, I know where this story is going and I know how it ends, so screw the beginning, I'll write it last. And it worked. I'm at the 60-page mark now and rolling right along at about a five-page a day pace. When it's finished, I'll go back and re-write that darn beginning, and I'll have a first draft complete.

For me it's a mechanical, demanding process (and not necessarily a fun one). Sometimes you just have to force yourself to sit and type words onto the screen for a set amount of time a day, regardless if anything good comes out of it. Just get through it. You'll be surprised how quickly you hit the 100-page mark.

Stephanie76 said:

Personally I'm a bit worried that I haven't finished a script yet. It's been almost four years since I've began this quest, and still no finished script. Although this is the first year I really dedicated myself, and learned more than in the previous three years. I'm just curious. To those who have finished scripts, did you finish scripts from the start, or did it take awhile-say four years or longer.

The script I'm writing now, I think has a chance of becoming that greater script, the one to finish. But I've been working on it for a very long time, yet I'm determined to finish it.

How much time should you give yourself before you bail out on a script?

Steph

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The VERY first script I ever attempted before even reading a screenwriters book I completed in 2 weeks and felt really good about it. Eventually when I took 3 weeks off after some editing I realized what trash it was becasue I got an objective view and it seemed like every day for 6 weeks I was able to find at least one significant thing wrong with it. Now i'm done with the rewrite and well I just started taking a longbreak from it so I'll have to wait andsee how good it looks next time I look at it .I had to do a lot more rewriting then the 2nd one which was 2 1/2 weeks and the 3rd one I spent over a month and THAT is the only one ve had to change the BEGINNING or ENDING too completely and only because I switched it around not because I actually changed it.

Stephanie76 said:

Thanks everyone.

I write atleast an hour a day, sometimes two. But I don't spend that time just on my script. I also have a novel I'm working on.

As for the script, I've done an outline, treatment, character sketches, the whole shabang. My biggest problem is the begining. The first ten pages. I know they have to be perfect, therefore I will spend hours and hours trying to make them perfect. If I can't get the begining done, I can't allow myself to move forward. I've been trying a different approach, working with the easier scenes first then working my way up to the harder scenes. It seems to be working for me. Based on the scenes I've written I've got about half the script done. It's just that darn begining.

Steph

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Oh that's right your the perfectionist.

Joe is right, instead of blowing through a crappy first draft your trying to make it perfect as you go along. That's why my 3rd one took like 5 weeks, I was trying to make it perfect, and as I said it was the only one where the beginning and end are completely different. So....

Steph, try writing with a partner. I wrote my first with a partner, and it's a great way to start. You always have someone to bounce ideas off of, you have another person motivating you to be productive, etc. Once you finish your first it's a great feeling of accomplishment. Take that feeling and start your next SP!

I really don't have enough time to write properly, and start 10 pagers for a slew of ideas, so a first draft usually takes me 3-6 months to finish.

there is no such thing as perfect when you're talking about any kind of art form. most produced scripts are rewritten many time before and after they're sold. pre sold the rewrites are all under your control. post sale many people are involved in the rewrites (director, various producers, actors, etc...). keep this in mind and stop worrying so much.

also
there is no rule that you must write a story from the beginning to the end in that order. they won't shoot it that way either. if you did an outline with 3 acts and/or an ending then this makes writing it out of sequence even easier.