So the other day I received an e-mail asking, “Hey Carson. Where is that post of yours where you tell people how to write a script in one weekend?” I laughed and replied, “There is no such post.” What a silly concept, writing a script in a weekend. Those wacky Scriptshadow readers come up with the wildest ideas.
Cut to 3 hours later…
OR IS THAT THE GREATEST IDEA EVER!?
The more I thought about it, the more the whole thing intrigued me. What if you had to write a script in a weekend? Or WANTED to write a script in a weekend. Could it be done?
I suppose it could. But it would require meticulous planning, a dedication to staying on schedule, and a willingness to succeed against all odds. Here, my friends, is the one and only guide for writing a screenplay in a weekend.
FOOD PREPARATION
You need to stock up. Not on good food. No no no. On bad food. I’m talking Twinkies. I’m talking Coke. I’m talking potato chips. I’m talking cheese puffs. You need to be in a free-flowing ladida mood. The more spaced out and loosey-goosey your brain is, the better. That’s where the crispiest yummiest ideas exist. Healthy food is for the left side of the brain. And the left side of the brain is only going to hurt you here. It’s too analytical and gets in the way. You’re going to be calling on the creative side of your brain. And that’s where the junk food comes in. So stock up and make sure you have enough so that you won’t have to make a second trip to the supermarket. You won’t have time for it.
CONCEPT CHOICE
There are only two types of scripts you can write in one weekend. One is the dialogue-heavy script. Romantic comedies. Comedies. Dark comedies. Or dramatic movies with a ton of dialogue. Think John Hughes or Marry Me. Uncut Gems could work. Get Out was dialogue heavy. The other is the SUPER SIMPLE STORY. Something with a clear goal and not a lot of characters. Rocky comes to mind. Clear goal: Win the heavyweight championship of the world. “Nobody” comes to mind. Clear goal: Get my daughter’s bracelet back. “The Invisible Man” comes to mind. There are only, like, three characters in that movie. And the premise is achingly sparse (a jealous invisible dead boyfriend haunts his ex). Your script must be suuuuuuu-per simple if you’re going to pull this off. Don’t try to write The Godfather. Don’t try to write Inception. Don’t try to write House of Gucci. Don’t even try to write Coda. You don’t have the time to map out complex plots or complex character storylines. Everything has to be SIMPLE TO THE MAX.
SCRIPT PREPARATION
I get that anyone who tries to write a script in a weekend is insane and insane people don’t like to prepare. They come up with an idea, they’re inspired, they want to start writing it so they do so RIGHT NOW. But remember, where scripts go to die is in the “I don’t know what to write next” phase. This phase occurs more often when you’re not prepared. So spend about two weeks figuring out as many major story beats as you can. Then write those down in an outline doc. So, if you were writing SpiderMan: No Way Home, some major beats might be, the Doctor Strange multiverse activating scene, the bridge fight with Doc Ock, the first time they imprison all the villains, the arrival of Multiverse Spiderman 1, the arrival of Multiverse Spiderman 2, and the Statue of Liberty fight. Figure out, roughly, what page each of these moments will be on in your screenplay and you’ll now have a series of checkpoints to write to. If you don’t have time to prepare, that’s fine. But you will need to be an expert at “No Judgement,” which I’ll talk about in a second. You also want to know as much as possible about your characters. What their flaws are, their backstories, their personalities, and, most importantly, what they bring to the table that no other movie character in history has brought. While the truth is that, when you write a script in a weekend, you’ll be finding out a lot of these things on-the-fly. It doesn’t hurt to know a thing or two ahead of time.
THE SCHEDULE
You will be writing Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. If you work on Friday, take a sick day. You won’t be able to pull this off in two days, I’m sorry. If you have to work on Friday, try to get off early. Because in order to write this script, you will need 30 hours of writing time, which averages out to 10 hours per day. Friday, you will be writing from 10-7 (9 hours) or 3pm-midnight if you had to work in the morning. You do not get time off for lunch. That’s why you bought the junk food. You will create a circle of this food around you, various bags of chips and cupcakes, to minimize any need for getting up. I call this the food moat. In the latter stages of writing, late Saturday and Sunday, there will be small animals and annoying insects that will nibble away at the outer edges of the food moat. Do not concern yourself with them. Let them enjoy the party. Every great artist needs an audience. As for going to the bathroom, I ask you one simple question: How bad do you want this? Saturday is 10-8 (10 hours) and Sunday is the final stretch at 10-9 (11 hours).
SCRIPT LENGTH
Your script will be 90 pages long. Not 97 pages. Not 93 pages. It will be exactly 90 pages long. Why 90 pages? Because the math works, that’s why. 90 pages in 30 hours comes out to 3 pages per hour. Is that a lot of pages? Sure. But don’t worry. The reason we favored those simple concepts was so writing 3 pages wouldn’t take long. Most professional writers can belt out 7-8 pages an hour if the pages are all dialogue. So 3 pages should be nothing. True, I have zero statistics proving the 7-8 pages per hour thing, but when you’re writing a script in one weekend, statistics that sound mildly believable take precedence over facts.
NO JUDGEMENT
Remember that the biggest obstacle to writing is the crippling belief that nothing you ever write will be enough for your parents’ love… I mean SELF-JUDGEMENT! The biggest obstacle to writing is self-judgement. It’s you not liking the scene you just wrote enough. It’s you thinking, “Nothing I’ve written so far is any good.” It’s you doubting the concept you came up with in the first place. That voice in your head is going to have to take a vacation if we plan on achieving our goal. And when you think about it, you should be pumped about that. You have permission to write WHATEVER THE HELL COMES OFF THE TIP OF YOUR BRAIN and you don’t have to feel bad for a second about it. I know the critical brain is important for creating art. But we don’t have time for the critical brain right now. We’re too busy writing. So just write your ass off, never judge anything you write, and if you have any doubts, that’s what the cupcakes are for.
FUN-FACTOR
You are writing an entire screenplay in a weekend. Let me repeat that. YOU ARE WRITING AN ENTIRE SCREENPLAY IN A WEEKEND! Therefore, you should be having fun. This is why you became a writer, right? To write? Well, you’re achieving the Mount Everest of writing feats – you’re writing a screenplay in a single weekend. Let’s have fun with it. Leave all your grief and your second-guessing and your negativity at the door. There’s literally no point in writing a script in a weekend if you aren’t having a blast while doing it.
PUT THE SCRIPT AWAY FOR A MONTH
Don’t read the script for a month, if possible. Then, pick it up, and read it. There are times where you will want to kill yourself. But I guarantee there will be moments of greatness in there, things that get you excited. You now have to decide whether there are enough of those moments, or if those moments are powerful enough, to warrant putting together a rewrite plan. Because I’m sorry to inform you but your script that you wrote in one weekend will not be good enough to show anyone. Not yet anyway. That day will come in the near future, hopefully, once you’ve rewritten it a few times.
Let me finish by saying one more thing. For many screenwriters, writing is an excruciating process. They’re balancing so many plates. They’re measuring themselves up against the best writing in the world. They’re trying to do something special. They’re terrified of cliche. The thought of writing even a single memorable scene is the equivalent of erecting a second Empire State Building. For those screenwriters, this may be the perfect anecdote. A throwaway weekend where you go back to the days when writing was fun. And what do you lose if you write a crappy screenplay? One weekend? One lousy weekend is all you lose! So why not pull out that old idea you’ve always wanted to write and try it out? You might surprise yourself.
And let’s not forget the Amateur Showdown deadline is next Thursday, the 24th, at 10pm Pacific Time. So if you don’t have a script to enter yet, this might be the perfect opportunity to write one. All entries should go to carsonreeves3@gmail.com and should include title, genre, logline, why you think your script deserves a shot, and a PDF of your screenplay!
