You’ve had 72 hours to gain some distance from the screenplay you wrote in two weeks.
Wait. TWO WEEKS!? How in the world were you able to write a screenplay in TWO WEEKS??
Oh yeah. Because of me. :)
Prep 1, Prep 2, Prep 3, Prep 4, Prep 5, Prep 6, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11, Day 12, Day 13, Day 14
But as we all know, a first draft is merely an accumulation of ideas. The rewrites are where you begin connecting those ideas. The rewrites are where you turn your script into an actual screenplay.
So what’s the first thing you should do in a rewrite?
Here’s what I suggest.
Read through your script but don’t focus on anything technical. Forget about first act turns and infusing the right kind of conflict into a scene. You want to put yourself in the mind OF A READER. Not enough writers do this. They only focus on what they’re putting out and not what people are taking in.
In order to do this, you have to remove judgment of your work and you have to turn off the logical side of your brain. These things are only going to get in the way.
All you should be focusing on is HOW YOU FEEL. You want to chart your mood. This is important at this stage because you still don’t know your story that well. That means you’re still able to emotionally react to things. That ability won’t be there in Draft 6. By that point, you’ll have been through the script so many times, you’ll only be able to see structure and mechanics.
You want to keep track of two things in particular. When are you engaged? And when are you bored?
As long as you want to keep turning pages, that’s “GOOD.” But when turning those pages becomes a chore, that’s “BAD.” Try and track, as accurately as you can, where these feelings start and stop. So for example, it might look like this:
Page 1 – 7 GOOD
Page 8-10 BAD
Page 11-14 GOOD
You can be more specific if you want. I’ve been known to add “GREAT,” “AWFUL,” “VERY GOOD,” “BORED OUT OF MY MIND.” I’ll leave that up to you. But it’s going to become a helpful resource when you’re all finished because you’ll have a visual map for where your script is working and where it isn’t.
Once you identify spots where it isn’t working, you can go back to where that boredom started and figure out what changed in the script to cause that boredom.
You might find, for example, that seven of your ‘BAD’ sections had a certain character in them, which would confirm that that character isn’t working. The same with subplots. A certain subplot you thought was imperative when you wrote the script ended up being boring in the execution.
After you’ve done your emotional tracking, go back to each weak section and ask a simple question: “Why doesn’t this work?” You don’t have to be an expert screenplay analyzer to answer this question like yours truly. You can answer it in plain English. “This location they’re in is boring.” “This conversation is dumb.” “I don’t care if John wants to break up with Linda or not.” “This character is the most annoying person on the planet.”
From there, ask yourself another simple question. “How can I make it better?”
“The location they’re in is boring.” Okay, maybe you’re placing them in too safe of an environment. Instead of allowing your characters to speak in private, put them at a dinner party where they’re forced to converse quietly because they don’t want everyone else to hear their business.
“This conversation is dumb.” Maybe the conversation is only revealing exposition or backstory – a quick way to Boredom Town. Add some conflict. Add some drama to the scenario. Maybe Sara is still mad at Ron about staying out late night with his drinking buddies and that subtext has made its way into today’s conversation about taking the kids to school.
“I don’t care if John wants to break up with Linda or not.” Maybe you never established Linda as a person we like. Maybe you never established how much John needs her in his life. Had you done both those things, we’d care more about a potential break up.
“This character is the most annoying person on the planet.” Maybe the character simply isn’t working, no matter how much you liked them conceptually. Sometimes the best answer is to get rid of something, whether it be a character, a subplot, or a scene. A good screenwriter is like a good general manager for a sports team. They’re able to let something go, no matter how emotionally attached they are, if it’s the right thing for the team.
Once you’ve identified all your weak spots and written down all of your solutions, you can put together a new outline. Your new outline will look a lot like your old outline but this one will focus on what you need to fix rather than what you need to create. You’ll write stuff like, “Matrix Training Scenes: These are the scenes where we really need to sell how little Neo believes in himself. Extra emphasis on the fall during the building jump. Extra emphasis on his struggle to keep up with Morpheus in the dojo fight.”
I encourage you to be as detailed as you can be. Rewrites are when you start to see your movie past the surface level. You start to understand your characters’ motivations better. You start to see how previously separate plotlines can connect. You start to see common themes pop up. So don’t be afraid to be a little “mad scientist” when you’re putting together this outline. Write down every little thought you have. The more help you can give yourself when it’s time to write, the better.
Finally, every draft of your script should feel bigger, faster, and stronger. So many of the scripts I read don’t feel like movies. They feel like pleasant constructed stories that are mildly entertaining. Movies need to be larger than life! Even character pieces. The experiences the characters go through need to be bigger than the average experience we go through in life. Why? Because if all you’re giving us is real life, why would we pay to see that? We already have it for free.
So make the key moments in your script BIGGER. Keep adding urgency to any slow areas so that your script feels FASTER. And make sure the stakes in all of the key areas of your script are high. If there aren’t major consequences to your characters failing, we’re not going to care. That was my issue with yesterday’s script. If the wedding didn’t happen, they could just get married at a courthouse. It didn’t matter. Doing that will make your script STRONGER.
So get back in there and kill it on the rewrite so you’re ready when The Last Great Screenplay Contest deadline rolls around.
Good luck!
