One of the worst things that can happen in screenwriting is to write a script and then, 45 pages in, 60 pages in, 75 pages in… you run out of ideas. You don’t know where the story should go. You stare at the screen, you rack your brain, but no matter how hard you try, you don’t see any way to complete the story. Maybe, you say to yourself, the idea was never good enough to begin with. Maybe there was nothing here from the start. And while that may be true, running out of ideas during a screenplay is a common problem. Sometimes the brain just stops working. The good news is, there are ways to combat this.
First of all, the biggest reason we run out of steam during a screenplay is because we didn’t outline. Outlining helps us see if the story has legs. If you’re not a fan of the outline, that’s fine. But I would still implore you to write down four major checkpoints in your script before you start writing it. What happens at the end of the first act (the launching point). What happens at the midpoint (a twist or major event that shakes your story up). What happens at the end of the second act (the lowest point). And your ending.
If you have these figured out beforehand, you’ll always have something visible to write towards. A big reason we run out of ideas is because the void in front of us is too big, too uncertain. We see 60-70 pages ahead of us and there aren’t enough ideas in the world to fill that up. But if our next pre-determined checkpoint is never more than 30 pages away, that feels more manageable. We can come up with enough ideas to get to that point.
But let’s say you’ve outlined your script only to find that, midway through the writing process, your outline was wrong. Or maybe you had a better idea that spun the story in a different direction, and now your outline is worthless. This happens all the time. Storytelling is malleable. You get new ideas. You follow new paths. You find yourself in unexpected territory constantly. So even if you had the best intentions and did things “right,” you can still find yourself halfway in with nowhere to go.
My experience has been that everything comes back to the active character. An active character is someone who is always trying to achieve something at every moment of the movie. The characters in Jumanji are always trying to get out of the game. In Blockers, the kids are all trying to get laid. The adults are all trying to stop the kids. The Equalizer always has a bad guy to take down. The Game Night couples are all trying to solve the murder-mystery first. The mom and the son are trying to escape their captivity in Room. As long as your character is active, they’ll always have something they’re trying to do, which means you’ll always have somewhere to take the story. Conversely, if you build your movie around a passive, reactive, or occasionally active character, it becomes infinitely harder to come up with ways to keep the story moving. Because instead of your hero racing towards something, you’re trying to come with outside factors that give your hero something to do. And that’s a lot harder.
Tully is an example of a script that’s easy to run out of ideas during. The main character is mostly sitting around the house the whole movie. Or a script like Call Me By Your Name. You’ve got two characters hanging around in a town passing time. Now both of these movies were reviewed well, so I’m not saying this is a death sentence. I’m only saying that when you build stories around inactive characters, you will definitely run into more walls during the writing process, especially if you didn’t outline beforehand.
Now that you know this, use it to your advantage. Have your main character be more active. An active character is a goal-driven character. They typically have an overall goal they’re trying to achieve (the goal of the movie) and then a series of goals they need to achieve to accomplish the major goal. So whenever you’re stuck, you simply give your character another “mini-goal” that they have to achieve. This mini-goal could set up your next scene, your next couple of scenes, or an entire 15 minute sequence. For example, in Deadpool 2, the goal is to get the kid. So technically, you could have Deadpool run off and get the kid and be done with it. Instead, they make getting the kid impossible. So Deadpool needs a team. This leads to a new goal – put a team together. This adds 10 pages to your story. As long as you have an overarching goal for your hero to achieve, an active character will always have smaller goals he needs to achieve in the meantime.
Another method for extending the story is to keep throwing disruptions at your hero, leading to their failure, which forces them to try again. There was a famous article over at Wordplayer about how Raiders of the Lost Ark was one giant series of Indiana Jones failures. But it works because Indy gets back up and tries again. He’s active. He keeps going after the goal. In my favorite film from last year, Good Time, the goal is to get the brother out of jail. Out hero’s first goal is to try and get money for bail. But before he can get it, his brother is beat up and transferred to a hospital. New goal. Break him out of the hospital. Our hero successfully breaks him out, only to find out that he took the wrong patient (his brother was wearing a face cast). So now he’s got to save his brother again. If there aren’t a series of goals already in place to get your hero to the climax, keep throwing obstacles at them that force them to try again.
But let’s say you’ve tried all that and you’re still coming up with nothing. What do you do? Do you give up? Do you put the script away for awhile? When it comes to nuts-and-bolts sitting down to write, this is where the rubber meets the road. It often comes down to how dedicated you are to this script and to writing in general. Because if you’re only half-in, you’re not going to fight when the chips are down. And the chips are down a lot in writing. You’re always battling against a lack of ideas, a lack of creativity. And it takes a steel backbone to muscle through these moments. This is why I always tell writers, make sure you’re PASSIONATE about any script you choose to write. Because, sure, it’s easy to be excited at the beginning. But do you love this idea enough to fight for it on Draft 5 one year from now?
Here are a few things you can do. You can use the vomit approach. That means erase all judgement and, no matter what, keep writing. Coming up with something to write isn’t difficult. Coming up with something GOOD to write is. But if you only write when you have good ideas, you’re going to be spending a lot of time staring at your screen and getting frustrated. So muscling through those shitty “no ideas” moments is one approach. And the good news is that you’re way more likely to come across a great idea if you’re writing than if you’re sitting and trying to come up with it out of thin air.
Another thing you can do is write two projects at the same time. Whenever you’re struggling with one project, you simply switch over to the other one. It’s best if these projects are as different as possible. A horror and a comedy. A feature and a pilot. We spend so much time inside our scripts that we begin to hate everything about them. To be able to jump to a completely different universe with a different set of rules is just the thing the mind needs to stay engaged and creative. I think I read a Jordan Peele interview where he touts this writing approach.
Another method I found useful is to take your phone out, set the timer for 30 minutes, and just write for the full 30 minutes. You don’t have to write ANYTHING after those 30 minutes. Just 30 minutes each day and you’re done. What you’ll find is that a freedom emerges where you don’t feel the pressure to write the perfect screenplay, but rather you’re just accomplishing a task. My experience has been that if you do this for a week or two, you’ll be back on track, with a full set of ideas to get your script finished.
To summarize, the main reason we run out of ideas during a script is because we didn’t plan ahead of time. Outlining is a screenwriter’s best friend. The next biggest problem is an inactive main character. It’s hard to push the story forward when your hero doesn’t have an objective. So write inactive heroes at your own risk. And finally, if you’ve done everything right and you’re still stuck, blunt force may be the only option. This is not a fun way to write, but it’s important to remember that writing isn’t always fun. It’s often work. So get to work, push through those tough moments, and hopefully there’s some fun on the other side.
