Someone in the comments section asked, “What do we do if we’re way behind?”
I’ll tell you what you do. WRITE MORE.
One of the things it took me forever to figure out is that writing isn’t always supposed to be fun. Sometimes it’s work. And people don’t like to do work. But if you want to excel at screenwriting, you can’t just write when you feel like it. You have to learn how to write when you don’t feel like it.
I’ve been going on these long corona walks every day so that I don’t turn into a 400 pound block of cheese. The last couple of days, I didn’t want to go. Like I REALLY REALLY didn’t want to go. My legs were sore from previous walks. It’s Monday so mentally I don’t want to do anything. I have all the food in the world since I prepared for the end of it which sounded a lot better than a five mile marathon walk.
But I did it anyways because the alternative is worse.
It’s the same deal here. Sure, it’s more relaxing not to write when you don’t feel like it. Especially at this stage when you’re not close enough to the beginning of the script to work off excitement and you’re not close enough to the end to find motivation to pound out the pages.
But this isn’t about feeling good. It’s about getting pages written.
Guys, you’re living in a world where you’re forced to stay in. There’s literally no excuse for you not to write. So suck it up and write more.
Here’s a little screenwriting trick I learned when I was stuck on a script (or lacked motivation).
Do something unexpected with your story. Something you weren’t planning on.
Because if you’re struggling, you’re either in one of two mindsets. The first is that you don’t have any ideas. Or the second is that you’ve already mapped the story out and therefore feel like you’re transcribing notes. Neither of those is exciting.
But if you do something totally unexpected, even if it makes zero sense – actually ESPECIALLY if it makes zero sense – I guarantee you your creative juices are going to start flowing.
In one of the best Hitchcock movies ever made – North by Northwest – there’s a scene where our main character, Roger, is having an exposition-centric conversation with the female lead, Eve, in a packed restaurant.
The writer, Ernest Lehman, famously talked about how much trouble he was having with the scene. It was boring. He couldn’t make it work. Then a bolt of inspiration hit him. What if Eve shoots our hero? Right there in the middle of the restaurant! He credits that decision with invigorating the entire last part of the film.
The great thing about doing this is that if YOU’RE SURPRISED with something you wrote, the audience will DEFINITELY BE SURPRISED.
So go ahead and write a scene where you do something you’d normally NEVER DO. Don’t worry about if it makes perfect sense. That’s a problem for Future Rewrite Self to figure out. Right now we just need to get the script done.
So no matter how you’re feeling or how little motivation you have or how important it is that you watch all three of your favorite latest Youtube podcast episodes, you must KEEP. ON. WRITING.
And stop going to the In and Out drive-thru. I’d like to keep my food drives under two hours.
