The deadline for the Mega Script Showdown is July 25th!
Week 1 – Concept
Week 2 – Solidifying Your Concept
Week 3 – Building Your Characters
Week 4 – Outlining
Week 5 – The First 10 Pages
Week 6 – Inciting Incident
Week 7 – Turn Into 2nd Act
Week 8 – Fun and Games
Week 9 – Using Sequences to Tackle Your Second Act
Week 10 – The Midpoint
Week 11 – Chill Out or Ramp Up
Week 12 – Lead Up To the “Scene of Death”
Week 13 – Moment of Death
Week 14 – The Climax
Week 15 – The End!
Week 16 – Rewrite Prep 1
Week 17 – Rewrite Prep 2
It’s time to begin the rewrite of the script we just finished! As a reminder, here are all the steps you’ve taken so far…
If you didn’t participate in the “Write a Script in 2024” Challenge, don’t fret. You can still take advantage of these Thursday articles. Bust out an old script of yours that you’ve always liked and use this Rewrite Guide to rewrite it!
Time to talk logistics.
Thursday, July 25th at 10pm Pacific Time is the Mega Showdown deadline.
That’s the date we need a finished screenplay by.
Therefore, I want to be done with this rewrite on July 1st. That will give us three final weeks to make last-second changes and do all the necessary spelling and grammar checks.
To meet that July 1st goal, we’re going to be writing 6 days a week, with one day off. You are going to be rewriting (or moving through) three pages a day, for a total of 18 pages a week. That will have us finished with the second draft in six weeks.
For some of you, this is going to be easy. For others, it’s going to be tough. It all depends on how raw your first draft was and how big the issues in the script are. This is why I avoid “vomit” first drats. Vomit drafts sound good in theory. But cleaning up vomit isn’t pleasant. It’s why I encourage writers to write extensive outlines, so they only have to clean up SOME vomit in the rewrite, as opposed to ALL vomit.
Let’s talk about those three pages a day. Because, unlike the first draft, a rewrite doesn’t always happen consecutively.
In fact, there are some days when you won’t write at all. That’s because a lot of rewriting is figuring out the answers to problems before executing then. You might spend an entire 2 hour writing session just coming up with a game plan to solve a particular problem.
For example, in the novel I referred to last week, I realized during one draft that everything in the story needed to happen sooner. It took too long to get to the part of the plot that the reader actually cared about. This is actually a very common problem in screenwriting as well. So I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you weren’t facing this same issue.
To achieve this, I needed to take a couple of days to move chapters up. In that process, I realized that some chapters would have to go. So it was this balancing act of moving stuff up and getting rid of the clutter.
But I didn’t get any pages rewritten in those two days.
However, once I set those scenes where they needed to be, then, whenever I got to those scenes, all I had to do was change a few words or lines of dialogue. I could get through 7 pages in 5 minutes.
In other words, the process of getting through pages in rewrites is less consistent than writing from scratch. So don’t get phased by that. Accept as part of the process. The main thing is just that we get through 18 pages a week. I don’t care so much about nailing those 3 pages every single day.
The next thing we need to discuss is what type of screenwriter you are and, therefore, what type of challenge are you facing.
In my experience, the veteran screenwriter understands how high the quality bar is. As a result, they’re often frustrated with their rewriting as they know a lot of it isn’t good enough. This is discouraging and whenever someone is discouraged for long enough, they tap out. So that’s the danger the veteran screenwriter faces: Getting frustrated and tapping out.
The newer screenwriter has a unique advantage in that, because they underestimate how high the bar is, they always assume their writing is above that bar. That gives them confidence which allows them to move through their rewriting a lot quicker. Whenever you think you’re writing greatness, you’re going to be motivated to keep writing.
As such, each of these screenwriters has a unique challenge. The veteran screenwriter shouldn’t judge themselves too harshly. They can’t try to beat the bar with every scene. Writing a script is a process. Most great scripts are written over time. I sincerely doubt that the draft of After the Hunt I reviewed didn’t go through several rounds of feedback and rewrites. So just do the best job you can. Don’t try to be SuperScreenwriter. And know that, if something isn’t perfect, there will be time in the future to fix it.
The newer screenwriter needs to do the opposite. Instead of writing as fast as they can and finishing their rewrite in a week, they need to push themselves further than they’re used to. They need to go through each scene and ask themselves if they’re capable of writing a better scene. If they’re not, great. You’ve done all you’re capable of at this moment in time. But if you think you can do better, then do better. Cause Hollywood is packed with scripts that are written too fast and they always feel messy and empty as a result.
One final thing. Take advantage of this July 25th deadline.
A major reason why writers never finish their scripts is because no one’s looking over their backs. There is no *REASON* for them to finish. But now you have a reason. You have the Mega Showdown. July 25th is the deadline. So let’s finish that screenplay!
By the way, I’ve spoken to a dozen or so of you on e-mail and Zoom and I’ve heard a lot of you say, “I’m trying to finish but… there’s just no way I’m going to be done in time.” You know what I have to say to that? Bullshit. It’s 100% bullshit and YOU KNOW it’s bullshit. You know how I know it’s bullshit? Because if someone put a gun to your pet’s head and said, “Cookie dies if you don’t finish a script by July 25th,” you’d finish that script.
So stop coming up with excuses and saying you’re not ready or you don’t have time. You have plenty of time. Rian Johnson had notoriously convinced himself that he needed tons of time to write screenplays. Then he got the Star Wars job, which gave him less than a year to write the script and… actually, you know what? Let’s not use that example.
But I still know that you’re all capable of finishing a screenplay by July 25th. Even if you started right now, you’d be capable. So stop making excuses and get to work. Homie. Let’s get this done.
2nd Draft Deadline: July 1st
Contest Deadline: July 25th
Daily Writing Goal: 3 pages
Weekly Writing Goal: 18 pages
Go ahead and share your rewriting challenges in the comments section so that I can use these Rewrite Articles to address them. But just know that any voice in your head that tries to tell you you can’t finish your script is a lie. It’s a liar voice. It’s not reality. You can finish. You just have to do it. And I’m giving you the framework to do so.
