Drafted

I'm still trying to figure out how many drafts work best for me, but it's really specific to each project I work on. In Creative Screenwriting Magazine, the last question a writer is asked during an interview usually involves their writing processes and how many drafts they employ. Their answers vary from ten drafts to one hundred. Always different.

I think character sketches, step outlines and treatments help cut down the amount of drafts considerably. On PAPER AIRPLANES, I didn't use any of these techniques, even though in school you're taught to wield them in your utility belt like a finely-tuned arsenal of tools. I sort of flew by the seat of my pants, and it took me two years to finish. That's a lifetime. Story elements, characters and motivations shifted like little pawns across a chess board. It was really tough, and I ended up with something like five drafts.

I don't think I could tell you how many drafts it takes to complete a screenplay. Because a "draft" could be anything. The difference between Draft Two and Draft Three could be something as simple as a tweaked line of dialogue, or something major like an added scene. Using this theory, I can see how people end up with hundreds of drafts. I just finished WARLAND, and it took me three solid, concrete drafts. Almost a year of finessing to get something I'm happy with. A draft is a draft after it's polished and ready to show someone. When you get a healthy portion of feedback, THEN it's time to start Draft Two.

Screenwriting Competitions

I don't know where I stand. Are they rigged? Are they legit? I took my first foray into the wonderful world of screenwriting competitions last summer after completing my first feature-length spec script, PAPER AIRPLANES, and then submitting it into a generous cocktail of about twenty competitions and festivals. From renowned competitions such as the Sundance Institute's Screenwriters Lab, to obscurities like The Page Awards, there never seems to be a shortage of places to send your work. For a price. Seasoned vets always say you should never submit your scripts to anyone requiring you to pay a fee. Are they right? Are screenwriting competitions nothing more than juicy blood clots for the vampiric organizers to slice, drain, and feed on naive, working-class writers worldwide?

I'd like to think that screenwriting contests exist as a rare portal into the otherwise impenetrable walls of the screenwriting business. Really, who wants to sit at home for six thousand years writing query letters to every management company or agency who, when they receive your pleas, will most likely file your hard work directly into the metal Ikea trashcans underneath their balsa wood Ikea desks (no knock to Ikea - I actually own a thing or two of theirs - artistic license, baby!).

After racking up a pretty expensive credit card bill last summer for enlisting PAPER AIRPLANES into every screenwriting haven I could find, I was sorta bummed to find out that I only placed in the finals and semi-finals of about eight of them. It SEEMED pretty rad, but then I thought: maybe they let everyone into the finals or semi-finals just to keep encouraging them to submit their work year after year, until one day, you're fuckin seventy-eight years old, and you get that golden ticket of an e-mail: You've finally won, you old cock! And it only took you fifty-two years and ten failed careers to do it!

This year, I righteously vowed to ONLY submit my new script, WARLAND, to the most prestigious of competitions: The Sundance Institute and the Don & G Nicholl Fellowship. Drafts improved, characters strengthened. I became more confident in my story, and two competitions that aren't really even competitions, but fellowships (I call them contests because they still require an entry fee) turned into SIX new ones that I whole-heartedly justified. Well, my final draft of WARLAND is still being pollished, so I missed out on Nicholl. I made the deadline for Sundance (easy since they only require the first five pages, an essay or two, and a biography - until August). Now, I have four more competitions to submit to. I'm not going in blind as I did last year. I've carefully narrowed my selection. I've chosen the right competitions. Will I get that golden ticket of an e-mail? Or will I come back fighting next year with the gripping tale of an escaped, female convict who secretly undergoes genital reconstructive surgery at a back-alley clinic so she can screw her abusive husband and then tell him that he's officially slept with a man - and submit this story to THREE justifiable competitions? If you'd read that story, go to hell.

Stephen King: On Writing

Holy two-book-reviews-in-a-row, Batman! I know, I know...I promise, I haven't already switched gears on my newly-minted blog to writing star-filled pop fiction book reviews. AND, I'm not doing this to procrastinate from actually writing about my own projects (maybe the latter was a wee fib). This will all make sense as you read on. If anyone’s actually reading, then Lucky You will soon find said sense (which I guess you came here to do anyway…or maybe your motivation was born of nothing more than routine, 9-5 boredom). Anyway this is my blog and I can do whatever the hell I want. I can write book reviews if I so desire. I can even write poetry about happy clowns serving ice-cream sandwiches to soiled senior citizens at a Cinco de Mayo parade. But I won't. I'm too nice for that. I will refrain from bestowing that punishment upon you.

Occasionally, after reading a book that influences my writing and provokes thought, I’ll feel an obligation to write about it. Such was the case with KAVALIER & CLAY, and such is the case with Stephen King's ON WRITING. The latter begins with the assumption that, "If you don't read a lot, you don't have the necessary tools to write." I've found this to be quite accurate. I've always been an avid reader of comic books, genre and craft magazines, short stories. But until recently, I've always found it difficult to crack open a lengthy novel and tear through it. Reading long form had sort of been my kryptonite. I would much rather have popped a DVD into my player or caught a movie at a local cinema than devote days, neh, weeks! to devouring an entire novel. How much time do ya think I have, Steve?? I felt like I'd always been able to write, but my vocabulary maybe wasn't as sharp as it could've or should've been.

ON WRITING begins as a campfire tale. Mr. King's, "here's the story of my life so far." That's the first half of the book, where we learn everything about his life, from childhood until the then present (2001), and the events that influenced some of his most popular works of fiction. The second half of the book is an intricate tutorial on the craft. How to write. What tools a developing writer needs to sharpen and wield in his utility belt. This is the first Stephen King book I'd ever read. And you know what? It's damn good. No matter what alleys he chooses to meander down, he always comes back to the book's main message: "If you don't read a lot, you don't have the necessary tools to write." And, while this book often seems like it's mainly aimed at writers of novels or short stories, it's very easy to apply Mr. King's advice to screenwriting, too. It's all about the writing aesthetics. The use and power of the written word to tell a story, no matter the medium.

So, to Mr. King's credit, I've been more apt to pick up and purchase a book at a local Barnes & Noble than to pop in a DVD, or to catch a movie at a local cinema. Thanks, Steve. Keep playin' till I shoot through, Blue...play your digeree, do.