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Era 7: A Screenwriter Evolves

September 1st, 2010 | Posted by jasonmckinnon in Screenwriting - (0 Comments)

Era 7: A Screenwriter Evolves

September 1st.

My personal screenwriting year end.

It’s an extremely important date on my calendar because it gives me a chance to reflect on what I’ve accomplished and set some goals for the new year.

This will be the seventh anniversary of this holiday and I consider it a new era.

Era 7 has begun.

It sounds strange to number each era but I feel like each year should be a leap forward.

New year.  New goals.

It’s time to evolve.

Like every September 1st, I go back and review literally everything I’ve written as well as everything I didn’t.  This year is especially important because I really didn’t write that much.  I spent a lot of the last year and a half being a director with Playing Through completed and The Climb in post.

Sadly, directing those films in addition to my career left me with little to no time to write.

Until a few months ago when we wrapped The Climb.

I suddenly realized I had regained my free time.  Screenwriting had returned and with it, a new focus.

Era 7 is going to be my most productive to date. You can only truly call yourself a writer if you shut up, sit down and write screenplays.

Before I get to next year, it was time to reflect on the previous 12 months.

Like I said, I didn’t write much but that doesn’t mean I wrote nothing at all.  I finished a number of short film scripts and put a serious dent into my latest feature script.  I also went back and rewrote some old scripts to get them ready for potential competitions.

It’s been a while since I entered a screenwriting competition and it’s time to put myself out there again.

I’ve spent the last few weeks finishing up old projects and I started writing a series of shorts I’m thinking could work well as a web series.

Now it’s time to focus more on my feature screenplays. I haven’t finished one in a while and it’s time I fixed that problem.

Era 7 will be the year of the feature screenplay.  I couldn’t be more excited.

I’ve got 3 stories I’m planning on writing this year and I’ve never been more committed to creating entertaining scripts.

My goal for Era 8 is to be able to look back on my accomplishments and be proud of the work I’ve done this coming year.

There’s a lot to do but I feel like I’m a screenwriter again.

When it comes to being passionate about something, it doesn’t get any better than screenwriting for me.

Bring on Era 7.

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The Athletic Nerd Screenwriting Blog

A few weeks ago, I gathered all of the short screenplays I’ve written over the years that I believe would make good short films.

In the end, there was around 10 solid scripts that I was happy with.

Next, I sent the list to my producing partner Eric so he could claim the screenplays he would be interested in directing.

From there I was left with a bunch of scripts with no where to go but collect ‘dust’ on my hard drive.

After much thought, I decided to polish a few of them and test them on the competition circuit.

Who knows what could happen right?

It’s a better option than having them lie dormant. (Ironically, one of them is called Dormant.)

I selected two scripts and prepared for the rewrite process.

First up is a horror script I wrote about a year ago.  It’s a pretty gruesome tale that’s full of twists.

I’ve always loved horror films and the idea behind the story was to practice writing suspense in preparation for a full length horror screenplay I have planned.

I wanted to enter a variety of festivals so I settled on a family drama I wrote last month.  It’s a tragic story but I’m becoming well known (in my circle at least) for building uplifting elements into stories like that.

Two ends of the spectrum.  Two very different overall styles.

I went over both of them 4 separate times.  I find this system helps for polish work.

  1. Story
  2. Language/Structure
  3. Spelling & Grammar
  4. Final Read

Here we go…

Story

The first pass is all about story.  Does it make sense?  Is it original enough?  Is it entertaining?  Will people relate to the characters?  This is obviously my favorite pass because it allow me the chance to ask myself:

What can I do to make the story better?

Language/Structure

Next I go back to the beginning and focus on my actual writing style. I look for ways to trim action and eliminate redundant sentences.  I try to simplify dialogue and make proper use of white space.  This step is crucial because pacing and readability can slow a script way down if not treated properly.

Spelling & Grammar

There’s nothing worse than exporting a PDF file and catching a spelling error.  This is a boring step but necessary if you want your screenplay to be taken seriously.

Final Read

I like to either print out my script or export a PDF so I can edit as I read.  This forces me to read the story uninterrupted and truly see what I’ve got. Obviously I have a pen handy for any glaring mistakes but at this point, I shouldn’t have to use it…  Right?

Who am I kidding, there’s always 1 or 2 minor tweaks…

I’ve now taken both of my competition ‘candidates’ through this process.  I’m extremely proud of them.

The one important lesson I take from this work is this:

You can rewrite and prepare a script all you want.  At some point, you have to let it go, send it off and hope your hard work pays off.

The bonus lesson?

If by chance it doesn’t pay off?  Work even harder on the next story.

PS: I’ve always had problems sending people my work.  Click here  read more…

The Athletic Nerd Screenwriting

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