There’s an inspired feeling you get when you have an idea for a new screenplay – or song, or book, or play. It lights you up, makes you want to buy a new Moleskine notebook and a slew of Pilot Fine liners. It’s that “back to school” feeling, a surge of life force that you have something to say that others need to hear. No time for food – all you need is coffee and the sunlight coming through your office window, landing on the desk just so…all your senses are heightened…your entire life leading to this moment.
And behold!
The blank page.
You type: FADE IN.
You’re doing it! This is your raison d’être; your story is going to tell itself because it’s so fresh and cool and interesting and undeniable!
You write:
EXT. PARK – DAY
The snowball fight was underway. JIMMY (10, bully) aims an ice-crusted snowball at AMY (8, genius) who laughs in his face.
JIMMY
You don’t think I’d hit a girl?
Aha! Who wouldn’t be hooked? Then you get to the end of the snowball fight and you begin to lose steam. Maybe this story isn’t just about a schoolyard fight. There should probably be some grown-ups in here somewhere…best to make a visit to the kitchen.
Another pot of coffee later you’ve got some pretty good scraps of your story, but man it’s harder than you thought. It turns out stories actually don’t write themselves. In fact, they need you as much as you need them. This is a symbiotic relationship that must be nurtured. Day after day you chip away at this story. Its interior logic, its meaningful setting, its poignant message. It’s getting clearer and clearer as the weeks go by, until you hit another bump in the road that makes you want to throw down your Moleskine and cry to the heavens that it’s too hard! You can’t do it!
But then you remember that Samuel Beckett line, “I can’t go on, I’ll go on” and you realize that there is no way on earth you could ever NOT tell this story. Amy and Jimmy demand it! There’s no giving up now! There’s no throwing in the towel! There’s only the path through the muck and the mire – through the heavy-handed narration and over-written dialogue that are making you gag. You must face it all head-on because now you’re in the thick of the battle - you call it a beast, you call it a behemoth, you say it’s too long, it’s too short, it’s underdeveloped, it’s not ringing true, it’s driving you crazy– but strangely with all this pain and suffering – you still don’t quit.
One unceremonious day, your script is finished. The editors pummeled it; you re-shaped it. Your friends and family questioned it; you reluctantly addressed their concerns. At this point any person off the street who read it would realize it’s an undeniably well-told story. And that’s all you ever wanted. It’s off your chest and onto the page. It was a war of wits and you won. In the face of figurative death – the death of your dreams, the death of your pride, the death of your writer’s ego – you chose story.
When push comes to shove, you’re not one to give in. You’re the kind of person who would rather die than not write their story. We welcome you.
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