First Draft Is Done!... Now What?

Well, now it's finished. My monster movie has been completed in essentially a week. 80 Pages of a script with 72 different scenes and some kind of plot, at least I hope. So when that's done... What exactly do you do after that? I mean, I'm not sure how to approach the rewrite process since it has to vary from project to project. Obviously the first is a spell check and grammar check, including a read through, just to make things clear.

After that it's a complete hogwash of different ideas on what to fix and how to fix it. The dialogue is a good thing to approach first, but what makes good dialogue in a film about monsters? I mean, again, this isn't JAWS and I don't have any long speeches, so what's next? In this case I think that I probably need to lengthen the script to some degree and smooth out any relationships, themes, or scenes that were harrowingly neglected.

This is exactly what is written on my writing board, fittingly in large black text (Names etc. removed for reasons of paranoia.):

- More Name 1/Name 2 emotional connection.
- Name 3 and Name 4 kill monster, but Name 3 finishes the job and domineers Name 4.
- Fix all spelling mistakes/polish paragaph descriptions.
- Cut repeating exposition.
- Develop Group 1's mindless group esthetic.
- Bring perspective to every character. Smooth it out!

Now that is staring at me every time I sit at the computer and start writing. I think it's very much helpful to have such a marker board to work with. On the other side I have a cork board with cue cards jammed into it, which is a whole other story. But my best advice to myself would be: Polish up the draft and do the most meager additions/subtractions, including scenes you feel smooth out relationships and further define the characters.

In my case I'll probably end up with a First Draft Polish and 90 pages of script. Which isn't too bad. At that point I'll print the script out and tear into it with a red pen and a bad attitude. Then you type up the second draft, polish it again, and start out your objectives all over. Spell check, smoothing, etc. Eventually you'll have a script that flows like a motherfucker, even if it takes a hundred drafts.

Oh, and last but not least, always take a break in between drafts. Distance yourself from the work a bit so you can look at it in a new light. Don't finish the draft and then start rewriting it once you've finally typed "Fade Out". Trust me, it'll never work out.

Me and DT.

Being a perpetual cynic I found myself unable to understand the Hollywood system for the life of me. You watch careers vanish, appear, and vanish again. Some people shine so brightly in the span of two films, and then completely suck from then on out. Was it the "system" that chewed them up in the end? I mean, how does a person lose his craft? Most importantly: How do I not get chewed up and not lose my craft?

I sat there by my computer, looking around for different things. I find the home website for David Twohy and found his public e-mail address. Through that I felt the need to ask David about the system, and how it's treated him. He' s obviously had a widely varied career. Writing The Fugitive and gaining huge praise, and then directing Below which was buried by the studio. You must experience the sour to enjoy the sweet. So he's the perfect guy to ask, and I did.

Out of sheer respect for the man I tried to be as regal (read: boring) as possible and I'm sure it drove him absolutely insane to read my over-thesaurus-ized letter.

Until it was sent back to me.

Not out of rudeness, though, which was awesome. But because he was so terribly busy with his current writing jobs, he sent it back and asked if I could send it again. So I read the letter and realized it was (undiluted) shit. So I revised it, and sent it back a week later. That is when I received the response from the man himself. It was exciting considering how calm and well spoken he was. But he's an established writer, so he knows his way around the "fan mail responses".

On the topic of studio interference (which every writer fears).

You always have the first draft. And that's really you, all you, so at least you had it your way that one time. After that, you just have to realize that the "company" is paying you a lot of money and that entitles them to seeing (some) of their ideas played out. Now sometimes you can play them out verbally in the room and chart their (bad) idea to its dark deserving death. But other times, their ideas aren't so bad and may even be good. In that case, you incorporate them into the screenplay and claim they were YOUR idea all along.

Which is incredibly sound advice when I think about it. You act as a filter for ideas in any script, and the company is obviously interested for a reason. Why not listen to them? They might know more about the subject than you. They also might not and just want to make the damn thing commercial and turn every character into a "hot young teen" with a terminal illness and suddenly have talking animals to draw the children in. Which is pretty silly, but... Kangaroo Jack? Yeah, you get the idea.

At that point I asked for closing advice. Just because I think any advice from someone far more talented would be entirely helpful. David dropped a brilliant little nugget, and also made me reference the dictionary once (okay, twice).

Just remember that Hollywood tends to treat its writer like shit but pays them exorbitantly to make up for it. The best way to protect your work is to become a director. (And even then...) But barring that, you just have to be prepared to defend your work. Without being such a pain in the ass that they want to fire you.

"Brinksmanship." Look it up.

DT

Couldn't ask for much more, really. Honesty is the best policy and Hollywood is a business made almost entirely out of creative decisions. Some are put to paper, others are done on celluloid. What it eventually equals is a film, the final product, and a bunch of ego's at genuine risk. You could argue it's like any other workplace, just that the money is incredibly different, and if you do well you happen to get ludicrously famous and wealthy.

The American Dream, by the way of the pen, at least for me. (Is there such a thing as 'The Canadian Dream', or do I have to move to America to achieve said dream? This is all too confusing.)

I might have to ask Mr. Twohy that one day, if he doesn't rip my eyes out in the process.

Peculiar Ventilation - Creative Ranting.

Every day I try to write something down on paper. Yes, I'm the kind of person who likes to write everything out long hand with a Bic pen.

Fucking cave man.

Lately I found myself writing a script about, well, you'll find out if it gets made. The subject matter is, quite honestly, not the point. But I've come to a point where my creativity has become somewhat bankrupt. I've let the idea germinate in my head, I've made up the characters and the 'conflict' and I know where the story's going. But the pulse is gone.

Creative defribrillator's.

Whenever I write something I need a reason to keep myself on task. I mean, I know there are writers out there who could slog through an assignment without thinking twice. The material will probably be fantastic, and I'm sure they enjoy it. But I really need to have a passion for the script, the idea, and the characters, otherwise I'll lose the script about twenty pages in. It's a sad fact to know that I've probably started fifty scripts, and finished ten.

The ideas I abandoned could've been better, in retrospect, than the ones I finished, but I just didn't have the drive... But what creates the drive? I think it's a matter of taste. Because, with me, I'm writing something that most people would consider a schlocky B-sci-fi/dramedy thing. Which I love, quite simply, because you can't define the script aside from it being a monster movie... So what do I do to drum up inspiration? I watch the exact opposite of what I'm writing.

Schindler's List was a film I watched while writing my bizarre space adventure. I had witnessed a spectacular film and remembered why I went to the movies in the first place, and that got me going again. If I would've watched an early Roger Corman film (which I love, don't get me wrong), I would've come back to the draft with a certain condescending attitude towards the genre. When you feel above it, you can't write for it, otherwise people can tell, and you don't serve the story.

The Present.

A monster movie is a tricky thing. One of the trickiest genre's to tackle with any credibility whatsoever. You can't have a Jamie Lee Curtis-type screaming throughout the film without getting derisive laughter. But my idea of a good monster flick is a series of interesting characters vaulted into a scary-as-hell situation with the most absurdly creative monster you can think of.

Technically it's a terrible way of going about it, but that is me, don't follow my lead.

Economics.

When writing a script about interesting people, and you know that eventually you have to deliver the monster... So when do you deliver it? How much time do you 'waste' on the human bits? That's something I've been struggling to answer. Obviously there is no precise formula as to how you deliver the story, but there is only a certain amount of tolerance an audience will have before people will say: "Where are the God damn monsters?!"

But you have to avoid being a hack and just jumping right into the pits. JAWS is the most excellent example of a monster film handled with class. B-movie with A treatment, so to speak. But I'm not Gottlieb or Benchley, so I do what I can with the tools I have.

15 Pages.

That is the amount of time I've essentially dedicated to getting to know the characters. Define the personal connections that will run through the rest of the film, and throw the monkey wrench into the cogs. It'll either work, or it'll blow up in your face. The best part about the script, at least to me, is the fact that the town precisely changes once the 'monster' arrives. If you have struck the right tone, the script will work and segue directly into what you wanted. If you fail, people will get up and leave the theatre.

We all know the desired results.

Is my approach wrong or anything? I'm not sure. But I just felt the need to pose that question to anyone who has struggled with the same dilemma. Repeating "Don't be a hack! Don't be a hack!" to myself, over and over again, has failed to work so far since I'm convinced that I am one. I find comfort in knowing that professional writers struggle with the same troubles. I don't know if anyone struggles with page economics like I do, but that's why I chose to write in the first place.

You get to know the challenge, and you love it.

Pros and Cons - Series 2: A Reader.

Spelling Mistakes? We don't need no stinkin' spelling mistakes!

Screenwriters have different tools in their arsenal for bringing about a script. One of the most useful is a reader.

What the hell is this shit?

Something you'll often hear when you hand a first draft over to someone. Ideas that seemed so fantastic and so utterly brilliant to you at first make absolutely no sense now. What happened in between your brain sending signals, your fingers typing, and your computer... computing? Chances are you are still writing for yourself at that point, and small details are left out. Those details, however minute, can completely change the tone or readability of a script.

If a character makes a decision that is tragically flawed and it doesn't make sense on paper, but makes sense to you because of some outward knowledge that isn't written down... you have absolutely nothing. Having ideas stored in your brain are fine for yourself, but there's a reason why cave men started etching pictures into a cave. They were tossing out their ideas and expressing themselves. That is what you're doing when writing a script, but when it isn't clear to Joe Popcorn-Consumer, what's the point?

Is there ever a point?

Yes, that's why we have readers. You can clarify any idea with a few simple lines of dialogue or prose. Just seeing a film from another persons perspective can be refreshing and eventually it'll make your script better. But you have to trust the reader, don't just hand it to a neighbor and expect flawless notes. That is not going to happen. (Hence the reasoning behind a co-writer.) But just ask someone to articulate what they thought and be as detailed as possible. It may seem tedious at first, but you need to analyze your script to get it pitch-perfect.

If you don't have that amount of time to commit to your work, then stop doing it.

Will you get perfect notes from your reader(s) ever time? No. But it's up to your own personal discretion to figure out who's insane and who has a very good point. Filtering. Like you've done a thousand times before when writing, but now you are taking it to another level. Not only that, but I personally find that if I know it's going to be read by someone else, I raise the stakes for myself and hope that the script is far better than usual. If you're writing a story completely for yourself, that's fine at first, but eventually someone is going to have to read it.

Pros and Cons - Series 1: A Co-Writer.

When Worlds Collide, on paper... with pens.

After writing by myself for such a long time I was reticent about writing with someone else. I mean, what the hell is the use? Someone else contributing to my brilliant work with their terrible ideas? I don't think so.

Well I'll admit when I'm wrong, I think pretty much everyone should work with a co-writer at some point in time. Film is a collaborative process from the script stage to the editing stage, even the release involves a lot of ideas on selling the film. If you don't embrace that at some point you'll end up writing in your mother's basement. Which might not be very different from what you're doing now. (Although you'll be older, fatter, scarier, and less likely to succeed.)

Staring at a blank page with nothing but your singular brain thinking about a concept is a very difficult process. It's one we've all faced at some point in time, whether or not it involves a script is beside the point. When you have someone to just bounce simple ideas off of, they will be enriched by simple words. You start to inspire each other and the snowball is tossed down the mountain. Whether or not it ends up causing an avalanche on the page depends on your direction.

Full freedom without question.

If you are ever hesitant to drop an opinion on something you're doing with a co-writer, you should probably stop working with him/her. That or learn to deal with sifting through a thousand bad ideas to find the one good idea that makes everything useful. When you join the same wavelength as your co-writer, you start hitting a groove, everything falls into place and your conversations are completely free-flowing. That is when you get your best work, and that is what it's all about.

These conversations, to me, are the single most enjoyable things I've ever done in my life. Truly talking with someone about a thousand different ideas and putting them down on paper is fantastic fun. There are times when you want to kill each other, of course, and those are hilarious in retrospect.

Me and Justin Graham.

Amazingly I've only worked with Justin on essentially two screenplays. One was the disaster of Clyde Baxter. The second is still in the process of gestation and coming around nicely. Despite our hateful break up after the Baxter draft, we eventually started talking about working together again. He was up to his business, which was some great material, and I was up to my business... which was, less than great. Strangely it all started again over an adaptation, essentially a spec., for a Superman V screenplay.

I had my idea of the perfect Superman film, and he had his own. Somewhere we struck down the middle and started tossing out hundreds of different ideas. Essentially he used only a few of my ideas, but it was a genuine respect for each other that brought us through the process of pitching absolutely everything. One idea leads to another, and another, and eventually you have 120 pages of ideas. The better the writer, the more polished the ideas. When two heads are working on making it spiffy, that doubles your chances of being better. At least, in theory.

Finalysis.

So what does it all mean? What am I trying to say? (Aside from sending me money in the mail.) The writing process is one of the most organic things a person can do. It's a series of ideas that turn into words. Those turn into sentences that eventually form paragraphs. After that you get some pages, and more pages, and eventually a script. It's beautiful, but it works in no particular order. When it works for me, or works for you, it's great. When it doesn't, it's one of the most horrible things you might ever go through.

But aim to please yourself. Suit the script to your tastes and write what you know. That's really the only advice I can truly give out to someone. Magical formulas, quite frankly, will never work because audiences are too smart for that. Tell a story, go about it like you think you should.

And, if at all possible, write with a buddy. It's just like having a reader...

My Muse.

Well, not entirely my muse but a person I look up to. It's not like an idol, that would be sad, but more like a practical person who I aspire to be like. Okay, well technically it's an idol. But I don't like being technical because, well, that stinks.

David Koepp.

From Apartment Zero to War of the Worlds (which will immediately date this post, along with the actual date of posting, ironically), David Koepp is a writer I pretty much love. His work is direct, to the point, and lacks flourish. Well, flourish in the sense of "Ooh, well these scene is actually about man's quest for God." An analogy is fine and Koepp embraces it. But making a film about God and man's quest for him is great if you're a talented writer. But, I'm not. So I aim to be a practical writer like Koepp (of course I'm sure Koepp could write a script about Man/God, but he doesn't seem at all interested in it.)

Some people will call me crazy for thinking this (my co-writer included), but there's a certain charm behind a writer who embraces B-movies. Ever since Panic Room I've followed his work with a certain retained passion. His structures are usually very precise, his scenes are to the point, and his films are generally good. You could argue that he has a tick with third act's (who doesn't?), but he has been met with great success and seems to enjoy himself. I mean, who doesn't want that?

But people who dislike him, I think, are unfounded in their claims. Of course opinions can differ and that's why we're such an interesting species. Koepp has written scripts that vary so wildly it's almost absurd. From a nuanced crime script, Carlito's Way, to a movie about big ass dinosaurs on a big ass island, Jurassic Park (and the sequel). That's a range, despite the latter being an adaptation.

But I believe the reason for people's dislike is his inherent success. A writer who has penned some of the highest grossing films of all time is destined to be disliked. People will pick at his quirks, and say that he can't write for beans, which is obviously untrue. (The fact that he created a show called "Hack" is kind of detrimental to that fact, though.)

"But... Why, of all people, would you love Koepp?" - My co-writer, in so many words.

Simple, I am a B-movie fanatic. If you ask me what the greatest films of all time were, I would quickly say: "Jaws, Schindler's List, and The Howling." Incredibly, almost absurdly, varied, but honest at least to me. I love a film that is completely and utterly aware of it's own genre. When you watch a thriller like Panic Room, you realize Koepp is working within the genre without pandering to it. But then people say, "Well, so what, he's limiting himself, so he's a HACK!"

So Alfred Hitchcock was a hack?

Binding yourself to a genre, embracing it, and creating stories within it are a great thing. I've done it and it's a hell of a lot of fun. You get to write whatever you want and if that's your style, than it's a far more creative process. I'd love to be able to write The English Patient (well, bad example) but it'd be a hell of a lot more fun to write Jaws 5: The Quickening. So why not enjoy your work and get paid handsomely for it?

Panic Room, written in six days, paid 5 million dollars. (i.e. David Koepp, my hero.)

Of course it's not all about the economics, but the love. The absolute love of writing things in a genre that you adore. David Koepp, in so many ways, has taught me to not worry about being a dramatist, just be a you-ist.

For that I thank him. Although I'm sure he could give a rat's ass considering that he's one of the most sought after writers in the world and I'm pouring my incoherent thoughts into a Blog while I should be writing.

Fate's a funny thing, isn't it?

The Sex Act. The Genesis Tale Part Two.

Clyde Baxter.

An idea I had one day while staring up at the sky, the contents of which I can't really reveal at this time, intellectual properties and such (if you can call them that). But I remember wanting to write a science fiction film about a group of soldiers who go into space and encounter things. Of course, to me, this sounded entirely original. Although I completely forgot about Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien: Resurrection, and uh... Well every knock-off since.

The main character is a hero, a downtrodden hero. It opens with him making a mistake, killing thousands of people. The film is about his repentance and the people around him. Of course it sounds like a jolly good time, but it came off the heels of me reading a strong amount of Burroughs, so I was bent on serial adventures. My co-writer (who will be known as Justin Graham), was very apt to take my three ideas and help me structure it into a screenplay.

It was a hell of a fun process.

There were three set pieces, which consisted of "The Lift Off" (the opening scene), "The Squid Scene" (a middle set piece), and finally "The Raid" (the finale). From that we structured an entire story around our characters, built the arcs, and wrote a script. Sadly we completely forgot about plot, and quite a few other rules that would make any McKee acolyte scream. But, at the time, it seemed like a spectacular idea.

I set out to get the script sold. Going to various websites and checking out agent emails, sending query letters to everyone, and hoping for a response. Judging by the fact that I'm not rolling in cash right now, you can guess that the response was meager (and you'd be correct). But one giant savior came to our doorstep, a literary agent:

Brad Kushner, Creative Convergence Rep.

By all means he was the kindest person I had sent emails to, as of late. He was politically correct, genial, and liked our silly idea of people in space encountering things. Which was how I was boiling things down at the time. He gave us a page limit (120) and an address. The script went through a few drafts (*cough* two *cough*) and we felt it was suitable to be sent out.

We were wrong, oh so horrifically wrong.

Final Draft is a spectacular thing to use when writing a script, it really truly is (*cashes check*). But you need to have the skills to utilize it, and sadly I still don't. The script was finished at 120 pages, "The Adventures of Clyde Baxter" turned into "Clyde Baxter", as the title page dictated, and I sent the script through the mail.

That, in and of itself, was an adventure. Literally a foot of snow, cold air and frostbite. It was, quite honestly, enough to make 'Fargo' proud. I get to my local post office, and I'm charged twenty dollars (on top of the twenty to print and bind the script) and sent it out to Los Angeles. My dreams sealed in a manila envelope. Sent out to the city that actually sleeps, but usually in very warm weather.

The process of waiting.

Quite easily the hardest part of any process is the waiting. Justin (again, as he is going to be called) broke off his own way after going through my process of editing. Which essentially consisted of me cutting up everything he had written, calling it my own, and then taking all the credit. Of course it was only partially like that, but it was enough for him to want to do his own thing until the agent came with: money; women; etc.

This is when I became physically ill, as I'm sure most writers have. You write a project and you learn a thousand things along the way. You become a better writer, hopefully, and grow as a person while you're at it. The screenplay you wrote, which helped you learn, now sits on your desk and you flip through.

It is absolute, undiluted, shit.

Every page smells of contrivance. The smallest errors almost look as though they've been done in bold. A character's dialogue smells wrong, a scene is poorly described, it is a fact of life and I went through it. You could imagine my thoughts now, knowing that this script would be hitting the desk of a seasoned professional who could change my life. A friend of mine reads the script and confirms the worst: it really is shit.

At that point I scrambled, and really didn't help anything. I shunned my co-writer from working on a new draft (that I dubbed Clyde Baxter - Redux) and I shit-canned most of the story in favor of a completely new plot. This turned into an unmitigated disaster when suddenly the script became 175 pages, and contained less substance than the first script. You could imagine how utterly excited I was when this happened, and I questioned whether or not I should continue writing.

But the envelope of doom was still being sent.

I waited for a response. Brad Kushner was kind enough to tell me that he'd read the script eventually. This is when I could picture the stack of 120 papers sitting on the desk of a smart businessman, who was about to be treated to sheer torture. It hurt me to think about it, and eventually I just stopped. Clyde Baxter, to me, was completely and utterly dead.

Depression set in, more so than usual. I found myself unable to write, unable to think, and unable to even type a message to Justin. It was my own personal hell created solely by the stress of my own mind.

"Stress is self-inflicted." - My new personal mantra.

No matter what the case, no matter how far you are in debt, you put stress on yourself. There are thousands of problems in this world, most of which we'll have to deal with, and stressing yourself will get you nowhere. Matter of fact, putting stress on yourself will set you back further than usual. It's like drowning in a pool of your own sorrow, and it's pathetic. This is what I started to learn. I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and got back on my feet.

"Dear Justin and Brandon,

My apologies for getting back to you so late - I really appreciate your patience. Thank you for the opportunity to read CLYDE BAXTER. I really enjoyed some of your action sequences and there were moments of fun dialogue. Unfortunately I don't there is enough here to set it apart from other science fiction that has already been made into movies. Therefore, I'm afraid, it is a pass.

Thank you for thinking of Creative Convergence. I wish you much luck with this project and your future writing endeavors.

Best regards,

Bradley Kushner"

The rejection.

To be honest at that point I was pretty much expecting it. The script
wasn't really much of anything and couldn't sell at a flea market. So I
picked myself up again and moved on.

This is where I am now. Writing various scripts with various styles and
trying to make sense of the senseless. It's an interesting process and it's
fun now. Very fun.

Stress is self-inflicted. Damn straight.

Virginity. The Genesis Tale.

The first post ever. However insane it may seem: I'm the kind of person who never thinks in a straight line. I don't think anyone does, quite frankly. Whenever I pour out my ideas onto the page, or the screen, I find that they make no sense. It's not that I'm a terrible writer (which I sadly am) but that I don't understand the process by which writer's function. Do you write the words first? What’s the idea or the moral of the story? What comes first, what comes last? What comes at all?

Safe to say, I have a shitload of questions, none have been answered.

My journey started on a day that I can barely explain. But it was the first day of the rest of my writing life, and it started with an awful film. "Radioland Murders", starring Brian Benben. Ridiculously overwrought, overwritten, and over-stylized, the film never worked, but there was something in it. The writer in me started to gestate, burn with a desire to write something. It started with text on a computer, with a Windows edition that would make Bill Gates' head spin.

Maybe it was the first day of the END of my life.

I put my fingers to the dirty keyboard and started typing a yarn about murders within a radio house. The first thing I did was type up a fake play. The second was to start writing. Being new I had absolutely no idea what 'characterization' meant, and there was no spell check, so you could imagine the charming grammar. But I finished it, maybe twenty pages, and thought I had a masterpiece. People read it, hated it, and I stopped writing for the longest time.

I consider that the teaser of the first act of my life.

Pulp Fiction arrived, I watched it on Showtime, or some poorly titled channel, and the Tarantino Act started. Writing dialogue that was snappy, referential, and off the cuff or at least a pale imitation of it. Things like "I don't fucking know no fucking fuck, shit fuck..." and further expletives. It was an exciting, albeit bleak, time of my writing career. I started writing war films that made no sense (thanks to Saving Private Ryan) and finally, I concluded the first act with my epic masterpiece: "The Darker Side".

I had written roughly 200 pages, strangely with almost no story to speak of. At that time I was slightly pathetic and had a dream cast which included De Niro, Pacino, Seymour Hoffman, Uma Thurman and many (many) more. It was the single most expansive thing I had written and it concluded what I thought was the end of my career.

Strangely the thing that saved me was a fake movie website that will now go un-named. On this site you created five to ten thousand word short stories and release them as "films", with a cast, etc. You released them with a fake budget, and made fake money, did fake behind the scenes stuff, pretty much the entire process (however limited), but entirely false.

I wrote a story called "The Battle", pitched as a Luc Besson romance film starring Jean Reno as a hit man (a stretch, I know). But people absolutely loved it, or most of it, and somehow it got me charged.

Charged to a point where I felt the urge to write again.

Armed with a writing partner (who goes by various aliases), I started work on my first full-length screenplay that I felt would legitimize myself and win me a huge contract. We'd write the script, and send it out to agents; they'd come knocking on our doors with money, women, the works. Unfortunately it didn't quite go that way, in fact, it went the opposite way.

To be continued...