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THE CRAFT OF SCREENWRITING
My Fellow Writers,
Screenwriting isn't an art form in itself. It's not like painting, where the artist sells the work for viewing to the public. Though screenplays are traded around the internet (and some are even sold in bookstores), the goal of writing a screenplay is not to have lots of people read it - it's to have it made into a movie.
This is not to belittle screenwriting. Not at all. It's the only truly original creative pursuit in the Industry - everyone else merely interprets the screenwriter's original vision. The screenwriter is the first person to see the movie, i.e., inside his or her head.
I'm only downplaying the "art" of screenwriting so that I can talk more about something that's been on my mind for the past week - the craft of screenwriting. I'm sure most anyone who's muddled through a script or two has heard this before, but I've been seeing the craft of writing in action quite a bit lately, and I've been reminded at how vital it is to the process.
Most of screenwriting isn't pretty. It's not about poetry or inspiration or themes. It's about describing scenes in a way that they can be shot. It's about getting your vision onto the page in the cleanest and clearest way possible. The craft of screenwriting is more like building a house than carving an exquisite sculpture. It's mundane work. It's rewriting until you're so sick of your (once) favorite screenplay that you can't bear to read another page.
Hemingway rewrote the last chapter - a three-page chapter, I believe -- of one of his novels 53 times. When asked why, he said "I couldn't get the words right." That's craft, my friends.
It's not glamorous work, by any stretch. The screenplay gets better so slowly that it's unnoticeable from up close. But if you aren't dedicated (through compulsion or love or mental illness) to the craft of writing and rewriting, well, your inspiration and talent will only take you so far.
So how do you develop your craft? That's one I've been thinking about lately. I've already mentioned things like reading other screenplays - that one remains key. I also think that watching movies and television more closely will help. Don't do it all the time, but, on occasion, watch a story specifically to follow what choices the writer made. Try to think of other choices. Other lines. Figure out what each beat of the story is for. In the great screenplays especially, you'll see that every single line follows from the one before it and leads to the one after it.
I know I'm not saying this as good as I could, but I've actually got lots of work to do - and I'm saving my real craft for the screenplay I'm about to attack. I don't think I've bumbled so badly that I've become in incomprehensible, but I'll let you be the judge of that.
In the meantime, keep up those writing streaks. Every day, at least an hour. Good luck.
Crafty,
Grady
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