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| Splitting the two makes both of them happier. |
The single most important thing I've learned about screenwriting isn't one of craft - it's one of mindset.
It's the thing that keeps me sane, the thing that allows me to professionally deal with everything that's thrown at my script from the first idea to the moment shooting begins.
It's the thing that keeps me sane, the thing that allows me to professionally deal with everything that's thrown at my script from the first idea to the moment shooting begins.
We're screenwriters - by definition we deal with emotion. We're supposed to pour our heart and soul into every story, character, scene, dialogue - into every single word, in fact. We're emotionally charged people ... and so it's only natural that we get affected by what others, during the development process, want us to do "to" our script. Often suggestions are great and useful, often they're a pain in the butt because they don't serve the story, but instead outer circumstances (budgets, locations, egos). Tough as it occasionally becomes - screenwriting is collaboration - the final product is a film, not a script. And so collaborate we must - and I have to say, by "separating", I love to collaborate.
Here's how this works for me: Stage One is the period up to and including the finished first draft. Stage Two is everything that follows.
- Stage One: This part is and will always be the most satisfying part for me. Simply because it's the purest form where I, as the solitary thinker, get to sit in my cave. I brood, I laugh, I cry - I put my passion to paper and it's all mine, MINE, YOU HEAR ME!? I get to play God, create worlds - master over life and death, love and hate. This, up to the completed first draft, is my creation, my baby. When this first draft is done - I print it, I stick it in a binder and physically put it on the shelf behind me... and that's where it will always remain, untouched. Nothing will ever happen to it.
- Stage Two: This part is everything that follows after you hand in the first draft. This is the stage where the script evolves (hopefully improves) and adapts to all sorts of elements. This is the stage where you deal with people who generally want the same thing you do - to make the best film possible happen. In my mind I completely separate these two stages by starting fresh. I don't send them MY story - that one is on the shelf behind me. I send them a blueprint for something we will develop together. I don't send them my baby, I send them a project. That way my Stage Two becomes far more rational to me - I get to have discussions and arguments about the story - but it's always about the project, never about my heart and soul. It's passionately involved, but not personally hurtful.
Well folks, there you have it. This may seem silly to you. But from where I stand, I'm happy. With seven produced scripts under my belt, I know that films NEVER turn out as you envisioned them during the First Stage. And that's just fine - the films are one thing, the first drafts another. But those first drafts, they still make me happy. They're there, my very own personal stories, always on my shelf, pristine, fresh, raw - never to be changed.
