Gillian Fritzsche

A little while ago, screenwriter Scott Myers, who runs the blog Go Into The Story, reposted a reader question about how to actually go about writing once you’re sitting in the chair staring at a black page.  He asked for his readers to post helpful hints in the comments section.

This was my answer:

I think a writer has to decide if they’re more productive by being disciplined to write a little bit each day or if they’re better to set aside a chunk of time (a couple days, a week or a block of evenings) to focus. I tried both ways and I found that I’m better with huge blocks of time. Once I get going, it’s hard to stop me until I’m done.

Also, you have to decide if you’re the type of person who needs to outline first and write pages second, or if you’re the type of person who needs to “poop out the pages” first and figure out the outline second (rearranging the script). For me, it’s a combination – but it was gold to me to figure out my working style.

Now I don’t stress about it. I just write a rough outline, put it through a few development passes (with outside feedback), and then sit down to write the pages. If another scene comes to me while I’m writing that’s not in the outline, I just write it, but then I keep going with the outline. If I have ideas that deviate from the outline, I make notes, but keep going with the outline. Then once I’m done with the first draft, and I can see flesh on my skeleton of an idea, it’s easier to see if that outline worked or not. Then the real work begins…

Rewriting!

What do you think?  What are your tricks?

When I was in the Act One Executive Program, they offered a class on How to Give Notes to Writers! I thought it was a great class. And when I went through the Writing Program, one year later, I tried to give notes like I’d been taught in that Exec Program class. I also tried to receive notes through the filter of what I’d learned in that class. So not only was it helpful for me as a producer, it became helpful for me as a writer!

I just got my CS Weekly email and this was one of the quotes at the top:

“Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.”
- Neil Gaiman

This is good advice for both writers and executives.

As a writer, I need to hear about what’s not working.  However, an executive’s assumption about why it’s not working affects his or her perspective about how it should be fixed!  Often, only the writer knows why something’s not working.  Or, integrity demands of the executive that he or she let the writer figure out why it’s not working.  Often the fix isn’t in the scene that isn’t working.  Often it’s several pages or scenes back!

So if you’re a writer getting notes, ignore the fixes and try to hear the underlying truth – something’s not working.  Figure out what that is, and then figure out how to fix it.

If you’re an executive giving notes, don’t try to do the writer’s job!  Just let him or her know that you’re confused on page 7, page 36 doesn’t ring true, and the climax on page 89 falls flat.  Often, the writer will already know why it’s falling flat and will already have three ideas for how to fix it.  He or she just needed to know whether or not what they wrote worked!