Curious about output

[Centurio]

Was reading another thread regarding how different writers handle those difficult days when you just can't seem to get anything written. Made me curious about other writers overall pace. How many screenplays a year do you complete?

[SoCalScribe]

Was reading another thread regarding how different writers handle those difficult days when you just can't seem to get anything written. Made me curious about other writers overall pace. How many screenplays a year do you complete?

After several years of being less-than-committed to my writing, my current goal is to write two feature screenplays a year. More if I can, but with a full time job and family commitments, I figure one spec every six months is a reasonable goal. :)

[asjah8]

it's definitely tough. as most here, i work a full-time job to make ends meet.

i would have to say that i consider every minute as output.

i pat myself on the back for the 5 minutes i spent in line thinking about protagonists, the 12 minutes i spent driving and listening to a screenwriting podcast, the 30 minutes i spent writing half a scene before bed; and, the 20 minutes i spent emailing with my writing partner over the coolest current use of this, or that, in film scripts today.

anything over that is gravy. :)

the way i found focus was to start with my environment. i looked for the type of day job that wasn't rocket-science. sure i'm qualified to do better, but here's the truth of it: i don't bring work home with me and i earn just enough that i don't constantly worry about bills. for the most part, it gives me a clear head to focus on where i want to be.

[Ulysses]

Was reading another thread regarding how different writers handle those difficult days when you just can't seem to get anything written. Made me curious about other writers overall pace. How many screenplays a year do you complete?

It's not about the number of screenplays, I'd say.

I also can't really say the number of written pages is important. Six pages a day - what does it help if it's garbage? And with garbage I don't mean failed attempts to write up what you see in front of your mind. I mean six pages of trying to do it right.

Change of POV: any creative work produces a lot of things you cannot use. Either pages you don't like, or no pages at all. But all this is part of the process. How can you know what you exactly want when you start working? So you write, and you know, as it's early in the work, you will throw most of this stuff out.

Or you don't write, which is mainly the fear of writing things that won't make it into the final version, which is fear of failure.

So, if you don't write at all, you just avoid that build-up phase.

There's a movie by Clouzot. It's called "Le Mystere Picasso" (don't crucify me for not finding the French accent on my keyboard). You see Picasso painting a picture. Which means: painting several pictures on top of each other. He doesn't care if he paints over great looking stuff. He just works, I mean, plays. And he's Picasso. And he's so humble in that movie, and Clouzot such a pain in the rear exit.

Reminds me of my anti-Picasso experience: I once painted a sinking ship. The waves looked really good and scary. Which scared the hell out of me I'd destroy that good point by painting a bad sky. Well, the painting never got finished. And the fear to mess up the sky after having done good waves in an early stage is the reason so many writers actually are scared of writing. I always think of Picasso when I get close to this mood. I save an extra copy of how it was, and then I'm going to paint over what I have. And guess what: I almost never need to go back to my extra copy.

Short answer: it's not about quantity. Do one good script in who knows what amount of time, and you trump those who write a script every two months(or so they claim).

Key is writing is a lustful experience. Just like Picasso when he paints. Lustful is, of course, a stretchable term. What do I know about masochists...

[Biohazard]

Writing one page a day gives you three scripts a year (or three drafts). I've done it while working two jobs and still having a life of my own.

Granted, those three scripts sucked, but they were necessary. I learned a ton from their suckage.

[NikeeGoddess]

i consider the time i spend going over the story and scenes in my head before i start writing as writing. i'm usually in the process of rewriting or tweaking an old script while i'm working on a new script and marinating the idea of my next script all at the same time. so my answer is 3.

i write in spurts which is better than insisting that i must write every day. the time i spend here on this board is called procrastination.

[asjah8]

(don't crucify me for not finding the French accent on my keyboard).

hehe... no one will crucify you, trust me. they are hidden functions related to the ALT key rather than a single visual button on the board. :)

here's a quicksheet link that might help:
http://www.sandhills.edu/english/french/accentfrench.html

[asjah8]

the time i spend here on this board is called procrastination.

yep, it's my procrastination too!

actually, basic sociology tells us that given time, people from assorted cultures, backgrounds, economic status, etc., will find themselves drawn to a place where they can speak, relate, and be understood by others. we all speak screenwriting so in a sense we're sociologically programmed to be here. that's my excuse anyway. :)

i imagine myself hanging out on a techno-geek's forum and get a visual image of the tower of babel. (shudder)... what is DOS?

[Jake Schuster]

Picasso also said:

"God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things."

And, as Ulysses points out, "Every act of creation is first an act of destruction."

[maralyn]

I'm an atheist.

So I only put out a finished script every two or so years.

[Fortean]

Made me curious about other writers overall pace. How many screenplays a year do you complete?

As a Fortean, (and a better atheist than Maralyn), I wouldn't measure output in terms of completed screenplays. Any hack with an obsessive itch to proclaim oneself to be a screenwriter could pound out several each year; and, until the screenplay has been transformed into a released film, there's always the opportunity of a rewrite.

In an old screenplay, years old, I might find a way to improve a scene or snippet of dialog; but, wasn't it "completed" long ago, and, now, "more completed"? If one has a pile of unproduced screenplays collecting rejections, is that really "output"?

Output, or a fantastic screenwriting pace? Let's admire Ben Hecht (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Hecht), (another Fortean).

"Hecht became one of Hollywood's most prolific screenwriters, able to write a full screenplay in two to eight weeks. According to Samuel Goldwyn biographer Carol Easton, in 1931, with his writing partner Charles MacArthur, he 'knocked out The Unholy Garden in twelve hours.'" ~ Wikipedia"I am the first disciple of Charles Fort." ~ Ben Hecht, Chicago Daily News (http://www.resologist.net/loei.htm)

[wcmartell]

The great thing about Hecht - there are years where he has 10 screenplays produced! And, even though he may have written some script in 2 weeks - it was great... he was nominated for Best Screenplay Oscar 6 times, and won twice.

I did a USA Network thriller once where they needed a script that could go out to talent and sign stars for less than their quotes... in 2 weeks. They had an air date, and when the counted back from that date to the day of my meeting, I needed to deliver a shootable draft in 2 weeks. I did that, it went out to talent, they signed an Oscar nominated actress for less than her quote. The world of TV & HBO movies has hard deadlines because the airdates are already set before they start making the film. You must write against that deadline and turn in quality work (fast & crappy doesn't work - there isn't the money in the budgets to pay a star what they are actually worth, so you have to have something they want to be in).

Production rewrites are worse - I once had to rewrite the better part of act 3 of one of my HBO things *overnight* so they could begin filming the next morning (a location fell out, and the scene would not work at the new location). On a production rewrite - what you write ends up on screen, no time to fiddle with it later.

The reality is - when you you are being paid to write, it's just like any other job with a deadline. You have to do quality work against the clock.

So, enjoy taking your time with specs... but be prepared for the real world.

Just write, and finish what you write. If you write 3 scripts a year, that's great. If you write 2 scripts a year, that's great. If you write 1 script a year, that's great. As long as you keep on writing.

- Bill (these are the damned facts)

[Gwai Lo]

I haven't been doing this long enough to settle into a consistent pace.

I wrote one 90 page screenplay at the end of 2007, another one in early 2008. They were pretty terrible. They each took a month of two to write, which should have clued me in to the fact that they were terrible. I wrote a 60 page pilot type thing in mid-2008, I am now outlining the fourth goddamn page one rewrite of that. So I've basically written 180 pages worth of that one, heading into 240. I'm halfway through a script I started in April. Technically it's the second draft, since I figured out how the first draft was going to implode before actually finishing it and started over from scratch with a better idea. I've written a couple of shorts. Throughout this time period I've also been developing a handful of projects. Some of them are partially outlined. One of them is my dream project and I've built up a pretty comprehensive treatment for it. I'm maybe 20 pages into the script. It's too weird to be saleable so I put it aside whenever I have more pressing matters. I want to be at peak form when I write it anyway, practice is beneficial with this one.

I also work full time. It's a slog man, it's a slog.

[Ulysses]

It's not all about writing pages.

There's collecting material and outlining the story.

If you start writing too soon, you commit to early to certain key scenes. It's easier to change them in the outlining stage.

What I like about the planning stage is: you step back and immediately see: "Hm, I want more of this, and that one is taking over the story like weed. Has to go." It's harder to do that when you already have scenes. No matter how often you say"Kill your darlings!", you become attached to certain scenes.

The most dangerous, screenplay imploding scenes are the really good ones, that don't serve the story.

[FADE IN]

I'm an atheist.

So I only put out a finished script every two or so years.
Me too, regarding being an atheist.

I allocate a year to write a new project to a final draft, which usually involves four to five iterations including the polish at the end.

I'm a little hard pressed to imagine anyone writing something that's worth in the neighborhood of, say, $300K in less time. And if you do one every coupla years you're still potentially earning $150K a year, which most folks would take in a heartbeat.

Since 2000, I've completed about a dozen, which is faster than one a year but a couple of those came in a rush and were done with more than my usual alacrity.

Enjoy! :D

[ap0110]

I tend to look at page count as a gauge of productivity, too. There's no way to measure quality, but we can, at least, measure quantity.

I go through large swaths of time when I'm working on novels or short stories rather than screenplays, but when I'm 100% focused on scripts, then I tend to write fast. When I get an idea for a short film, I write the script (usually around 10 pages) in a single sitting - around 4 or 5 hours. Then another week or so for rewrites.

The fastest I've ever written a feature is 2 weeks. I basically took 2 solid weeks "off" (told all my clients not to call me) and did nothing but write, from the moment I woke up to about early evening. That script has some gems in it, but unfortunately it's also the script that's most stuck right now. But at least it gave me the confidence that I could hammer it out if I needed to.

That lesson came in handy a year later, when I was on assignment. I spent a couple of months working out the story with the director, including reading books and watching a ton of DVDs (it was an adaptation). Once we had the story hammered out, I spent about 2-3 weeks writing the first draft. I think I did 2 more rewrites over the course of a couple of months. This was in addition to another full-time consulting project. It was a very tough few months - I don't recommend that to anyone.

An acquaintance of mine is a working screenwriter with several hits under his belt. I try not to grill him too much about his work, but one thing I did ask him once was this very question about productivity. He said once he sits down to write the script, he usually finishes the first draft in 2 weeks.

So two weeks seems to be the magic number for me. But keep in mind, that's *after* the story has been thoroughly outlined and is ready to go.

[Ulysses]

The past two days I was working on the story of my next script.

Yes, it feels weird when you have no pages to show.

But that's part of it.

Today's success was to widen the scope of the story. I felt the story didn't have enough material. I felt one of those "story comes to a grinding halt" points.

Gladly I followed up, and the influx of new material and characters makes me feel good for today.

[Script a Wish]

As Woody Allen said, "The hard work is all done before you write the first page."

Or, William Goldman's famous line: "The hardest part of writing is knowing what to write."