What is the best advice for a new screenwriter?
Finish your script. Whatever you do, finish a draft. It is easier to dive back in if you have a completed pass and future rewrites tend to be more constructive. Dont give up. How do I know when my screenplay is ready to submit to StudioNotes? If you can answer “yes” to all the following, then you are ready to submit: • Is your screenplay between 95-140 pages? • Do you have some internal questions? • Are you ready to have other people read it? • Are you ready for constructive feedback? Do I need a screenplay formatter? To submit to StudioNotes, it’s a good idea at least to make sure that your screenplay is neat and has fairly consistent pagination and margins; a screenplay formatter may not be necessary for that purpose. When you’re ready actually to submit to studios and agencies, however, your script must adhere to all the standard screenplay formatting rules; and for that purpose, a screenplay formatter is ideal. (We strongly discourage writers from paying for needlessly high-priced
The Professional Way to Screenwriting Success
Once you finish writing a screenplay and begin marketing it, begin writing a new screenplay. This approach to screenwriting will help insure you against not wanting to leave your "baby". Your "baby" is the last screenplay you wrote. You have given birth to characters and a story that is now recorded on paper. Leaving a project into which you have put your heart and mind is not easy to do. You’ve invested yourself in a period of time with a number of "people" and the story they are living through your screenplay. To put this behind yourself, is difficult.
Screenwriting is Rewriting
Screenwriting is rewriting. Once you have "finished" writing your screenplay, it will require numerous rewrites by you all the way through production should you get the contract to rewrite the script all the way through to the end of making the film. So, while you’re marketing this particular screenplay, tweak when something comes to mind, but for the most part, work on your new screenplay.
Writer’s Block is Your Way of Refusing to Work
As you begin work on your new screenplay, ideas will surface for yet, another screenplay. Make notes on it, but always turn yourself back to the screenplay on which you’re working. Your mind will want you to fall back to your last "baby". Your mind will take you to places where you don’t want to go. Always bring yourself back to the present screenplay on which you’re working. Clean your desk. Vacuum the house. Take the dog for a walk. Go to the store for some milk. Rake the yard. Clean the garage. Wax the car. There are a million things that you would rather do than work on your new screenplay. Work on it anyway. A professional screenwriter keeps regular hours that fit her/his schedule. They write a certain amount of screenplay pages each day. In the end, they present a screenplay that will stand a great chance of being produced. Then, they begin working on their next screenplay.
Summary
The fine point of the best advice for the screenwriter is to define the word, "best". Best means different things to different people. That’s the way it works. That’s the way human beings are. Each of us are unique, and that separates us from becoming robots. Any advice, however good or bad, usually results in acceptance or rejection of the advice. Give yourself some advice you can accept. You’re human. You procrastinate. You fiddle around. The professional screenwriters do those things as well, but then, when it is that time in the day when it is time to go to work on their screenplay. So, that is what they do. You should develop a paralleling attitude as well. If you are willing to put in the work, the possibility of becoming a successful screenwriter increases.
