Yes, you read that correctly — time to fail and write bad screenplays. The road to excellence is paved with rejection, failure, criticism, and poorly written screenplays. You can only grow by moving through this period. Screenwriters need time to get those early messy screenplays out of their system and move on to the business of writing well. Avoid becoming a defensive writer who bristles at every note or criticism. Do not be combative, but be collaborative and open to opinions. Listen to the constructive feedback and eventually you will know the changes to make and the ones to ignore. If you continue to learn and master your craft, you will always be at the top of your game and ready for any opportunity that comes your way.
Regarding failure, embrace it because you can’t escape failure on your screenwriting journey. Any failure becomes a test to see if you really have what it takes to weather the long slog of establishing a career. If you can look at the bigger picture of your career goals, you will use the failures as learning experiences and not become defensive or lay blame elsewhere. Failure and success become the Yin and Yang of any artistic journey. We can only cherish the highs of our success because we have tasted the bitter sting of our failures.
If you listen to any successful artist’s story, they will discuss the many failures and perhaps years of failure to achieve the success you find them enjoying today. Stare failure down and do not be afraid of it. When it does come, and it will, prepare for the blows and start the process all over again. You will come back stronger and be more effective with your next script.
Failure loves to scare off screenwriters by knocking them down, but it hates those who get up before a “ten count” and start screenwriting again. As we know, the overnight success can be ten years in the making. It’s rare for any screenwriters to sell their first script. Often you read the industry trades with stories of first-time screenwriters selling their first spec, but you never find out the full behind the scenes story — and there is always more to it than just a lucky break. Usually, other factors can be involved that facilitated the sale and not mentioned to make the story appear more sensational. It’s a simple publicity tactic. Many times, the writers toiled around for years and finally sold their “first” spec. Similarly, in my case, it wasn’t until six years after film school graduation that my screenwriting career finally took off with my fifth spec “I’ll Remember April” that was my “first spec sale.”
Your dreams keep you going, but make sure they’re realistic dreams in a competitive marketplace filled with tens of thousands of projects being created every year. Do not worry about the odds or the competition but focus instead on what is within your control — becoming a better screenwriter. As you find your unique voice, also learn your strengths and weaknesses. Be confident about what you know, but always remain humble about what you don’t know because it can hurt you.
Screenwriting experience takes an incredible amount of work, time, and sacrifice. I recently calculated the volume of material that I’ve written over the years — from my forty-two feature scripts to my twenty-four assignment jobs, nine TV pilots, and script rewrite work, and it’s easily over 15,000 pages of writing for TV and feature films. When I was just starting out, if someone told me the mountain of writing that would be necessary to achieve any success, I might have been too overwhelmed to even attempt a career as a screenwriter.
As I have mentioned before, you must learn patience on your journey and look at the bigger picture of your career. I find many aspiring writers too anxious to find an agent to sell their first script for a million dollars. They appear more interested in overnight fame and fortune than becoming an excellent working screenwriter who makes a living from the craft. They do not appear to respect the incredibly long slog that lies ahead on their journey. When you relax and visualize the long road ahead of you, it puts your career dreams in perspective and humbles you. There will be busy periods and dry periods, so never take anything on this journey for granted.
As a screenwriter, maybe structure comes easy for you, but you need to work more on your dialogue and character development. Maybe you can easily come up with ideas, but they might not be solid enough stories to write into a movie. Maybe the mastery of writing does remain elusive no matter how long we practice the craft. Do you have a newfound respect for the work now? If not, Hollywood will humble you the longer you pursue a career.
I believe a mysterious synchronicity exists that knows when a writer becomes ready for success and delivers opportunities at the right time. When you go out with a screenplay, you need to be ready by having a solid body of work to back it up. Your journey will surely involve your own Mount Everest to climb as you continue to create new projects. When you reach the top, you will fight to stay there for as long as you can, but no one stays there forever.
Aspiring screenwriters should always strive to become great screenwriters first. Without a solid foundation of the craft, you will just be wasting time and wonder why your career keeps hitting a wall. Carve out the time to nurture your craft, find your unique voice, screenwriting style, and genre that you love to write. You need to fire on all cylinders with every script that you create. If you desire to work as a professional in Hollywood, every aspect of your script must be at the highest levels of quality. If your screenplay becomes produced, other people’s money will be on the line, so treat your projects like precious treasures to be respected, savored, valued, protected, and cultivated over time.
If you have only written one draft of a screenplay, please know that you have a tremendous amount of work ahead of you — years of work and possibly a decade of slogging it out in the trenches until you become capable of working at the level necessary to score assignment jobs and work professionally. Early on during your climb to success, do not be afraid of failure, rejection, or your first poorly written screenplays. You will need to work through this period so you can move on to the place of writing well. The most important part of your early journey will be surviving this process and learning from your failures and successes. The great F. Scott Fitzgerald said it best, “Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.” Only when you learn and grow from your experiences can you become the screenwriter you were meant to be.
Keep the faith and keep filling your blank pages.
Scriptcat out!
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It’s a long haul journey to reach any level of screenwriting success. If your passion drives you to embark on this crazy adventure of a screenwriting career, you’ll need to prepare for survival in Hollywood’s trenches. Talent is important, but so is your professionalism and ability to endure criticism, rejection, and failure over the long haul. The odds may be stacked against you, but the way to standout in this very competitive business is to create a solid body of work and build a reputation as a team player and collaborator. The rest is just luck — a prepared screenwriter who meets with an opportunity and delivers the goods. “A Screenwriter’s Journey to Success” (2024 updated edition) will help you prepare for your own journey with the necessary, tips, tricks and tactics that I’ve developed over the past twenty years of working in the film industry. It’s time to start living your dream as a screenwriter in Hollywood.
Enjoy some quotes for today… taken from my blog page QUOTE OF THE DAY…
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“This is, if not a lifetime process, it’s awfully close to it. The writer broadens, becomes deeper, becomes more observant, becomes more tempered, becomes much wiser over a period time passing. It is not something that is injected into him by a needle. It is not something that comes on a wave of flashing, explosive light one night and say, ‘Huzzah! Eureka! I’ve got it!’ and then proceeds to write the great American novel in eleven days. It doesn’t work that way. It’s a long, tedious, tough, frustrating process, but never, ever be put aside by the fact that it’s hard.”—Rod Serling
Starting tonight, every night in your life before you go to sleep, read at least one poem by anyone you choose. Poetry and motion pictures are twins.”—Ray Bradbury
“You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or rather you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love. If it is all the same to you I would rather not expound on that.”—Ernest Hemingway
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.” — Joseph Campbell
“There are two kinds of scenes: Pet the Dog Scene & Kick the Dog scene. The studio always wants a “Pet the Dog” scene so everybody can tell who the hero is.”—Paddy Chaydfsky
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