Screenwriters need time to fail and write bad screenplays…

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!

Follow me on X: @scriptcat

Did you just complete your latest screenplay or finish a new draft? Is it time for in-depth consultation? Check out my services by clicking this LINK to visit my website.

Need help navigating Hollywood’s trenches as you pursue your screenwriting career? Consider my book available on Amazon with 56 FIVE STAR reviews! (click on book cover for link to purchase)

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…

Subscribe to my screenwriting YouTube channel for 80 videos about the journey with tips, tricks, and tactics. Click on the photo below for the link.

“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

A few simple choices within your control to help your screenwriting journey…

As you pursue a career as a professional screenwriter in Hollywood, you will discover the harsh reality that many aspects of a career are out of your control. You cannot control if an agent or manager will like your material enough to sign you as a client. You cannot control if your screenplay will sell and even if it does there is no guarantee of production as it might die in development hell or never get financed. Even if you are blessed enough to have a film produced, you cannot control its success or failure at the box office or its ratings on TV. Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, a better use of your energy is focusing on what is what you can do — respect the craft by doing the necessary work on this long haul journey.

One important decision within your control is spending the necessary money it takes to further your career. I find too many new writers become reluctant to pay for software, books, workshops, webinars, seminars, script consultants, or anything else that costs money to learn their craft. They figure they can just wing it by doing it. How important is your career to you? If it’s not important enough to spend money on learning your craft, you shouldn’t waste your time trying to be a screenwriter. You will find no short cuts to forging a career and your attitude about the craft and what goes into a career matters. Any creative pursuit will cost money and time, so you need to spend both for any shot at success.

It’s obvious and goes without saying but another discipline within your control — writing! Yes, I have encountered too many writers who love to talk about their projects but somehow they never end up finishing anything. You need a solid body of material to compete in Hollywood’s crowded and competitive marketplace. That means doing the necessary work to grow as a screenwriter. I always say, write your bad scripts early on to get them out of the way as you move into writing your best work at the top of your game. The volume of material needed in your arsenal includes loglines, outlines, treatments, pitches, and completed screenplays. It takes time to create a solid body of material and it does not happen overnight or with your first draft. It happens over time as you learn and grow as a screenwriter. Be patient. We all travel on a long- haul journey to reach any level of success.

Okay, you’ve finished your script and you are ready to unleash it upon Hollywood. Congratulations. Hopefully you have read it several times, made your own changes, even took notes from other writers you trust or a consultant, and maybe even done a handful of rewrites. You’re feeling confident and ready for professionals to read your genius screenplay. So, like 50,000 other writers do every year, it’s time to register your script or outline with the Writers Guild of America for protection. It’s a standard for the creation date of your work.

I also find many new screenwriters become paranoid that someone will steal their precious script. One way to feel safer about protection is to register or copyright your project before you send it out to be considered. Outright theft is rare and it’s also stupid because no company would want to raise money and go through production only to have a lawsuit against them for theft. Has it happened? Sure, a handful of writers have horror stories of it happening, but it’s rare. Out of the thousands of projects floating around every year in Hollywood, chances are high that many of them will have similar stories because thousands of films and television shows have been produced before you ever started writing. Many stories will be similar because of the volume of material that has already been produced. What really matters is the specific execution of these similar stories.

So, if you want to be proactive, register your script with the Writers Guild of America before any submission to agents, managers, or producers, to document your authorship on a given date should there be unauthorized usage. The WGA charges $20 for non-members, $10 for guild members, and it’s registered for five years. You can only register a script online at the WGA’s website. It establishes a “date of creation” for your work. The WGA website does mention that if the storyline has been affected or changed extensively, it becomes new material and should be registered or documented again in some manner. You may also want to copyright your screenplay for more protection with the Library of Congress if you desire to establish ownership. It will help if you ever need to file an infringement lawsuit regarding your screenplay. The fee runs about $45 and it can take up to 2-3 months on average to receive the copyright document back, but the copyright is established the moment you pay. Also know that if you ever sell that screenplay you will sign over the copyright to the company, producer, or studio and it becomes a work for hire. I am not a lawyer, so contact one for more legal advice about copyrighting your screenplay.

Now that you’re protected, you don’t want to ruin your chances and have your hard work end up in the dustbin of broken dreams do you? Of course not, so follow this important tip within your control: Never write your WGA registration number on the title page of your script. Ever. I know you will be tempted, but please don’t because it screams that you’re an amateur and shows you’re afraid someone is out to steal your precious script. It’s like if you built a new house and wanted to sell it but then posted signs around the yard that read: “No Trespassing—We Shoot Burglars.” Even when you don’t list your WGA script registration number, it’s pretty much assumed industry-wide that your script is either registered with the WGA, or with the copyright office because professionals take care of their business. Even if you are not yet a working professional — act like one.

Another technique within your control is keeping track of your script submissions. When you send out your script without an agent or manager, it’s important to keep a submission log of where it’s being read and who reads it. Also, keep track of the companies where you pitch and the name of the person you’re meeting. List the production company’s information, the contact person, and when they received the script or listened to your pitch. After you follow-up, indicate if they “passed” on the script, or if they wanted to schedule a meeting. A detailed submission log helps protect you if any problems arise in the future regarding ownership of your screenplay if you find out that a company you pitched to suddenly has produced your idea. If an agent or manager wants to sign you or take out your script, your log will be an invaluable source of information for them to see where your project went before they came on board. They do not want to submit to places that already passed on your material.

Never forget, another area where you have control is your attitude about the criticism, rejection, and failure you will encounter along the way. Do critical notes destroy your feeling about your ability as a screenwriter? Does any rejection make you feel like you are a complete failure? If you take opinions personally and allow your ego to get in the way, you will not survive long in Hollywood. We all encounter the emotional roller coaster ride no matter how long we have been screenwriting. The process and journey can be filled with emotional highs and lows and you need to find a place in the middle to survive over the long haul. Do not become crushed if your script does not sell, and if it does, do not boast and buy the new house until the check clears. Keep your mental health in check on your journey.

Much of the time screenwriters feel that so much can be out of their control, but if you pause and take stock, you will find simple techniques within your control that will help maintain your positive outlook and sanity. Make them standard practice to help you stand out as a screenwriter who deserves the respect of having your script considered by top professionals.

Keep the faith and keep filling your blank pages on your road to success.

Scriptcat out!

Copyright © 2024 by Mark Sanderson on his blog MY BLANK PAGE. All rights reserved.

Did you just complete your latest magnum opus? Time for in-depth screenplay consultation? Check out my services by clicking on the icon below for the link to my website and more information. You never get a second change to make a first great impression with your script. Make the time to get it right.

55 FIVE STAR REVIEWS ON AMAZON!

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” 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.

Also subscribe to my YOUTUBE CHANNEL with 77 screenwriting video tips for the journey. Click on the photo below.

“Seeking support from friends and family is like having your people gathered around at your deathbed.  It’s nice, but when the ship sails, all they can do is stand on the dock waving goodbye.  Any support we get from persons of flesh and blood is like Monopoly money; it’s not legal tender in that sphere where we have to do our work.  In fact, the more energy we spend stoking up on support from colleagues and loved ones, the weaker we become and the less capable of handling our business.” —Steven Pressfield, “The War of Art”

“Hollywood is Hollywood. There’s nothing you can say about it that isn’t true, good or bad. And if you get into it, you have no right to be bitter—you’re the one who sat down, and joined the game.” —Orson Welles

“Don’t think of it as art, think of it as work.”—Paddy Chayefsky

Hemingway said it best, “I still believe, though, that it is very bad for a writer to talk about how he writes. He writes to be read by the eye and no explanations or dissertations should be necessary. You can be sure that there is much more there than will be read at any first reading and having made this it is not the writer’s province to explain it or to run guided tours through the more difficult country of his work.“