3 things that make a screenwriter - and 3 things that break one

Will you become a screenwriter?

At the end of the day, that’s the honest question.

First off, let’s get the deets out of the way: you will probably never become a famous screenwriter, and you will probably struggle to sell a seven-figure script. That’s just statistics - no hard feelings.

That’s not what this question is about.

Will you become a screenwriter: will you trade your soul for sitting in front of Final Draft, writing 2 words an hour, then slamming your laptop, then getting a coffee, then pacing around the room for that perfect twist, then lurching back to your work in a frantic attempt to write down your next brilliant idea - and more importantly, will you be able to do this for days, for months, for years, for hundreds of scripts?

I must preface this list by saying I’m still not sure which side of the fence I fall on. I’ve definitely written a lot of scripts, and that mass definitely had its flaws. I sat in front of my own plan today, and I could not write a word - not even the 2 words an hour I so haughtily wrote about earlier. It made me afraid, and it made me curious.

What makes someone write - and what makes one stop writing?

I hope to answer that question for myself and anyone that is wondering. So, in the best Buzzfeed tradition, let’s think through 3 things that make a scriptwriter - and 3 things that break one - together.

Make 1: watching movies

I know, I know. To be a screenwriter, you have to watch movies. Shocker.

Still, you’d be surprised how many people that want to be screenwriters don’t actually watch a lot of films. I say this somewhat vulnerably as someone who regularly stops watching for months - and has to make a conscious effort to pull myself out and watch something for Pete’s sake. (Shoutout to my sister, an insane movie nerd, who drags me into movie theaters and puts on films I want to watch. Her mind terrifies me and I could never be her. Thanks Nastya.)

There is another group: people that restrict themselves completely arbitrarily. “I won’t watch it if it was made after 1990”, “I won’t watch it if it’s black and white”, “I won’t watch it if it’s under 60% on Rotten Tomatoes”.

You need to consume fast food to be a chef. You need to know Picasso to be a painter. Sometimes, you need to see animal guts daily if you want to be a vet.

Sometimes, you just aren’t a movie aficionado. That’s okay too. After all, there are a scary number of movie classics I haven’t watched, and I will one day catch up with that list.

But if film, by choice or by need, is something you must get into, you need to watch film.

How do I get there?

• Start with the classics. Don’t fall into my trap and watch the oldies that everyone talks about. If you don’t see why they’re iconic, at least you form your own opinion;

• Fall in love with its versatility. Citizen Kane, The Room and Avatar are all movies. Good or bad, funny or scary, pretty or real - they’re all films. Isn’t that cool?

• Don’t be ashamed to be kind to yourself. Maybe, as you watch on, you will discover that this is not for you. And that’s okay!

Break 1: not seeing your movie and story

Not in some beautiful poetic sense. Can you actually see what you’re writing about? That’s often the deciding call.

For the longest time, I was convinced I had aphantasia. After all, the apple test landed me between a 4 and a 5 on a good day, and I still cannot picture anything actually moving in my mind’s eye. With training (Reddit helps *shudder*), I was able to inch that to a 3-4 rating, and I’m glad I did.

This doesn’t matter too much when you write fiction books, but screenplays are strictly visual. There’s no way around it. (Sorry, first person POVs, you’ll stay confined to novels.)

Simply put, if you can’t see it and you can’t hear it - it has no room in a script and will only serve to waste the real estate of your work. You have 120 minutes max to make your point, and while you might cherish what your characters are thinking or feeling, if your client, director or industry worker can’t put it on a screen, it’s a lost cause.

As you can imagine, not knowing exactly how each moment looks in a scene, how the audience sees the woes of your characters, and what the audience is perceiving, not just seeing, hurts your point pretty badly.

How do I fix this?

• Write a whole script without any dialogue. Words are a crutch for your inner voice - so tell it to shut up and pass the mic to your mind’s eye.

• Watch movies intentionally. Observe, take visual notes, shamelessly steal tricks from the gurus. Ask yourself - why did this old white man point the camera that way?

• Daydream. Put your laptop down and let your 15-year-old self dream. My hot take: this is a valid and necessary part of writing, especially of a script.

Make 2: falling deeply in love with your story

A “good" story is subjective. You may doubt your screenplay is any good, but for someone else, it can be their saving grace that pulls them out of misery. I loved Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (before JKR became who she is now, just saying); to others, it was a bunch of nonsense, and they made sure to tell me about it.

Often, the key to being a good (screen)writer is simply that - being able to love your script, your story and your characters.

This ‘make’ is the bread and butter of how we writers live.

Your passion relies on being deeply infatuated with every crevice of your screenplay, understanding exactly what place in your heart your story occupies, and why it draws you to wake up, pick up a laptop and keep on writing. That passion is contagious - and is often the immediate hook to make what you do truly a good work.

If your heart is not on fire for the story that you’re trying to tell, if you don’t want to shout your key message from the rooftops, if you aren’t just slightly crazy about your blorbos and your plot beats - then sorry to say, your well will be dry very soon.

We writers are fundamentally lovers. In a very messed up way, we love our own minds.

How do I get there?

• Indulge yourself. Pick a storyline that has happened to you, a character that represents a dear friend, or a lore detail that represents something only you know.

• Praise yourself very casually. The little thumbs-ups you give yourself along the way boost your confidence by a lot. Wrote a nice page or two? Tell yourself ‘good job’!

• Don’t hesitate to kill your darlings. It’s different if screenwriting is your income, but if you have the luxury of writing for yourself, don’t start if you don’t believe in an idea.

Break 2: being too smart

To all the people who think they are extremely smart and cool and sexy and fabulous - chapeau, but you, too, can suck sometimes, actually.

The average audience member is tired and doesn’t want to think. That’s not cynical commentary on the state of the world, that’s the reality of the bodies we live in. Most people don’t actually want to think even more when their brain is already being too loud. That’s how we got TikTok to take off.

Your story must be simple, and that is an essential need.

Now, what about the arthouse and the indie and the conceptual? Yes, it still pays to be simple, sharp and direct about the premise, or people will yawn themselves out of the theatre. (And notice how so many people do avoid the above for this very reason.)

In Save the Cat, Blake Snyder posits that if you can’t summarize your idea in 1 sentence, studios won’t give it the time of day. Blake Snyder’s concern with money above all is a thought for another day, but in this instance, I agree: your story must resonate with everyone, be full of raw, understandable feelings, and deliver on them in a punchy way.

Often, the smartasses of the world don’t have the heart to do this.

How do I fix this?

• Run a simple checklist. Is your idea clearly understood by everyone? Do you know why they feel that way? Do you see them staying for the whole 90-120 minutes?

• Summarize the movies that became icons in 10 words max. Ordinary farmboy rebels and stomps a dictator. Yep, I can see why millennial teenagers loved Star Wars;

• Feel your own feelings, deeply. You’d be surprised how much more profound and relatable your stories get once you stop intellectualizing and cry for yourself.

Make 3: locking in

Screenwriting is a lot less fun than people think. A lot of your time is spent forcing yourself to write just a little bit. Yes, without a podcast to muddle your brain with words. Yes, without a YouTube short to rot your brain further. Yes, without a girl treat to keep you going (okay, maybe that one’s alright sometimes).

At the end of the day, all you can do is write - and that’s actually pretty frustrating.

Sometimes, you will fail to even open that damn project file. Sometimes, the world will seem like it’s out to get you and your creation. Sometimes, your dopamine rush wears off and you just don’t see the point anymore.

And yet, you must keep writing.

Your idea is probably awesome, but nobody is going to read it until it’s done, and chasing the next sparkling butterfly is what kills your work the fastest. Screenwriting is often seen as this passionate, driven, inspired hobby. Most of the time, it’s plain boring discipline.

Being comfortable with being lazy, stupid or depressed - and writing anyway. That’s often what makes or breaks a script.

If this process isn’t done, who’s going to care about your great concept of an idea?

How do I get there?

• Remember your key message. If you don’t burn to tell the world something, you’ll run out of gas. What made you write this in the first place? Hold on to that;

• Use a calendar! Scripts, fundamentally, are a boring numbers game. X pages by Y date - that’s the formula, and it’s much more trusty than chasing a vibe;

• Rest, a lot, and don’t be a dick to yourself about it, but write at least something every single damn day. Sometimes, all it will be is 1 line, and that’s ok.

Break 3: going by the vibes

You are in love and you know how to write - great! Perhaps you can even attract your audience’s attention, impart some knowledge upon them, or inspire them.

Turns out, once your big writer pants are on, you might discover you don’t know how to write.

For my part, I was convinced for quite some time that I understood how storytelling works. After all, I could finish a story, and people liked it. When I started writing for others, though, I quickly realized there is much more for me to learn than what I could do without deep study. What do you tell the person you’re writing for when they come back with “the pace just feels kind of off”? When they “just hate how this guy sounds”? When “idk, I don’t really feel the narrative” is your only feedback piece?

You try to learn. A lot.

There are a lot of ways to do so. Story structures (Hero’s Journey, Save the Cat, the story circle, etc.), numerous books on (screen)writing (Syd Field’s ”Screenplay”, Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero with A Thousand Faces”, Stephen King’s “On Writing”), countless podcasts (not really a podcast kind of gal, but someone out there must be) - a lot of variety exists for you, and it’s a mandatory step to writing quality and knowing how you did it.

How do I fix it?

• Research what you would like to do, then dive deeply into that genre, that trope, that audience. Research what the best in the field use, then pick up that theory;

• Consume a lot of media. Movies are a must, we already established that, but even reading, playing video games or listening to music exposes you to stories;

• Be humble. You’re not too good to study. You’re not too advanced for the basics. You aren’t a prodigy that can succeed without understanding how you did all that.

Well, that’s the list.

If anyone ever finishes this all the way through, I’m in your corner. Every writer worth their chops must go through a crisis sometimes, and if that’s where you are at, consider this a badge of honor and a ‘you made it’ moment.

Will we become screenwriters? Dude, I don’t know. But I’m here for the ride, and until my engine dies, I will continue the drive.

Now, if you’ve made it this far, can you maybe message me? I’m stuck writing a scene about washing blood from white hair.

Written by Anna Galtsova, a dedicated Writing Committee member!

You can find Anna on Instagram: @gal.tsova

A Sinful Cast Interview: WILDe's Next Murder Mystery

Written by Anna Galtsova, a dedicated Writing Committee member!

You can find Anna on Instagram: @gal.tsova