I used to love the first draft, but then I used to think that everything I typed was gold. I balked at William Goldman barking "the first draft of everything is shit". Not mine, Bill, I would say back, to whatever book on screenwriting I was reading at the time. There was some hubris involved around this era, the heady times of 2007.
One of my TV pilots is finally about to go out to production companies, some two years after I finished the splurge draft, so for shits and giggles, I had a read of that very first draft. Oh my. The first draft of everything is shit, indeed.
Where is the pacing? Where are the characters? Why is there so much fucking exposition? And why, why oh why oh why, is it so dull? So slow? So shit?
Surely the first draft is where all of the creativity just seeps out onto the page, surely it should be the most vibrant version of the story you're telling. But no. The first draft of everything is shit.
Thank God for rewriting. New main characters added, many others dropped, plots switched, pacing tightened, dialogue rewritten so its resembles wit rather than just people mumbling on trains.
Thankfully, very few people saw this version of the script. Under ten pages of that hour long script remain more or less intact in the draft that's about to go out, and tellingly they're at the end, so I must have found my way with the script as I was writing it.
And now, like the masochist that I am, I'm embarking on not one but two first drafts, one of them co-written for the first time. Knowing now as I do that good old Bill Goldman was once again right, and that the first draft of everything is shit, I approach them both neurotically knowing that this isn't my best writing, and reassured that it can only get better.
Ironically, I hardly ever revise my blog posts. So there's over 200 posts worth of this shit now.
News Post: Shoot Many Robots Item Codes (For 360)
15 hours ago
3 comments:
Nice to find you, Oli.
I'm v.anal about planning and will put together a schedule or a timeline around something I'm going write. And yet I will take a first draft and edit, rewrite, redit, rerewrite, reredit (you get the picture) until the cows come home. And I can't let go. I think about something I wrote two or more years ago and think 'I could have done that better'. I am mad, I think.
Peter wanna give Mr. Oli a clue 'bout whom me is and it are dis: Me fink it are "elemetary".
Clever clue reckons Peter.
Hur hur hur.
Why, Ms. Holmes, I suspected it may be you. You haven't commented on the blog in ages, things must be very busy in the Aztec Pantheon. Now who's doing obscure references? I'm sorry I accidentally implied you were a grumpy troll.
And hello Mr (Ms? The photo's v small, and mostly horse) Brennig. Good to have you on the blog. And you're not mad, as long as you know when to stop and actually say 'this is finished'.
Post a Comment