The Rough Draft

Aren’t I prolific this weekend?

I recently had a rewrite assignment and I’d like to go through the whole process with you to give you some idea of how it all works.

My Producers called me up. We have this idea that’s not working on the page, we’re emaling you the script get back to us when youv’ve read it. Well let me tell you. This is a big thing, it means that they trust your skill set, your ability to tell a tale. Another writer has fallen and it’s your job to take his place. It’s another screen credit.

I read the script. I could see there were problems. I called and arranged for a meeting with the producers. They told me all of their original ideas for the script, the characters and what they wanted to happen to them. None of which I might add were in the script sent to me. It should be said at this point, when you’re given a gig and they’re giving you money for said gig, you give them what they want, not what you think they should have. The other writer gave them the script he wanted them to have. I was now on the job to give them what they wanted.

We had three almost fruitless story meetings after that. Three hour long story meetings that left me with writer’s cramp and a clutch of worthless notes, until the last five minutes of the last meeting where the Director blurted out the spine of an idea that I grabbed onto like a drowning man.

I clutched the idea to my chest and took it home. From that one idea, I generated an outline (see previous article on outlines). I sent in the outline and waited. It came back accepted but with one of my major subplots removed and the ending cut.

I restructured the outline and resubmitted, with a different ending. This time it got accepted. We need a pitch treatment, can you give us one? Sure I said. I always say sure, I’d never writen a pitch treatment in my life. Off to the internet and the American Screenwriters Association web page where a sample treatment by Pamela Wallace is there for all to see. Thank you Pamela. I wrote up the treatment and sent it in and… Nothing. For two weeks, nothing. They were just lying in wait to spring the trap.

Steve, we need a script, can you do it in two weeks? Two weeks? Fourteen days? Not a chance, it’s not possible, my brain will melt, my eyeballs will run out of my head from the strain.

Sure, I said, and then got down to work. I actually only had ten days to write the thing. I would be in Vancouver for the Leos prior to the Monday they were leaving for Cannes. So, I wrote, like the hounds of hell were on my ass. Then I got the flu. I lost two days there. Once I was horizontal again, I wrote even harder. I got the sucker done in eight days, and it didn’t read like shit. I’d cracked it, good subtext, solid characters and decent plot. I fired it off to the producers. A great read they said. They didn’t think I could do it either. Let that be a lesson, they want to believe but they don’t believe.

Right now the script is in Cannes. It’s chances for funding look good. I’ll get another screen credit as well as another paycheck. I talked to one of my old teachers back in Vancouver about the experience. He told me it’s the only way you learn. He writes for one of the best shows in Canada, so I’m taking what he said at face value. I’m sending him a sample script next week.

So guys, write fast, write well and the world is your oyster.

I’m Steve Abbott and I’m waiting to sell out.

Somebody once said that great screenwriting is not what was being said but what was not being said. We know it wasn’t David Mammet because there are no four letter words beginning with F in the statement.

The most critical tool available to you as a writer period, is the outline.

Now some of you will whine and moan about how you like to discover a story as you go. You’ll prattle on about how you don’t like to be locked within a framework, yada, yada, yada. To those of you who clutch to those views I say bollocks. The difference between a professional writer and an amature is the outline. It’s your roadmap.

If you had to go to Tampa, Florida and your departure point was Vancouver, BC, you wouldn’t just get in your car and drive off in a south easterly direction, would you? No, you’d get a map and you’d plan your trip. Along the way, you’d pick out interesting places to visit, prior to reaching your destination. Why would you write your story any different?

The beauty of the outline is that it allows you to form your initial idea into the tale you wish to tell and place yor characters where they need to be put, and then you can create huge sweping changes within the story without major rework or rewriting.

It’s much easier to rewrite tne pages of outline than one hundred pages of text. so needless to say, you’ll also become a faster writer, and that is the secret of all success in writing. Write fast, write well.

Before you start outlining your story though, you need to populate the world of the story with interesting characters. Heavy influence on the interesting part. All story stakes should be life or death for the characters involved. Otherwise, who cares? And caring is the most important thing you want the reader to do. They’ve got to care and they’ve got to care big. So you create characters, who are at odds with other characters and with themselves because inner turmoil is the engine of conflict. Do they or don’t they, and why? This may all sound a bit remedial but believe me, I’ve read a ton of bad scripts that fail to even consider this basic rule. They feel that the act of writing makes them saleable just because they wrote it down. Of course that’s a whole other topic for discussion.

You plug these characters into the, “Situation,” and let the fun begin. It takes me on average five weeks to write the outline. Granted, I’ve had a crap load of story meetings in that time but it takes that long to ferment the characters in the story stew. To get them to the point where their real fears begin to surface and I discover what the story is really about, all the ugly chunky stuff that sits just under the surface of their skin. The subtext as it were. The most important part of the story, what they’re not going to say to each other even when it could improve their lot but what lies under the skin, trying to get out.

Plot is the slieght of hand you perform to draw the reader’s eye away while you unfold the real story beneath their nose. Plot is important and it has its place but you play your subtext right and you’ll get levels to your story you never even dreamed of and characters that leap off the page in a world rich with possibilities.

It really was an honour to be nominated. Believe me, I was well aware my chances were slimmer than Calista Flockhart’s waistline. I wrote a horror story. Let’s face it, seldom do they clean up at the Oscars, though I hear Jason X has a shot this year (not).

It has been an amazing weekend, one that makes me feel just a teensy bit of regret at leaving the Wet Coast for the Big Smoke. So, I didn’t win the award but the secret was that I walked in a winner. We sold, “The Terrible Old Man,” on Friday morning to BRAVO and Space channel. A four year national contract. So, when insomnia strikes a 3:21am and you turn on Bravo, chances are my film is going to be on and you’re going to have an even harder time falling back asleep.

I learned an important lesson tonight and it’s one I’m happy to share. None of us feel worthy, we all feel like we’re working some kind of elaborate dodge. Well at least the actors and the writers feel like this, it apparently doesn’t spread to producers, they seem like pretty confident individuals, though that could just be the cocaine kicking in (cheap shot, I couldn’t resist, and besides, the five of you that read this, and you know who you are, won’t be talking out of school anyway). Winning any kind of award (and this one is a biggie) has the ability to wipe short term memory out completely and it also seems to scramble the synaptic inputs so that director you’ve just spent the last five seasons with, becomes, “That guy, whats his name?”

It really was an honour to be nominated. I had agents and producers thrust business card after business card at me tonight. Two TV shows want sample scripts to look at. Hands were shook deals were set in motion. It was a press the flesh extravaganza. For the first time in forever, I almost ran out of business cards. I was especially impressed with the agent who was able to telepathically ask his partner to give me a card while that agent was deep in conversation with somebody else beside me.

It’s been a great weekend, it could even be called a spectacular weekend. Monday I fly bacl to Toronto and start a new script. This one’s going to LA, my agent says so.

I’m Steve Abbott and I’m Waiting to Sell Out.