The Fearless Screenwriter

The time has come to talk about Fearlessness. Something every successful screenwriter processes.

Fearless. About working with people. Fearless. About their own work.

Let’s tackle the second one first. Fearless about your own work. If you don’t believe in it, no one will. But don’t mistake fearlessness with ego. There’s a difference in believing in what you do and unrealistically looking at your work. As a new writer (or as an experienced writer for that matter), you have to be able to listen to your own honest opinions or others opinions of your work without letting your emotions and ego get the better of you. To look at your work dispassionately and see it for what it is, even if it’s bad. Especially if it’s bad. To learn that other people’s notes, even the ones you have no use for at first glance, can a lot of times make your script better. Or... can cause you to fearlessly throw it out and start again if you need to.

Just happened to me. I’ve spent the best part of the last four weeks working on a pilot script for a dark comedy series. I finished it a couple of days ago. Today I deleted it, completely. Not going to make some people happy, but instead of handing in something I know isn’t near good enough in my opinion, I’m going to regroup immediately and tackle it again, fearlessly. I know I can conquer this. It’s in my wheelhouse. Dark. Funny. Twisted.

Part of being fearless as a writer is being able to look at your own work and toss all or parts of it if you have to. You know if it’s not good or not. It’s being honest with yourself that’s the hard part. To throw out the bathwater, baby and all. Sometimes it’s the first ten pages. Sometimes it’s a whole act. Sometimes it’s the ending. And sometimes it’s the whole damn thing. Like today.

Don’t be afraid to be completely honest with your own work. Save you a lot of grief in the future.

Now to being fearless working in the industry.

Screenwriting is a scary enterprise. You already know it’s not easy. Getting a film or TV show made from your original scripts is a damn miracle. The odds of being consistently successful are impossibly long. And screenwriters are subjected daily to ego crushing events. They get bounced off their own projects and replaced by writers who don’t care how much time and personal creativity you devoted to it. Producers and Directors change your work so much that sometimes you don’t even recognize it as yours. Screenwriters are left out of most of the crucial decisions about a project. Sometimes you can write something, sell it, and end up with zero screen credit for it. Did I leave anything out? Oh yeah, a lot, but I’m not here to depress you. I’m just showing you there are a lot of things to fear in trying to do this.

You should know that the three things Producers and Directors HATE from writers are fear and desperation and unwarranted ego.

They look at screenwriters with an agenda. And this only happens if they LIKE what you do. Can I work with this person?  Do they process the ability to understand what we want and give it to us creatively? Are they ready to do some heavy lifting without complaint? Do they understand the filmmaking process and can they live with it? And the list goes on....

Meetings with Producers can easily become scary places if you let them. The fearless will go in knowing they belong, with their ears and eyes open and speaking when they have something substantive to add, not just to hear their voice. The fearless aren’t intractable and defensive. The fearless aren’t afraid of other people’s ideas and opinions. The fearless welcome the opportunity to co-operate. The fearless stay in the room longer. A lot longer.

I wish screenwriting were as easy as writing a first draft, selling it, and watching the film as you wrote it. I wish I didn’t run into writers who believe it is or should be. Writers full of ego and emotion who can’t believe it’s so hard. Writers who are angry and desperate at the same time because the industry doesn’t recognize their particular genius. Writers who are truly amazed that they can’t just waltz in and get everything they want. Writers who are the reason producers ask their secretaries to interrupt the meeting after 10 minutes with a fake call so they can flee if they have to.

Fearlessness isn’t entitlement. It’s the attitude of the professional.