I received this question via email:
Thanks for you blog- I have found many useful screenwriting goodies on there.However, I spend too much time reading about writing instead of writing. I find writing my screenplay so painful. Its like pulling teeth and I have to force myself to sit at the computer for small chunks at a time. I am easily distracted and would rather do just about anything other than write. It’s like training a disobedient dog. Nonetheless, this is what I want to do and believe I could be good at- is this normal?
I was wondering if you have any advice on how to actually sit down and do it. How to make yourself embrace the pain and block out the distractions. I have read everything that I could possibly read about how to write and now it is just time to write. I think this is the hardest part- harder than coming up with a good ending, snappy dialogue, or lovable characters- because if you put the time in this stuff should come naturally. The ‘just do it’ approach is easier said than done and I was wondering if you might have any other advice?
First off, I suspect most writers, even professionals, confront this issue more often than they would be willing to admit. My normal advice is to follow Oliver Stone’s edict: “Writing equals butt on chair.” Unfortunately with this lil’ thing called the Internet available to us, it’s far too easy to get distracted on the Web while our butt is still on chair.
There are all sorts of tricks and mind games you can try. I read where Neil Simon would give himself a treat – literally a piece of candy or a snack food item – after writing for a set period of time. One of my Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work, which I posted here, is to stop your writing session just before you finish a scene, so that the next day, you start the session knowing you can write the ending — which you already know — and that can jump-start your writing process into the next scene.
But your query sounds much more existential in nature, something I suspect a mind game or trick won’t resolve. So how about this?
Create a central character with whom you fall in love.
Not necessarily romantic love, but that can work, too. The point is if you have at least one character in your story who you want to spend time with – or better yet need to spend time with – perhaps that could entice you back to the writing.
I sit here, thinking of some fascinating movie characters — Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs, C.C. Baxter from The Apartment, Michael Myers from Halloween, Ripley from Alien, John Nash in A Beautiful Mind, interesting characters in interesting story circumstances. Now imagine if you were tasked to write one of those characters. Wouldn’t it be exciting to spend time with them, see where they took the story, what pearls of wisdom they spouted which you could type out as dialogue? Wouldn’t you want to write them?
If you’re someone who is more drawn to plot than character — and I’m not saying you are — perhaps spend more time digging into your characters. In a perfect world, you’ll find more than one who comes alive and grip your imagination. If that happens, doesn’t it feel like they could lure you to your writing desk?
Another suggestion: Go away for a long weekend to some place secluded. No TV, no Internet, no distractions. Just you and your story. Sure, you’ll fritter away the first few hours, but at some point, because you have made the commitment of time and probably money (to pay for lodgings) and there’s nothing to do, you will, I think, inevitably end up writing. And once you get going – at least this has been my experience – you just lose yourself in the process. I’ve gone away and pounded out over 50 pages of a first draft in a 48 hour period.
But I think I prefer my other piece of advice: Create a character (or characters) that fascinates you, makes you want / need to spend time with them. That emotional connection should do the trick.
GITS readers, do you have any other suggestions?
[Originally posted 11/11/09. Some great suggestions in GITS reader comments in that post. Go here to review those reactions]
I just wanted the person who wrote in the question to know that he/she is not alone. I have the exact same problem.
Once I get started, I really enjoy it and I do not want to stop. It is the starting that kills me. I wish I were more disciplined and could just sit down and jump in.
One thing that does help me is to think about what you are going to write. Think about the scene, dialog, everything. You kinda get to a point where you do not want to lose that image, so you HAVE to write it down. It doesn't always work for me, but it helps.
Looking forward to other suggestions. (My ADD just kicked in and I need to go look at something else)
aderol
LOL @ Matisse!
I too am a writer with that problem. I'm easily distracted. But once I get going, I'm good. It's the 0 to 60 part that's tough.
I think a writer has to decide if they're more productive by being disciplined to write a little bit each day or if they're better to set aside a chuck of time (a couple days, a week or a block of evenings) to focus. I tried both ways and I found that I'm better with huge blocks of time. Once I get going, it's hard to stop me until I'm done.
Also, you have to decide if you're the type of person who needs to outline first and write pages second, or if you're the type of person who needs to "poop out the pages" first and figure out the outline second (rearranging the script). For me, it's a combination – but it was gold to figure out my working style. Now I don't stress about it. I just write a rough outline and then put it through a few development passes (with outside feedback) and then sit down to write the pages. If another scene comes to me while I'm writing that's not in the outline, I just write it, but then keep going with the outline. If I have ideas that deviate from the outline, I make notes, but keep going with the outline. Then once I'm done with the first draft, I can see flesh on my skeleton of an idea and it's easier to see if that outline worked or not. Then the real work begins. Rewriting!
Here's a few other tricks I've either heard of or have tried:
1. have a scented candle for each script and when you sit down to write, light the candle and when you're done writing, put out the candle
2. have a style of music that matches the tone of your script, and only play it when you're writing
3. have a special flavour of tea that goes with your script (or another kind of beverage) and make sure you have it ready when you sit down to write
Try, try, try…
Heard this somewhere:
"The hardest thing about writing is cleaning the refrigerator."
So, make a deal with yourself:
Every hour on the hour in your work time that you are not writing–no cheating, REALLY writing–you have to do one of your most-hated tasks, be it cleaning the fridge, organizing the garage, insulating the attic, making that video of your assets for the insurance records, etc., etc. You'll either write or become the greatest-organized, most-together human being on the planet. Everybody wins!
One page at a time. Every time you sit down make sure you have one more page than you did before. Even if you have to inch your way forward, forward is where you're going.
I like to compare writing with running: If you turn up at a race without any training you're not going to get very far.
Try writing a random scene every day – think up something dramatic and exciting and then just bash our two or three pages. Once you get used to this, increase the number of scenes (but keep them random).
It's a lot easier than working on a long-term project (as it doesn't matter so much if it's rubbish) and will hopefully work as a warm-up, so you encounter less resistance when you eventually sit down to work on a more serious attempt.
Give yourself permission to fail.
Fear of failure is — for me, at least — horribly crippling. I just want every line of dialogue, description, plot beat to be so damn perfect that I can paralyze myself.
Case in point, which touches upon Scott's advice to create a character you love: I had been spending about 2 years on a script. It had a fairly complicated plot which I spent many days trying to map out. Well, not exactly. I avoided outlining like the plague, much to my detriment.
I would write scenes that I think were great on their own, but strung along with the 60-70 others I was writing and the whole was a total mess.
I had a massive setup that went from Phoenix to the Mexican border down to the Pacific coast. And still went nowhere.
I didn't have secondary characters, I had tertiary characters. Ones with 7-8 page scenes about God knows what. Some were interesting. None I loved.
I was looking at 135 pages and I hadn't even gotten to Act III yet. And it suddenly hit me that I really hated my main character. He was a douchebag and I had zero sympathy for him. I wanted him dead, buried, ashes scattered to the four winds. I wanted my life back and I wanted this script to just go the fuck away.
But there was a supporting character whom I always loved. Although he came to me a little later in the process. I could hear his voice, feel the pain of him physically stressed, see the creases and patches in his clothing, reminisce with him about his lost youth. I even had an awesome name for him.
So I did what for some is a very hard choice: I let myself fail. Over 2 years work tossed away. Instead, I made my new best friend the focus of my story and immediately — yes, immediately — it clicked.
It still took effort to get started though. After feeling the sting of failure I was naturally hesitant to go down a different path. But my character wouldn't have it. His story needed to be told.
I needed to learn the value of trusting my instincts, and of the screenwriting process. Yep, I did an outline. I vowed not to write a single slugline until I made a very detailed outline. So that's what I did. And hated every fucking minute of it.
But the payoff was when I sat down to write the actual script, working off the outline. After struggling a little bit to find a good opening (and I already have ideas to completely rewrite it), the script seemed to tell itself. The feeling I had spending time with this character and his story was worth the pain of failure.
Hope this helps.