Okay, so you’ve just typed FADE OUT of the first draft of your latest screenplay. What’s the first thing you do?
Celebrate and get drunk? No, that’s the second thing you do.
The first thing you do is print out a copy of your script, stick it in a drawer, and don’t read it for two full weeks.
That’s right. Do not read it. For. Two. Full. Weeks.
“Why,” you may ask.
Because you have this thing known as a “rewrite” coming up. And one asset you will absolutely need for that process is a fresh set of eyes.
More than likely, at the moment you typed FADE OUT, your estimation of your first draft would put it (quality-wise) somewhere between Gone With the Wind and Juno. If you use that set of eyes to make judgments during your rewrite, you won’t improve your script much.
But if you give yourself two weeks off, 14 entire days without so much as peeking at your script, on day 15 when you finally do pull the script out of its drawer and read it, you will be amazed at what you find – lots of problems.
And that’s the point: The only way you can improve your script in the rewrite process is to identify and solve its problems. And you can’t solve the problems if you can’t ‘see’ them in the first place. And you can’t see them if you don’t have a fresh set of eyes.
By taking two weeks away from your script, you play a little trick on your brain, providing some distance between it and the script, resulting in a fresh set of eyes in order to honestly judge the material you’ve written.
Once again, here’s the trick:
* Type FADE OUT
* Print script
* Stash in drawer
* Set timer for 2 weeks
* On Day 15, pull script out of hiding, read, and begin your rewrite process
This has been another installment of Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work.
[Originally posted December 2, 2008]
This is great advice. What I like to do while my script is marinating in the drawer is to start working on the story and/or outline of the next script I'm going to write. I find that immersing myself in the next story adds to the distance the two weeks (or a month) that the drawer buys me.
I agree with Steve, this is great advice. I use this in other types of writing as well.
In situations where I have to push out a draft without that two week window and/or review by a professional editor, am always dismayed at some sort of error that I find in my work after letting it sit for two weeks.
Sometimes there are typos that had been right in front of me but that I did not see. they pop out after I've givin my eyes a rest.
When the time comes to read it again after two weeks, print it out in a different font. Amazing what a difference that makes to freshening the perspective! Obviously, turn it back to Courier 12 before letting others see it…
A great advice.
But I would say a month.
Work with another idea in the meantime.
Did you really think we wouldn't notice that this is a cut-and-paste from December 2008?
@Wolf Lahti: I repeat posts from time to time because there are always new people to the blog. As you can see from the comments preceding you, this tip has been helpful information to some folks. But I'll update the post to reflect when it was originally posted.
Ah, but what if the script is already two weeks past deadline and a studio is impatiently waiting to read it? (And perhaps I am being less than hypothetical here) Do you dare send them your first draft?
@Matt. IF you are doing a script for hire on a tight timeline you owe it to yourself to at least have someone read over it for little mistakes like their instead of there or mixing up character names. That way you don't give someone something that is sloppy.