Jan 29, 2016

SCREENWRITING TIP #1: The Big Idea

Everywhere I travel if someone discovers that I am a writer, they invariably tell me that they have a great idea for a movie, a book or a TV series. (Especially cab and uber drivers, they are idea machines). And if I would JUST write it for them...

Yikes, there’s the catch. They don’t want to do the work themselves. Problem is, I have tons of ideas of my own. Ideas are cheap. Execution is what counts. Very few execute. When I am pitched an idea I tell people, "Write it yourself!" Few ever do. Because they discover when they start that writing is hard work, and they quit without seeing it through. So the basic secret of success in writing is: Do the Work. Write the worst thing you can put on paper, but get through it. Then you can rewrite it. Over and over until you make it great. Most people who are professionals wrote five or six screenplays before they even sold one. No one is a genius right off the bat.

But a word of warning before you start the actual writing: It’s best to test your Big Idea before you dive in. Do an outline of your movie, brainstorm the plot points. Do character sketches so you make sure the character fits with your plot and vice versa. I will be covering how to do those things in more detail in future updates, but the biggest warning I have is: NEVER START WRITING WITHOUT AN ENDING. You will just be making the hard work harder for yourself. Your Big Idea is worth doing the homework for, just so you can keep your enthusiasm up through a very difficult process of creating something from scratch.

And if you don’t have time for full steam ahead on one Big Idea right now, the best thing you can do is make a habit of filing your ideas away in a file cabinet. Virtual or physical. Write anything you find interesting down. Scan the world for things and plots and people and phrases that pop out to you. You never know when your observations will come in handy. Eventually, you will have files and files of plots, and characters and ideas, that can help you start quicker when you finally dedicate yourself to that one Big Idea project. You’re not starting from zero, and that’s a wonderful thing. 

A Good Idea is eternal. Sorting the bad from the good is the hard part, but having a file to pull from is the key. You never know when a character you thought of five years ago, might solve a plot problem you have now. And every once in a while, make yourself go through those files, let your mind wander over them. You might be able to add some puzzle pieces together and BAM! You could have the pieces of a Big Idea just waiting to be assembled and written.

Or you could just take an Uber somewhere and grab one of the driver’s ideas. But we both know you can do better than that.