ScriptFaze

How to Start and Run a Screenwriting Group

One of the best ways for screenwriters to improve their writing is to hear their scripts READ OUT LOUD by people other than themselves. And one of the best ways to make this happen is to start or join a screenwriting GROUP.

Screenwriting groups can be formal or informal, large or small, meet regularly or meet irregularly. There’s no RIGHT way to run a screenwriting group, but let me suggest a method that is tried and true, and forged in the halls of UCLA’s graduate screenwriting program.

Starting in 1980, a screenwriter and screenwriting teacher named Lew Hunter started teaching a series of “434” courses at UCLA in which graduate students took their script ideas from concept to finished first-draft over the length of one-quarter, or about three months. Lew later wrote a book on the writing concepts outlined in this course, and I can’t recommend reading it enough. “Lew Hunter’s Screenwriting 434” is a seminal book on screenwriting, and one that many writers and writing teachers have been influenced by.

I myself was a graduate student at UCLA, and since finishing the program, I’ve participated in several writing groups based on the 434-structure. The problem with a self-run screenwriting group is that it’s NOT a course; writers will drop out, stop writing, or begin to short-change themselves by showing up for meetings without any new pages. The most important choice you’ll make in starting a writing group, therefore, is WHO will be in it. If your purpose in starting a group is to make friends, or to spend more time with the guy you have a crush on—it’s not gonna work out. The people in your group should be SERIOUS WRITERS, and preferably people you already know and who have completed prior screenplays. Ideally, you want 6-8 writers in your group for reasons I’ll get into below.


After you’ve picked you team:

1) Pick a day and time every one or two weeks that everyone can plan to meet, and stress to the group that your meeting should be a PRIORITY. If one person doesn’t show up, everyone in the group will be negatively affected.

2) Decide WHERE you are going to meet. A quiet, professional space is ideal. Avoid coffee shops, or other places where you will be overheard.

3) Choose a certain NUMBER OF PAGES that everyone will commit to bring to the group. If people overwrite or underwrite, that’s OK—but deciding beforehand on a page goal will inspire everyone to write and participate. I recommend 10 pages.

4) Write your pages. If you are starting this group yourself, it’s IMPERATIVE that you complete your pages. If you start to slack off, the whole group will follow.

5) Meet at the preplanned time, and decide who’s gonna have their script READ OUT LOUD first. The writer cannot participate, but should instead LISTEN CAREFULLY to his script being read. One person should read the “business” (all of the descriptions and transitions) and everyone else should split up the roles between them. Once the group has decided on their parts, read through the entire 10 pages.

6) After the reading, the writer should remain QUIET and take NOTES while everyone else says what they LIKE and DON’T LIKE about the script that was read. It’s important to say both—even if you HATED or LOVED the script. Everyone should be constructive in their notes, and only when the group has completed their feedback should the writer ask questions.

7) Once you’ve completed the first read & feedback session, rotate around the group and do the SAME for every other writer. This is why 6-8 writers is the perfect number for a screenwriting group—there are not SO MANY that your meeting lasts for more than 3 hours, and not SO FEW that their aren’t enough people to read the roles in everyone’s scripts.

8) Wrap up & confirm the NEXT MEETING TIME. This step is important. If it’s not written in people’s schedules, it will be very easy to blow off the next meeting as the date approaches.


Again—there is no perfect way to run a screenwriting group, but the 8 steps above are the best method I’ve found. HEARING your own script read out loud is a great way to improve—but HEARING and READING other people’s scripts will also help you to  recognize new approaches to writing, or bad habits to avoid.

The last step I’d add to this process can only be accomplished with a VERY COMMITTED GROUP. If you’ve found the right people, try to set a FINISH DATE for everyone’s script. Decide beforehand that everyone will wrap up their first drafts in three or four months, then use your weekly or bi-weekly meetings to move toward this goal. Setting a deadline will inspire everyone involved to keep up with their peers in the group, and to cross the finish-line together. And if you can tie in your screenwriting schedule with a program such as Script Frenzy, even better.

 

How to Tell An Amateur

Los Angeles is a town full of pretenders. Actors pretend like they’re movie stars. Film students pretend like they’re Noah Baumbach or Alexander Payne. Production assistants pretend like they’re producers, and producers pretend like they’re broke… The only thing people in Hollywood REALLY have in common is their desire to be SOMEONE ELSE. It’s probably this desire which first inspired their bus ride to Los Angeles, and it’s an impulse which afflicts screenwriters as much as anyone else.

Beginner screenwriters pretend three things: a) That they are happy, b) that they are being paid, and c) that they have many projects “in development.” What a wonderfully vague term. In reality, having a project “in development” means that you have a script that’s been optioned or sold to a production company, and is currently in an active rewrite stage as it is being “developed” for production. Of course, the term is regularly extended during party conversion to mean “a script that I am writing and no one else has seen,” “a script I’ve given to a producer but have not yet heard a response to,” or even “an idea for a script I had while high with my buddies last weekend, and have no real intention of writing.”

Writers are smart people, and it is generally hard to tell the difference between someone who’s pretending, and someone who has an actual career. HOWEVER, there is one very-common point of conversation that immediately blows the top off any writer’s cover, and exposes him for the amateur he really is:

The fear of having his script STOLEN.

Yup. That’s right. If you complain to others about having your spec script ripped off, YOU ARE AN AMATEUR.

The Act One Break

The Act One Break is a huge moment in any script. This is the point in which your hero is forced to leave the world he’s known behind, and strike out (usually alone) into a NEW and DIFFERENT phase of his life. Once he’s stepped foot into the murky world of Act Two, he can never go back to the way things were in Act One...

You’ll know right away that your Act One has problems if you aren’t reaching your first act break between pages 25-35. If you Act One is less than 25 pages, it’s too thin and needs more punch. If your Act One is more than 35 pages, it’s too fat and needs to be thinned down or rewritten altogether.

See the posts The First Ten Pages and Page 17 to review the beats that should shape the opening pages of a good Act One. By page 25, you should be at or close to a point in which your hero is FORCED to venture into the unknown. They must leave the relative comfort zone of their Act One lives, and actively move into a new world, and/or strike a new and dangerous course. At the Act One Break, the time has come for your hero to REACT against the pressures that have started your screenplay moving, and your hero should do so in a HANDS-ON, extremely-active fashion. They don’t need to be running down the street with a MK-47, but your audience should KNOW that your hero has left something behind, and is now engaged in a new game, with new rules.

When All Is Lost (or: How to End ACT TWO)

In life, we never know when we might suddenly feel LOST or misdirected. Our moments of deepest sorrow or greatest humility usually arrive unannounced, when we least expect them—and sometimes JUST when everything seemed to be going so well. You might be clicking along, happy in love, and pretty much have life all figured out, when—BAM! You’re dumped, fired, or hit by bus. And that’s life! It’s a total mystery, and for most people most of the time, our paths forward are fully unpredictable experiences.

Not so in the movies! In screenplays, we know EXACTLY when the lowest, most miserable point in our protagonist’s life is going to happen: THE END OF ACT 2. (Or the end of ACT 2B for those of you who have read The Four-Act Screenplay.)

After MIDPOINT, a movie hero should take charge of his situation, and for 15-20 pages everything should be going WONDERFULLY—perhaps for the first time in the film. As he races toward the end of Act 2, your protagonist should be getting very, very close to his goal, and everything should be falling in to place. He’s almost found the treasure, won back the woman of his dreams, or defeated the aliens—life is good! And what’s more—the hero REALLY DESERVES the good fortune he is now experiencing. He’s WORKED for it, connected the dots, taken charge—and now the glory will certainly be his!

And that’s when it happens: the ALL IS LOST MOMENT. Oh, does it hurt. Just when he’s come within arm’s reach of his ultimate goal—everything is taken away from him. And it’s not just bad—it’s literally the WORST thing that could possibly happen. This is the moment when Liam Neeson finally discovers his kidnapped daughter in Taken—then gets smashed on the head and wakes up chained to a pipe. It’s the moment when Indiana Jones arrives at the final resting place of the Holy Grail, only to have his father shot in the chest by the Nazis who’ve arrived there first. It’s the sequence in Cool Hand Luke when Paul Newman is finally beaten into submission and becomes a whipping boy for Boss Godfrey. ALL IS LOST means just that: The hero has NO WAY OUT. He is stuck. The adventure is ALL OVER.

But, oh—what is this? Apparently, the show must go on. After the ALL IS LOST MOMENT, Act 3 begins when the hero DISCOVERS NEW INFORMATION, or in some cases REVEALS new information to the audience. E.T.’s heart starts glowing and Elliott realizes that he is alive! Specters have invaded New York City, and the Ghostbusters are sprung from jail by the Mayor! Cool Hand Luke has been FAKING IT—and he’s not the Boss’ lackey after all! Suddenly, what seemed so DIRE and FINAL just a moment ago is brushed aside as the hero charges forth into Act 3—on a clean trajectory to the film’s CLIMAX.