Advice for New Screenwriters

Finished the first draft of a feature screenplay? Congratulations! #Screenplays appear simple on paper but require huge amounts of work just to complete.

Most people who start screenplays never finish them.

Now for the bad news: Your work has just begun.

As a script doctor, I see a lot of first-draft screenplays, and I can say this almost without exception: First drafts are never ready to pitch to producers and never ready for Hollywood "coverage." The professional script readers simply will eat the screenplay alive.

Trust me on this: Before you pitch it to a producer (and he or she farms it out to a reader for "coverage"--a preliminary evaluation to determine whether the producer should waste any time looking at the script), send your script first to a screenplay editor.

The same caution applies when sending new scripts to screenplay contests. Your magnum opus likely will be read by a small panel of contest readers--who often just happen to be professional script readers for producers, as well.

Have it edited, first.

Almost all first-draft screenplays I receive are replete with errors of grammar, spelling and screenplay formatting. You may think Hollywood will be too amazed by your story to notice or even care about these "minor" matters. Trust me on this, too: Many professional script readers will quit reading your story and start counting the mistakes after the first few misspelled words or misplaced commas or random apostrophes. Your screenplay will be a "pass" on page 1.

Writers cannot be their own editors. And family and friends are too busy and too kind to give your first draft the kind of feedback it really needs. They'll just flip through it and say: "It's great, dude! Send it off!"

Don't send it off. Not yet. Not until you've had it reviewed by at least one professional screenplay editor who will tell you what works and what doesn't work and who will show you the errors--both glaring and subtle--in your script.

You may be both chagrined and amazed at the number of blunders you have overlooked. But, once you fix them and maybe do a little rewriting, the second or third draft of your screenplay will be much closer to being ready to submit to producers and screenplay contests.

A little patience and a few revisions can go a long way toward success as a screenwriter.


-- Si Dunn