There’s a new screenwriting book out there that promises to help you write a screenplay in a certain number of weeks. There’s an older book that’s been around a while that promises to help you write a screenplay even faster — in a certain number of days. I’m not really a fan of these books so I’m being deliberately vague on the titles. You probably know which I mean.

But there’s really no real trick to writing a screenplay fast. Not any that are worth a $50 cover price, anyway. Honest. I’ve written piles of screenplays, most of them in under ten weeks when I was a grad student at UCLA. Trust me on this, just having a first draft is only the beginning of the process and it’s no great feat.^[1]

I’m contemplating a series of posts that will be accessible here for free which will take everyone through a ten week screenplay writing process.^[2] Or maybe twelve weeks or sixteen. In any event, it won’t cost a thing and if you want to get a screenplay written, you will. Happens all the time, so I know you can do it.

In the meantime, as promised, here’s a few tools to help you get through that first draft, just in case you’re hung up and need a little help now. I like to think not in terms of writing fast, but in terms of keeping momentum. The idea is just to keep moving forward. That’s what these tools are designed to do — get you over the rough spots so you can keep going.

Timed Writing

I didn’t say any of these “tools” were new.

This one goes by many names, but I like to refer to it as THE EGG TIMER OF DOOM!

Got three hours to write? You’re screwed. That’s a long stretch. Too long to stay focused. You need to break that down into shorter sessions. Get a kitchen timer, one that goes tick-tick-tick is good. You know, like a bomb. You want to feel like something’s at stake. Like, when the bell rings, you are gonna die. Okay, maybe not to that extreme, but the idea here is to put just enough pressure on yourself that you shut down the inner critic and just fly.

You only have to follow one rule — as long as the timer ticks, you keep writing. No stopping until the alarm sounds. No matter what.

Only you can tell what amount of time works best for you. I would start with shorter amounts and increase the time in successive back-to-back sessions. Write for five minutes, take a breather, then set the timer for ten and go again. I would say twenty minutes is the probably the most you could get away with and still feel the pressure to write.

You can’t, or at least shouldn’t, write like this all time. But if you find yourself avoiding a difficult scene, or you have trouble just getting started, or you find yourself distracted and not getting any work done, consider a timed writing session to help you snap back into focus.

List of 20

I used to call this the list of five, but I modified it after I heard Bill Marsili talk about basically the same idea at a screenwriting con.

This tool is best for those times when you arrive at one of those “I’ll figure it out later” moments in the outline — only later is now. An outline can’t contain all the details of your script, after all, and sometimes you just have to gloss. But sooner or later, you come to a chasm that must be crossed and you still have no idea how to get to the other side.

Right there on your writing pad or your laptop screen, brainstorm twenty ideas. Don’t judge, just list. How can my protag escape a prison cell with no doors or windows? Or survive a fire that kills everyone else in the warehouse? Or convince his girlfriend that he really changed this time, honest? List twenty ideas, no matter how implausible or goofy they are.

You know why this works. Once you get your brain a-problem solvin, it won’t be long before a good solution shows up. After all, it’s hard to come up with twenty bad ideas all in a row. You’re bound to hit on something workable, even if it’s by accident. You probably won’t even get to twenty.

Write the Bad Version

What if you really can’t think of a workable idea, even after you tried writing with a timer and brainstorming twenty ideas? What if you totally suck and all you have right now are bad ideas?

Go ahead and write the bad version. On purpose.

Why do that? Because you are taking control instead of being the victim. Instead of another day of getting beaten down and having nothing to show, you will have taken a stand and demonstrated your commitment to yourself and to the craft.

And because it’s really hard to be consistently bad on purpose for any significant length of time. Like brainstorming, once you get the juices flowing, you’re bound to hit your stride — even if you stumbled around a bit out of the starting blocks.

And finally, because it’s only a draft, no one else will ever see it, and once you have something down on paper, you can start making decisions about it. It’s impossible to edit, rewrite and improve a scene that’s still in your head. So don’t wait for it to be perfect. Get it down on paper. Even if you have to be the worst writer in the world in that moment.

Write it anyway.

1. In fact, I much prefer to skip the first draft altogether and start with the second draft, but that’s a different post. [↩]
2. Depends on if there is any interest at all, and if I have the time. [↩]