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This week's Answer:
Write
What Sells You Well, Anne,
we screenwriters all cross this bridge at one time or
another in our careers. Sometimes the bridge is just
a little wooden one over a murmuring creek. Other
times, it's the Golden Gate Bridge over an extensive bay
that takes a little longer to cross than the creek
one. The analogy is that it may be a short or a long
process to come to grips with how commercialism affects
your screenwriting, and, if it does (which most
screenwriters find it does), to what degree.
One way of looking at the question is
to ask yourself another one: "Can I see myself
in this screenplay? (Now, I know you said your heart
isn't in the screenplay and I hope your meaning isn't
literal. And, for that matter, I hope none of your
literal organs are actually in your screenplay. Not
to say that wouldn't catch a producer's eye. But it
could influence your ability to literally write it.)
What I'm referring to in the second question is whether or
not you can relate enough to the material to give it the
required energy and originality to make it worth
creating? Birthing a screenplay takes a concerted
effort and demands a persistence (just ask any mother who
has given birth to a nine-pound baby screenplay) all of
which can really only be supported by an initial true
desire to write it. Can you see yourself enjoying
creating the screenplay? Or does it already look
like an arduous chore even before you've started it?
If you're not excited about the idea of writing the
screenplay, how excited or driven or committed do you
think you're going to be when you're actually writing
it? For example, I need to finish this article and
don't feel creative or original or enthused as I
"actually write it." And, now that I look
back at the time before I started writing it (which was
about six long minutes ago), I didn't feel very energized
by the idea. And am even less so now. And,
now, less than even when I was less so. In fact, I
can barely lift my digits to finish
this...................... I really should have thought
this through. I guess I'll just come up with one
more sentence that will bear the resemblance of a pithy
final remark to denote a conclusion.............. But what
will that be? And I still have to come up with a
title for this attempt at writing my column. Well,
here goes nothing:
So there. (Brilliant!)
DcH
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