I shouldn't complain about feeling like I’m “nearly there” in terms of commencing a career in writing, since I’m not even sure if that’s true. I don't know how many aspiring writers get to the point where they genuinely feel like they're ready to make that professional breakthrough, but I bet it’s a lot.
And I mean REALLY feel it. Feel it in your bones, your fingers, in every letter committed to their hard-drive or the web. And right now, I do feel it. I just hope it's genuine this time.
I think it is, less because of specific things that I've heard or knowledge I've gleaned, more because of an understanding of story and screenwriting that I've developed over the past year or so.
And that's the key word, I think - understanding. Which is very different from knowledge.
The Scriptshadow review for Return Fire, a script I co-wrote with Joe Dinicola, may have garnered a "not for me", yet we take away not only valuable feedback from Carson Reeves and a number of the fine people who read and commented on it, but the faint praise that it was better than the three "sold" scripts he read that week, and of course his encouraging comment "These writers definitely have a future in Hollywood."
But I'm not floating around on a Hollywood dream; I’m a realistic chap, living with my wife and 1 and 2 year old children in a small town in Staffordshire. In creative and budgetary terms, I stay grounded with my TV pilot "Brutal," a British police drama with grit and thrills a-plenty, a script that saw me in the top 100 (that's the top 3%) of the 2012 intake of the Red Planet Prize, but yet again failed to make that final cut.
I recently published the novelisation of a script I thought was beyond getting made without a big star name attached (and it probably still is), but National Security Dad is now available from Aisle Seat Books – something I always like to point out is not self-published, but something they approached me to do. It’s an ego thing, sorry.
On top of that I've had numerous emails from both pro and amateurs alike with kind words for other scripts I've made public in the past, and serious conversations with producers here and there.
In other words, I feel like I'm being taken seriously at last.
But I am prepared for the disappointment in case it all turns out to be a mirage.
You see, all writers think they are brilliant. Whether they’re halfway through their first epic space opera or weeping over their eighth heart-breaking love story, THIS is their ticket, THIS is the next-big-thing, and THEY are going to be set for life. I know the feeling.
See if you recognise any of these stages. The following is how I developed my screenwriting life:
2001: graduate from the University of Leeds with a 2:1 in Creative Writing. EMOTIONAL REACTION: relief and pride with a dash of optimism.
2002: complete my first script, a 140-page action adventure featuring three extreme-sports-loving lads who live a grifting life, shag any (gorgeous) girl who swoons their way in between getting into scrapes, but one day bite off more than they can chew and have to rescue the most recent girls who swooned over them (and got shagged). EMOTIONAL REACTION: wow, I'm a natural! This script is a perfect fit for Dreamworks.
2003: realised pretty quickly that I probably need to make my name with lower-budget stuff first, so progress onto more quirky stuff, and come up with the most original idea anyone has ever thought of, like, ever. Takes me 18 months to complete, because I write a TV drama pilot in the middle of it. EMOTIONAL REACTION: damn, I am gonna be the most successful screenwriter on the planet.
2004: none of my scripts get anywhere wherever I send them. Decide to complete my crime novel instead. Dabble with short fiction in between, as I’d already published a lot of short stories pre-university. EMOTIONAL REACTION: novels are harder than scripts, so if I can do this, I'll return to my screenwriting as a master.
2004: Finally complete the novel and send it out. It comes back. From several places. Standard rejection. EMOTIONAL REACTION: hmm. What if – just maybe – what if I'm not good enough?
2005: Start reading a lot of "guru" books and articles by actual writers. Read lots of excellent scripts, lots of amateur scripts. Re-read my first screenplay for the first time in a year. It's awful, just awful. My second script too. I can't believe that manure spewed out of my fingers. EMOTIONAL REACTION: I'm a terrible writer. Really bad. Time to give up.
2005-2006: concentrate on novels and short stories. Well, I say "concentrate". What I mean is, I took up golf and drank a lot, and occasionally - in my more lucid moments - did a spot of writing; some novel work, some short prose, and – yes – a couple of TV pilots and one feature. EMOTIONAL REACTION: golf is stupid. Will I ever get good at this? Maybe I should do more writing.
2007: Climbed Mt Kilimanjaro. Had a lot of good ideas for screenplays and a number of clear thoughts about life, the universe and everything. Not a spiritual thing, but a lot of time in my own head. When I get home, revisit some of those guru books, and also discover Save the Cat by Blake Snyder. Blake makes screenwriting sound like the easiest thing in the world. EMOTIONAL REACTION: so that's what I've been doing wrong all this time.
2007: completed the rewrite of my super-duper original low-budget script (now featuring Kilimanjaro), consigned my extreme sports male-wish-fulfilment fantasy to the trash, and entered the page awards. I make the second round. EMOTIONAL REACTION: Yay for Blake Snyder! I'm gonna be a gazillionnaire!
2008-2009: write about 12 half-screenplays, and despite Blake (by now, sadly, the late Blake) making screenwriting sound easy and fun, I've found other "methods" and other approaches. None of it makes sense. Oh, and I start trying to write like Quentin Tarrantino and/or Sorkin. Manage to plot out two more TV scripts and a feature; all have too much dialogue. EMOTIONAL REACTION: bleugh. Is this really for me?
2009: hit upon a new epiphany. Writing a screenplay that *I* want to see. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, but until now I'd been trying to write stuff I thought would get me a foot in the door. So I throw up a gross-out comedy, come up with the concept to National Security Dad, a tone that I want to achieve (True Lies) and because this would be a big silly action movie, but with, y'know, heart, I revert back to the Save the Cat approach. And it works. I knock out the whole script over Christmas and New Year. EMOTIONAL REACTION: Okay, easy, now. I know this is brilliant, but don't get carried away. We've been here before.
2010: learning all about emotional detachment from my projects, I'm able to edit like a demon, slaughter babies left, right and centre. EMOTIONAL REACTION: I am, like, so professional.
2010: become a dad. EMOTIONAL REACTION: umm, this is more tiring than I expected.
2010: use paternity leave to knock out another script when I'm not elbow-deep in the unmentionable stuff. EMOTIONAL REACTION: I am so incredibly productive. This time next year, I will be ruling the writing world.
2010: use a lot of what I've learned to put together a TV pilot that I'm very proud of, and start to move away from the crutch of Save the Cat. EMOTIONAL REACTION: I'm making so much progress!
2010: Amazon Studios opens its doors and I figure I'm a regular guy living in Staffordshire and can't afford to go interning in Hollywood to get my script into the right hands. Although Amazon's conditions seem terrible, they're not so terrible that I am unwilling to give up a number of rights. After all, if I get picked up, it'll be worth it, right? EMOTIONAL REACTION: I am getting my name out there at last.
2011: The year of Amazon -- they keep me in the semi-finals all year. I rewrite a script I find on there, called Return Fire, about a band of modern-day U.S. soldiers accidentally transported back in time to the end of World War II, where they must fight to get home. I change a lot, and the original writer, Joe Dinicola, and I work on it together over a few drafts. We're finalists twice, but ultimately never make the big-bucks. I also EMOTIONAL REACTION: mute enthusiasm.
2011: Oh, and yeah, had another baby. EMOTIONAL REACTION: this is a lot more than twice as hard as having one.
2011: despite setbacks and zero free time at home, my long commute is augmented by a tiny netbook that runs Final Draft and everything else I need to write for two hours a day on the train. By the end of the year, I have a rewrite of National Security Dad, the first draft of Brutal, a second TV pilot (this one a spy thriller), several drafts of Return Fire, a rewrite of a zombie script from an Amazon contest, a couple of semi-final and final placings in half a dozen writing contests, and lots of nice things written by lots of nice people, albeit mostly aspiring writers like myself. EMOTIONAL REACTION: what a productive year. I'm knackered!
2012: In summary, I now have about 10 feature scripts under my belt, six TV pilots, and any number of half-abandoned projects. I’ve written another TV pilot this year and I’m on the final leg of a limited-location action-thriller designed for a British budget. Of these, I think three of the features and two of the pilots are worthy of any attention, and only one of each is ready for me to throw out there and say "these are for the world to see!" Although I’ve pretty much moved on from Amazon now, it was good for getting me writing on a regular basis again, and has been great practice for this year, which is on course to be my most productive yet.
But am I just being big-headed in thinking I’ve made such a huge leap?
At some point between 2010 and the end of 2011 I had a serious epiphany about Save the Cat, and a number of other guru books. You see, most of these books are just common sense extrapolated so it looks complicated, then re-inverted to make things sound simple again. Story is all about turning points and advancing the plot and giving your character(s) bigger challenges, so for all Save the Cat's flashy "this is the secret they won't tell you" rhetoric, you can shoehorn any story into its beat-sheet and make it work retrospectively, but throwing your story into that beat-sheet and spitting a script out the other end... well, that just gets you to where I am with the current draft of Return Fire.
Functional.
Doesn't have to be formulaic - that's an entirely different thing to structure - but I now UNDERSTAND that. Knowing it isn't enough. Feeling it, living it as you write, understanding that conflict goes beyond fights and arguments, that drama goes beyond simply being dramatic, that character is different to characterisation and characteristics.
It is this that Joe and I will take into the major rewrite of Return Fire when we complete the projects we are currently working on separately.
I hope this isn't another false dawn. If it is, well, I'll be disappointed, naturally. But I know so much more now and - more pertinently - I understand a lot more now, so when the right opportunity comes along, I'll be ready to grab it.
And become the greatest screenwriter the world has ever seen.
Probably.
Maybe.
Okay, I'd be honoured to write a couple of episodes of the better-than-most-daytime-soaps Doctors and happy a straight-to-DVD Steven Segal flick.
But you know what I mean.
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