Does Your Script Need a Rewrite?

"If you have a script and you know it needs work, guess what? You’re in the same boat as professional screenwriter Tom Benedek. Check out what he has to say about a project he’s working on and his thoughts on rewriting:

I just finished the first draft of a script that I have been talking about, thinking about, structuring, restructuring, doing research around for way too long. It is still a great feeling. With these pages, I feel like I solved many problems and did interesting creative work. I know there are flaws. I am sure I repeated myself, built some serious inconsistencies, wrote hollow on some days. However, I won’t have a complete picture of any of this until I sit down and read carefully what I wrote. So two weeks and three days after typing THE END on page 139 (Yes, way too long!) I am going to print out the draft. I have it on my IPad, my laptop and my home computer but I will read printed words on paper this time. With a pen in hand. I will go to a place which is not where I wrote any of this – a library, a coffee shop, a little of both maybe – and I will quietly and carefully read what I wrote. I am excited. And a little terrified perhaps. But this will be easier than staring at blank pages for months. Once I arrive at some conclusions, I anticipate that I will be able to have some fun with problem-solving, cutting, pasting, adding words, putting things aside (throwing them out). The truth is – I like rewriting. I get to be with my characters and story, inhabit the world I created. Once immersed, in full concentration, I can do little things that make huge differences. Sure. I can also ruin things with the wrong adjustments. But if I know what I am looking for, I generally will recognize I have it right (or okay for now) when it is actually that way. So onward for me with Love at Goon Park. Wish me luck.

Amazingly, the Screenwritingmasterclass.com schedule has me presiding over Pages II, our 10 week rewrite workshop, during this same time frame. So I will be doing the exact same work as our class members starting on February 18. (I will make myself start the process on my script today (or tomorrow). I cannot procrastinate until February 18. But that is when the Pages II class is starting. Do consider joining me.

I now hear the sound of my printer clacking out those 139 pages for me. The joy. The agony. Onward.

Here are a few more thoughts about the rewrite process."

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