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focus, insight, polish, production, tightening, writing - April 06, 2022

ON THE VALUE OF WRITING EVERY DAY

There’s a school of thought that suggests a writer should write every day. And there’s another that suggests it isn’t necessary. The right answer is whatever works for you. As with any art, writing is a personal journey. That said, I wrote every day for fifteen years. I wrote on Christmas, on my birthday, on the day my father passed away. Even if I was sick as a dog, I made it a point to write one word before I went to bed, just to have written something that day. I can describe what I experienced during those years. Polish....

ON PACING

A script should be a fast and easy read. There are several ways to accomplish this. Length. The standard length of screenplay used to be 120-ppg. It’s been a long time since that has been the case, especially when it comes to spec scripts. In fact, a script that’s exactly 120-ppg tends to send up an additional red flag, as it implies that the script is making artificial storytelling choices in order to pad itself to this old-fashioned length. Generally, it’s better to aim for a sweet spot between 90-105-ppg, with some genres (action, horror, comedy) tending toward the shorter...

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