PROCRASTINATION...

I used to know a budding screenwriter — I’ll call him Henry. We’d grab lunch, talk movies, and especially talk about writing movies. I’d tell him the storylines of whatever script I was wrestling with, and he’d tell me his idea for a screenplay.

Did you catch that? His idea.

Henry always had the same one. And it never existed in screenplay form — not a page, not a scene, not even a rough outline. Just an idea he carried around like a lucky coin. This went on for more than a year.

Eventually I asked him, “It sounds like you’ve got a pretty good concept. So why aren’t you writing it?”

He had a whole menu of excuses, but the one he served most often was, “I’m doing research.”

Since then, I’ve met plenty of writers — screenwriters, novelists, you name it — who lean on the same line. And look, I’m not anti‑research. Research is great. Research is useful. But at some point you have to stop researching and actually write the thing.

Personally, I do very little research before I start a project. Most of my stories don’t require much. (There was one exception back in 2008: I was hired to write a script that sent me to El Salvador for a week of on‑the‑ground research. Then I came back to L.A. and spent three months on a submission draft.) But generally, if I hit a moment in a script where I don’t know the mechanics of something, I just fake it with something plausible and leave myself a note: DO RESEARCH.

My only goal in the early stages is to get a first draft done — to make sure the story works from fade in to fade out. I can always go back and fill in the blanks.

And that’s really the point: don’t let research become the thing that keeps you from writing. It can feel productive, but it can also kill your momentum. Burn enough time “preparing,” and you’ll be exhausted before you’ve even finished your first act.

At some point, you have to stop gathering information and start telling the story.

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How Many Drafts?

The other day I spoke with a relatively new screenwriter. He told me he’s written about seven screenplays so far—none of which have gotten any traction. As we talked, I asked him: “How many drafts do you usually write before you consider a script ready to submit?”

His answer floored me. “Two, maybe three drafts,” he said.

Only three drafts for a screenplay? I couldn’t hide my surprise. He turned the question back on me: “How many drafts do you do?”

I told him I don’t keep exact numbers, but it’s always in the double digits. That piqued his interest, so I walked him through my process.

First, I get the initial draft down as quickly as possible. I’m not aiming for perfection—I just want the ideas on the page and the story locked in, knowing full well things will change. (I also stressed how important outlines are. Whether it’s a couple of pages or, in my case, 20-plus, you need one.)

Once that first draft is done, I go at it with a red pen. I cut unnecessary dialogue, description, and plot points. I strengthen weak ones. Then I repeat the process, draft after draft, until I’m no longer bleeding ink across the pages.

On average, I’ll do anywhere from 15 to 25 passes, depending on the complexity of the script.

So when he said three drafts? As Vizzini declared in The Princess Bride: “Inconceivable!”

 

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