Skip to main content

How to Start your Screenwriting Journey

Photo by Clemens van Lay on Unsplash

Newbie writers who are eager to start a career in screenwriting often ask me: I wish to become a screenwriter. How do I go about it? 

Every writer's journey is unique and what works for me, may not necessarily work for you.  Like every journey, in this one too you may come across many different paths to get to your destination. The important thing is to get started with a rough map and then figure out the milestones on the way. So here are some tips...

 

Learn the Craft It all begins with learning the craft. So let's not jump the gun. And this is the fun part. If you wish to be a screenwriter, you need to understand how movies are written. The best way to do this is by watching a lot of films. Mindfully. So you have a bunch of films that you love. Those are the ones where you should start...not simply to be entertained but to understand the writing behind it. Take notes on what happens in a scene. How one scene flows into another. How characters are at the beginning of a story and at the end. At what points do major events in the story take place. The ups and downs faced by characters and how this impacts the story. Take copious notes. Then go and do a search for the screenplay of the film. Read it...and you will be able to make the connection between what you watched on screen and what you read on the script. As you do this over several films, you will begin to understand just how important structure of a screenplay is. How the structure varies for different genres. 

While you're taking a deep dive into the craft, there are some great screenwriting resources that will help you in understanding screenplays, storytelling, structure, character development and more. Here are some: Go into the Story  ScreenwritingU Save the Cat


Practice The only way to ensure that you are absorbing the necessary elements of screenwriting is with practice. Don't have a story idea? Check out some of the writing prompt sites to trigger your imagination. Use some of the above mentioned resources to work out a rough outline and start writing. Since screenplays have a unique format, you may want to download free software such as Celtx. Have fun with it. The more you write and practice, the better your scripts will be. Join an online screenwriters forum to connect with other writers and exchange scripts for feedback. Forums like Stage32 are a great place to connect with writers and other filmmaking professionals. 

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

Make friends and collaborate Often interacting with other writers, filmmakers and other professionals in the field helps you to understand how the industry works. Unlike other forms of fiction writing, screenwriters can't create in isolation. A script is just the starting point and you need to find others who are as excited about your writing as you are to help you turn the words on the page into moving images. As a newbie screenwriter it is tough to connect with established professionals, production houses and filmmakers. The trick is often to start small...write a short film project and collaborate with a newbie filmmaker to get it made. You can reach out on Stage32 and LinkedIn and connect with a bunch of people. A screen credit or two will help you reach the next level of your screenwriting journey.

Enter Contests This is a great way of establishing your credentials as a screenwriter. While you do have to pay entry fees, consider this as an investment in your career. Try out a couple during the first year. Many of these also offer feedback from judges. So that will definitely help you to get a grip on how far you have progressed in learning the craft. If you place as a quarter- semi- or finalist or end up a winner, it will inspire you to keep moving forward and connecting with professionals in the film industry. 

With a couple of contest placements, a bunch of scripts and maybe a produced short script credit line in your portfolio you are now poised to enter the second stage of your journey...getting a manager or agent to represent you. But well, that's another story for another day! :)

Happy Writing!



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Facing my fear - one Pitch at a time

Pitching makes me freeze up. In fact, the very thought of it makes me wanna run away.  For a screenwriter that's simply bad news. Because no matter what, if you want to get your stories out of your computer and hit the big screens, then you need to get comfortable with selling your story to potential producers and studios. And the first step in that journey is pitching.  My fear of pitching has prodded me to find different ways of overcoming the hurdle. So, for a few years I tried to work with agents in the hope that they would read my book and be able to handle the job of pitching. But soon I realized that agents were not into reading. So, I was just another name in their long list of clients. How that helps them grow their business is a different story, and one that I will perhaps share at a later point when I get around to solving that mystery! But the turning point (life does imitate screenplays!) came when I was called to pitch my book to a prominent OTT channel. This was...
1 comment
Read more

Basu Chatterji's "Balcony Class" Films

Basu Chatterji's Rajnigandha was like a breath of fresh air in the 1970s film universe of Bombay. At a time when the Angry Young Man was beginning to dominate celluloid screens, Amol Palekar was as un-hero-like as you could get. He was the Common Man who traveled in buses, did not have hero-like mannerisms and did not breathe fire and brimstone at his opponents. Basu Chatterji's Middle of the Road Cinema burst on to the scene and surprised the movie-going audience with its everyday situations and storylines that had an undercurrent of humour. Chatterji catered to an audience that he liked to call the "Balcony Class".  Anirudha Bhattacharjee, author of Basu Chatterji and Middle-of-the-Road Cinema writes an entertaining and heartwarming account of the life and work of Basu Chatterji, one of the most under-rated directors of Indian cinema. Recall of Chatterji's brand of feel-good, slice-of-life movies is perhaps highest for his Rajnigandha, Chotisi Baat, Baaton Baa...
5 comments
Read more

'Pure Evil' has been my biggest and most complex project - Author Balaji Vittal

Love them or hate them, you simply can't ignore them. That cliche is perhaps most apt when it comes to the bad men of Bollywood. In fact, some of the most memorable lines of dialogue have been mouthed not by the heroes but by the villains of Hindi cinema. So it is only fitting that these shining stars of the dark world (after all, antagonists are the protagonists of their own stories!) deserve to be spotlighted. Balaji Vittal , the author of Pure Evil: the Bad Men of Bollywood undertakes this onerous task of highlighting the world of these evil characters and how they have come to occupy a special place in the hearts and minds of movie goers.  I spoke to Mr. Balaji Vittal, a National Award winning and MAMI Award winning author of Bollywood books, a columnist for News18, Outlook India, The New Indian Express , a Bollywood commentator and a public speaker, about his journey of venturing into the world of Pure Evil .   Here are some excerpts:   Your book "Pure Evil: the Bad...
Post a Comment
Read more