Return of The Jaded – Writers’ Guide

I’m super excited as after a year of redecorating the house, having a lovely baby, and a very demanding full-time job, I’m FINALLY returning to my writing! Part-time of course.

Of course that means I’m unfit and out of training, so I’ve set myself a quick pre-writing reboot camp. This basically will consist of:

1) Reading my notes on the writing books I’ve read
I only write notes on the key points made in these books. Just to keep them focused in the mind.

2) Read a RELEVANT script a day
I write comedy or at most comedy-drama and so I want to focus on the films in this genre that I like and learn why and how they were successful. But, I purposely want to go for films that I think break the mould slightly. I don’t want to follow the typical structure and style of the mainstream films. You know the ones where you feel you’ve already seen the film before. So my diet will consist of scripts such as:

500 Days of Summer

As Good As It Gets

Burn After Reading

Groundhog Day

The Hangover

Lars And The Real Girl

Little Miss Sunshine

40 Year-old Virgin

And more… some poor ones too. All the films above differ greatly so it shouldn’t smother my own voice.

3) Watch RELEVANT films
I tried to watch all the classics that I hadn’t seen over the past few years and I now realised that some of them I hadn’t seen because they don’t really interest me. You can’t like them all. Now I’ll watch comedies and films that I want to and in particular films that deal with the same story/structure that I want for my scripts.

3) Write! Everyday!
The most important thing. Hone my craft, don’t wait until I’ve done all the above. Change as you learn more lessons. I’ve got three drafts of sitcoms and three or more films outlined so I have scripts to work on. I’ve also had some new ideas over the year so its worth bashing them about a bit to see if any of them take shape.

So that’s the plan. I’ll try and keep you updated. Now back to it!

Feel free to add your own tips!

Advertisements