BIGGEST MISTAKE I MADE AS A NEW SCREENWRITER
When I first arrived in Hollywood I was constantly bombarded with the same two pieces of advice. The first was to pack up my car and drive as far and as fast as I could out of here. Everyone I seemed to meet was leaving – actors, writers, filmmakers. Everyone who seemed intelligent and cool that I would meet when I went out were leaving. One model/actor who was on a billboard for a famous brand on Sunset Strip even went so far as to say that Hollywood is a meat grinder and to get out before you get sucked in. When I asked where he was heading. He told me he was heading back to Buffalo to work as a waiter! Now, if you are willing to do that, then Hollywood must be hell.
For some it is. I have never grown to like living in Los Angeles but that’s another story. What this is about is advice, and I never took that advice. I didn’t turn around and leave. I stuck it out. This is no longer the case for writers though. You don’t have to be in LA to write and you definitely shouldn’t come to LA to be a writer until you have all your material set to go. But it was the second piece of advice everyone gave me that was even more detrimental to my career as a writer and another one I didn’t take.
Older writers would always say in some version or another that entertainment is a horrible business and LA is terrible place when your poor. So if you’re not going to leave, if you are going to stay and pursue writing then you should read as many scripts as you can. Read the classics, read the winners, read the money-makers, read your friend’s, read for competitions, just read, read, read scripts!
That’s it. READ SCRIPTS.
I didn’t heed this piece of advice either until much later in my career. And now that I am working as a writer and development exec, all I do is read and I wish I had done this when I first started.
Sure when I was starting out I was reading every writing book I could find. There weren’t nearly as many as there are now, but the WGA library was always a great resource. But for some reason, I still never really took up reading scripts as everyone recommended. At one point I was hired to read scripts for a famous director but most of these were just garbage scripts that agents had been trying to pass off for years from well known writers who got lazy with their writing. Still, there was much to learn from these scripts, even if their stories didn’t quite pan out.
There are things you can learn from reading scripts of every level that you will never find in a book. But the best place to start reading scripts is with two sources.
First, try reading every script that has won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay. You can find the list of them here:
Many of the older movies and scripts have great stories and structure even if they are not written in the light handed way of modern screenplays. There is so much to learn here about great writing.
Next, go to AFI’s Top 100 films of all time and read all of these. Many of these will overlap with the Academy Awards but there is still a lot to go on.
Once you read through the scripts of masters, then you should read every script you can get your hands on. Read from your writers group, read movies you love, read scripts people share on line. Read anything you can to build your understanding of screenwriting. What this will do is several things:
Grow your understanding of story structure in a screenplay format. It’s much different from reading a novel.
You will see what works, what doesn’t, what pays off in a story and how it is seeding throughout.
Show how emotion is core to a story and how to tease it out in a script.
You’ll find examples of great dialogue, description or sluglines and how to use them.
You will learn from the masters and then see how new writers are developing on their shoulders or how they are not and why their stories fail.
You will learn basic screenplay formatting if you don’t already know it. You’ll internalize it.
You’ll see what works and what doesn’t and eventually, if you read enough, you’ll come to know why.
I should have done this when it was first recommended to me. I can’t imagine how much time and effort it would have saved me if I focused on this when I was starting out.
Please heed my and dozens of other writer’s advice and read as many screenplays as you can while you master the craft. It will elevate your abilities exponentially when it comes to story.
Here are links to all the places you can find scripts and the best lists of all the top scripts -
Scripts on Screen - Your first stop in your search - the movie script search engine! With over 9,000 films indexed from 300+ sites
IMSDB - Top source for screenplays and the most up to date.
Simply Scripts - The old school king of screenplay archives. You can find most anything on here, especially those on any top list of film screenplays like AFI Top 100 or the Oscar winners.
Drew’s Script-o-Rama - One of the originals, still holding strong. Also, will provide the draft versions of scripts so you can see what has changed.
Screenplays for You - Similar to the others but another one to try for those scripts that are elusive.
Daily Scripts - Another old school archive with some TV Scripts in there.
The Script Lab - The most modern day database of scripts with up to date movies and shows.
Movie Scripts and Screenplays - Another old school one when you are searching for that script no one seems to have.
TV Writing - This used to be a Hollywood insider’s secret stash we used back int he day. Now it is the end all, be all of TV scripts.