10 Screenwriting Skills and Traits You Need
Screenwriting Skill #3: Experience. “Experience is not just about what you write. It’s also about how you live. You need a certain amount…
Screenwriting Skill #3: Experience. “Experience is not just about what you write. It’s also about how you live. You need a certain amount of living life to feed your creativity, your emotions, your soul.”
During the 12+ years I’ve run hosted Go Into The story, I have been privileged to conduct one-on-one interviews with over two hundred screenwriters including dozens of Black List and Nicholl Fellowship writers. Along the way, it’s been fascinating to learn the variety of approaches to the craft, yet at the same time how certain universal themes recur.
I was struck by five personality traits and five skill sets that keep popping up in these conversations, so I thought it would be helpful to do a series, a checklist if you will, of areas we can focus on as we develop as screenwriters.
Screenwriting Skill #3: Experience
Yesterday in reference to Knowledge, I mentioned my screenwriting mantra: Watch Movies. Read Scripts. Write Pages. And I noted how the first two fuel one’s Knowledge. Today we consider how the last one feeds the subject of today’s focus: Experience.
Obviously a screenwriter needs to put a certain amount of time into conjuring up ideas, developing stories, and pounding out pages. Whether it’s 10,000 hours, 100,000 pages, or 1,000,000 words, there is a kind of experience we can only have by writing… and writing a lot.
In that vein allow me to veer down memory lane. Before I was a screenwriter, I was a stand-up comic. And before I was a stand-up comic, I was a musician. In that capacity, I had the great pleasure of performing for 2 years with Pat Flynn [we went by Myers & O’Flynn]. After many years performing with the incomparable New Grass Revival, Pat was voted into the Hall of Fame by Frets magazine as an acoustic guitarist. Here you can get a taste of Pat’s incredible musicianship:
So here’s the story. In 1978–1979, one of the many gigs Pat and I landed was at a club in Snowmass Village (Colorado) called The Last Resort where we performed apre ski before heading off to our nighttime engagements in Aspen.
As it turns out, the owner of The Last Resort had a teenage son who wanted to learn how to play electric guitar. Just a few minutes watching Pat perform convinced The Kid this dude slashing mad riffs on his Ovation guitar was going to be his personal musical guru.
Wanting to keep the boss happy, Pat agreed to give The Kid guitar lessons. At their first session, Pat gave The Kid some scales to practice.
At the second session, The Kid shows up. Pat asks, “Did you do you scales?” The Kid replies, “Nah.” “Why not?” The Kid said, “Checked out my favorite band Wishbone Ash. Man, their lead guitarist learned how to play his wicked guitar totally by dropping acid.”
“I learned all my hot licks while taking LSD… not!”
Two choices: Work hard and practice scales or take acid and become a rock god.
Trust me, if you want to succeed as a screenwriter, the whole taking acid route is not the preferred path.
In my interviews and conversations with screenwriters, pounding out scripts is one common key: John Swetnam writing 17 scripts before landing a gig. Michael Werwie with 9 before winning the Nicholl. Carter Blanchard writing 15 drafts of “Glimmer” which went on to sell in a bidding war. This same refrain: You need to write to gain the experience necessary to succeed.
Of course, experience is not just about what you write. It’s also about how you live. You need a certain amount of living life to feed your creativity, your emotions, your soul.
But mostly it’s about writing pages. Find a story. Commit to it. And writing the hell out of it. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
That’s the main way you get experience.
Here’s a little Wishbone Ash for you:
Previous posts in this series on 5 Screenwriting Traits:
Previous post in this series on 5 Screenwriting Skills:
Tomorrow: Screenwriting Skill #4: Flexibility.