2025 Zero Draft Thirty March Challenge: Day 21
One month. FADE IN to FADE OUT. Creativity meets Productivity.
One month. FADE IN to FADE OUT. Creativity meets Productivity.
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 21.
Write an entire draft of a script in September — FADE IN. FADE OUT. Or any sort of creative goal you have in front of you.
Feature length movie screenplay. Original TV pilot. Rewrite a current project. Break a story in prep. Generate a month’s worth of story concepts.
Whatever you feel will ratchet your creative ambitions into overdrive…
DO THAT!
As for me, I will spend the month rewriting a feature film spec script. It’s based on a story concept I came up with late last year and it may be the strongest comedy idea I’ve ever worked on. Now to take it to the next level.
If you join the Challenge, I will be right there with you writing each and every day in March! Let’s do this together!
Download your very own Zero Draft Thirty calendar — designed and created by Steven Dudley — and track your daily progress!
On Twitter, use this hashtag: #ZD30SCRIPT.
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Today’s Writing Quote
“Character IS plot. Character IS story.”
— Eleanor Perry
Today’s Inspirational Video
You. Can. Do. It.
Today’s Daily Dialogue Inspiration
I have dedicated the 2025 Zero Draft Thirty March Challenge to memorable movie dialogue. Today: Adaptation.
Adaptation is a wonderful movie, especially for screenwriters because there’s so much inside business material in it. For example, Charlie Kaufman is a Hollywood screenwriter, a close approximation to the real Charlie Kaufman. He is stuck adapting a book The Orchid Thief. In his desperation, he attends a Robert McKee seminar, then wrangles a one-on-one conversation with the screenwriting “guru.”
Here is McKee’s advice:
I’ll tell you a secret. The last act makes a film. Wow them in the end, and you got a hit. You can have flaws, problems, but wow them in the end, and you’ve got a hit. Find an ending, but don’t cheat, and don’t you dare bring in a deus ex machina. Your characters must change, and the change must come from them. Do that, and you’ll be fine.
And Kaufman — the real screenwriter — does precisely that in Act III of the movie. There the fictional Charlie Kaufman and his even more fictional twin brother Donald (entirely made up) get into an “everything but the kitchen sink” final act that involves sex, drugs, kidnapping, gunfire, alligators, car crashes, improbable deaths, and the above endearing confession scene.
You are what you love, not what loves you.
If you love writing, then guess what? You’re a writer.
Lean into that today: Day 21 of the Challenge.
Today’s Dalton Trumbo Award winner: Kathryn Dow.
Over at the Zero Draft Thirty Facebook group, Kathryn posted this:
Words of encouragement in a letter from the great Barbara Stanwyck to a writing class. I love her sign-off, “GO!”
Similar to the old saying, “If it ain’t on the page … it ain’t on the stage.” Although I would hasten to add the foundation of dialogue is …
CHARACTER!
When I teach, sometimes the words which emerge from my mouth turn out to be worthy of a screenwriting mantra. Here’s one I came up with recently:
What a character says and how they say it derives from who they are and where they are from.
This speaks to the manner of delivery. The substance of their dialogue is tied directly to the situation in which they find themselves in that moment.
Not to push back against Barbara Stanwyck. That’s impossible!
Go, indeed, Kathryn Dow for bringing Barbara Stanwyck to mind and her writing advice. For that, Kathryn, you are today’s recipient of the exalted Dalton Trumbo Award!
To learn more about Dalton Trumbo and his fascinating career as a screenwriter, go here.
For your chance to win the Dalton Trumbo Award, post something inspiring, here on the blog or the Facebook group.
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 1
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 2
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 3
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 4
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 5
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 6
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 7
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 8
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 9
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 10
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 11
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 12
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 13
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 14
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 15
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 16
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 17
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 18
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 19
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 20
Now Zeronauts …
Take Barbara Stanwyck’s advice and …
GO! WRITE! NOW!