Screenwriting 101: Barbara Stepansky

“There’s no easy solution to rewriting. For me writing the first draft is much easier than going back and rewriting it. You see all your flaws of your first draft, and you actually have to sit down and think about what you did there. Whereas before, you kind of do the vomit draft and you give yourself the liberty of not thinking about it, just to getting it on the page to see what’s going on. Then the second draft gets much more in depth and it takes longer, because now you’re really thinking. I never had a first draft that was perfect, but I had perfect sixth drafts. First, I go back focus on the big picture problems. Then I do the drafts that focus on specific characters or a specific issue. The script that I just wrote, I took the entire main location out after my first draft because it wasn’t working. It was a big picture rewrite, because I literally had to go into every scene and change everything. I’m trying to think of techniques of rewriting, but it’s literally just like slave work for me. It’s sitting there and really figuring it out.”

— Barbara Stepansky (2013 Nicholl winner, 2013 Black List)

From Go Into The Story interview, January 2014