Screenwriting 101: Scott Neustadter
“I love writing, but what I really love is having written. I don’t like anything I write. Twice in my life — reality/expectations and the…
“I love writing, but what I really love is having written. I don’t like anything I write. Twice in my life — reality/expectations and the bench scene in (500) Days of Summer — I finished a scene, read what I wrote, and went ‘yup, that’s it. That’s as good as I can do.’ Every other time I’m disappointed. In my head, the scene is bananas amazing, but in execution I think it’s just meh. But then someone else will read it and they’ll laugh or be moved hopefully, or just be pretty psyched about it and I can take a little satisfaction in having exceeded someone else’s expectations of me. Because I know I’ll never be able to exceed my own.”
— Scott Neustadter
Here are the two scenes Scott mentions:
Great scenes any of us would be ecstatic to have written. Thankfully, Scott and his writing partner Michael H. Weber wrote them.