“Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it”

“Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.”

“Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.”

That’s a quote from author and screenwriter Neil Gaiman. It echoes the only rule in my book about the first draft: “Get the damn thing done!”

It’s one thing for me to say it. It’s quite another when it’s… Neil Gaiman.

Finish it. How many scripts or stories have you started that you haven’t made through the first draft process? You might take a few minutes, dredge through your memory banks and draw up a list of unfinished projects.

I just did. I surfaced a half-dozen of them. One I have an excuse for: A spec script sold with the very same premise while I was writing it. The others? No excuse, just allowed them to drivel into non-existence.

I’m not recommending you assay your history of unfinished stories to make you feel bad. Rather to drive home one point of subtext in Gaiman’s quote:

If you don’t finish it, it doesn’t exist.

And if it doesn’t exist, you can’t sell it. Or get interest from managers or agents. In fact, you don’t have anything unless you have a completed script.

So as you plow through a draft, every time the voices in your head decry your efforts, make you second guess story choices, and in general conspire to get you to quit, take strength from Gaiman’s words. Embrace them like a personal credo. An act of faith. A pledge on behalf of your creativity… and your story.

Your story desperately wants to come into existence. But you can only do that by getting from FADE IN to FADE OUT.

“Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.”