Screenwriting 101: Frank Darabont

“Don’t get into this business if it’s about trying to make a million-dollar sale. We’ve got plenty of assholes around trying to achieve that goal. There are more dilettantes in the game than real, committed, I’m-gonna-go-down-swinging kinda people. We need more of the latter and less of the former. We need people who care about this as an art form. Movies should count for more than an opening-weekend gross, because whatever had a huge gross this week, will they be talking about it in fifty years? Will it be credit to the art form, the way we talk about Casablanca?

They don’t bury you with your bank account. But if you make something great, they’ll remember you forever. That’s what makes people sit down and develop their skills, and make the most of whatever talent God or the random universe has given you. Don’t talk about being a screenwriter. Sit your ass in the chair, and even if it takes you ten years — or nine years, like it took me — to start working as a professional, develop and hone your skills. Don’t think that the first thing you’re gonna write is gonna sell for a million dollars, ’cause I got news for you: It ain’t.

I wasn’t born into this, and I’m very lucky to be where I am, but it took a lot of effort and a lot of commitment to get there. You know, the harder you work, the more you make your luck. But if I’m any example, I would say that anything truly is possible. It’s the Wild West, man. You can ride into town and you can wind up wearing a sheriff’s badge if you want. But you gotta believe that that’s possible, and then you’ve gotta work really hard for it, and not feel sorry for yourself ’cause all your friends are out gettin’ drunk and gettin’ laid and partyin’ while you’re sitting at home through most of your twenties writing, trying to tell a story that’s gonna shock somebody or make somebody cry or make somebody laugh. How much do you love it? How much are you willing to give it? Only the person reading this can answer that.”

— Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Mist), excerpted from “Tales From the Script”