“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. I thought it an appropriate way to kick off this week’s worth of daily posts about writing a first draft. As I suggested last week, the only rule in my book about the first draft is to “Get the damn thing done!”
It’s one thing to read me saying it. It’s quite another when… well… 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.
So as you plow through a first draft, every time the voices in your head decry your efforts, make you second guess your story choices, and in general conspire to get you to quit, gather 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.”
“The Quest” has entered Week 16! And so did Go On Your Own Quest, an opportunity for anyone to follow the structure of “The Quest” to dig into screenwriting theory [Core — 8 weeks], figure out your story [Prep — 6 weeks], and write a first draft [Pages — 10 weeks]. It’s a 24-week immersion in the screenwriting process and you can do it here — for free!
Today and every Monday through Friday for 10 weeks, I’ll use this slot to post something inspirational as GOYOQ participants pound out their first drafts.
Why not use the structure of this 24-week workshop to Go On Your Own Quest? That was an idea that gathered energy among many members of the GITS community which I described here.
For more information on Go On Your Own Quest, go here.