Freelance Writing Will Sharpen Your Screenwriting Skills
Posted: Thursday, August 04, 2011
by Sid Kali
Slice of Americana Films
Working as a freelance writer will sharpen your screenwriting skills like wet stone does a jungle machete. A writer’s mind can become an overgrown jungle that makes it very tough to cut a creative path to finishing a screenplay. I follow writer Jeanne V Bowerman (@jeannevb ) on Twitter. She wrote “I might write my next Balls piece on the value freelance writing has brought to my screenwriting skills.”
I’ve found a freelance writing niche working as a hired gun for environmental consultants and attorneys. My job is to write documentary style presentations that are geared towards winning the approval or denial (depending on the client) of a project from city governments and the local community. Other ones are written in a way to attract new clients for the environmental consulting or law firm. They are simply marketing pieces.
It’s been a radical change for me as a writer to work in this capacity. Screenwriting is such an open and creative way to tell a story. Freelance writing is very different. The client outlines what they need you to write. This means you have to able to take a rigid message and do your best to smooth it out. There is always a deadline to get a first draft done. Having to work with specific information in a certain amount of time sharpens your writing skills. You don’t have lots of time to waste mulling things over. This helps you become more productive when you’re writing a screenplay.
You’re better able cut through the jungle by eliminating things that slow many screenwriters down. These are usually procrastination, lack of focus, indecisiveness or writing too much fluff. I’ve read screenplays that are 150 pages or more that read more like novels than a movie script. Freelance writing teaches you to trim the fat off a script to make it leaner. A bloated screenplay will kill a movie during shooting.
It’s hard as a screenwriter not to fall in love with certain scenes or lines you’ve written. But if they are slowing down the story you have to cut them out. It can be compared to editing a movie for a filmmaker. You’re sitting with your post production team and some scenes you filmed that you love have to be cut to make the movie play better.
Freelance writing teaches you to let go much easier. In my freelance writer situation I submit a first draft to the client who along with their legal department looks at it. It comes back with detailed notes, redlines and legal jargon that has to be used. As a writer I strive to give clients creative scripts that fit neatly into their overall goal.
The value of the freelance writing experience is that it has sharpened my screenwriting machete. I’m not married to scenes or dialogue. No matter how much I may love them, if they’re slowing the story the down I’ll cut them from the screenplay without looking back. Working as a freelance writer also toughens you up to take constructive criticism that can end up helping you improve your screenplay. When a writer is overly sensitive about their work they spend more time being defensive instead of growing in their craft.
A chapter in my book “The First Movie is the Toughest” is dedicated to my screenwriting journey from idea to shooting script. I learned lessons the hard way and wanted to help aspiring screenwriters avoid those mistakes. The reader feedback on the screenwriting chapter has been extremely positive. It’s nice to know that being open and honest with people still works instead of selling people a line of hyped up BS.
Freelance writing will make you a stronger screenwriter. It conditions a writer’s mind to be creatively disciplined. This makes for a screenplay with a tight story, engaging characters and sharp dialogue. This is indie filmmaker Sid Kali typing FADE OUT
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)What a fantastic article, Sid, thanks! It inspired me, and I agree, writing well requires a sharp and disciplined mind.
I was on a course earlier this year and realized right at the beginning how defensive I was, and how much it had always held me back. It's very freeing to let go of it. For me it was kind of saying to myself "it's okay, you don't need to be perfect, and since you aren't anyway, you don't need to pretend"!!
As for your discovery that people still respond to openness and truth rather than hype and BS, amen to that.Please log in to respond to this comment.
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