BALLS OF STEEL™: How Long Does It Take to Finish a Script?

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As I sat in my Panera office today writing, a friend popped in asking what I was working on. When I responded that I had another rewrite of Slavery by Another Name(SBAN) to get done, she gasped, “You’re STILL working on that script… hasn’t it been like 100 years since you started?”

My response, “Bleep, bleep, bleepity bleep, you bleepity bleep.”

Well, that was the response I gave in my head. The real one was, “No, not quite 100 years. Just four.”

When is a script ready to go out into the world?

Believe me, I’ve asked that question dozens of times, and when I started screenwriting, I gave myself the wrong answer almost as many (if you want to know just how many, read Balls of Steel:Dear New Screenwriter). In fact, I made the biggest, and most common, mistake a screenwriter can make – sending a script out too soon.

Kiss. Of. Death.

I know how exciting it is to type “FADE OUT” on your very first draft of your very first script. My eyes were full of tears as my printer shot out that final page. I clutched my warm, virgin script in my hands, hunting for brads to secure her together.

I wanted to scream from the rooftops and query any exec I could, “MY BABY HAS ARRIVED!”

*Screech of the breaks*

Don’t do that. EVER!

Instead, take that spanking new baby of yours and shove it in a dark, cold drawer… for about four weeks. Start something else. Distract yourself. Let her simmer in that dark place until she stops crying for you to pick her up. Tough love is what your baby needs.

Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite… until your head explodes.

We finished our first draft of SBAN on April 29, 2010… but who’s keeping track? By April 29, 2013, I will have draft number “I lost count” almost done. In the three years we’ve been rewriting this script, it has seen more changes than Taylor Swift’s relationship status.

During those three years, yes, we did pitch the script to some major players despite it not being perfect. In hindsight, I wish we held onto to it just a little bit more before unveiling her. But we wanted our narrative script to be ready by the time the documentary version of SBAN premiered at Sundance in 2012 and that required us to take some risks. We pushed to get it into the right hands, trying to ride the doc’s wave and hoping to gain support and the notes of top talent. Each draft we did, we thought was “the one,” until we got those notes. The more attention our script got, the higher up the food chain we were able to go… again, getting more notes. Each set of notes elevated our next rewrite.

With each pitch and each rejection, we added a new person and studio to our network. While they passed, they still believed in the project and in our ability to make it what it needed to be in order to be marketable and for someone to be willing to take the risk to spend millions of dollars to make it.

Because that is what your script has to tell anyone reading it – this is worth our spending MILLIONS of dollars on. We believe in it that much.

Not an easy task.

Why would someone spend millions of dollars? To make millions of dollars. The only way to do that is to attract an amazing group of artists to your story – director, actors, cinematographers, etc. Your script is merely a canvas for all of them to bring to life.

Take off the rose-colored glasses.

So before you submit your script to someone, ask these questions:

You need to be THAT proud of it. That confident of it. That secure in your efforts.

I want you to write this down somewhere in your pitching file and read it every single time you want to submit your script:

The first impression is a lasting impression.

One of the many things I’ve learned from Doug Richardson is when a Hollywood exec reads your script it’s for their job, not for their pleasure. You need to shock the hell out of them and make it a pleasurable read so they forget they're working as they devour your pages.

Now, it’s ready to pitch.