10 Traits of a Good Script
10 Traits of a Good Script
Up to 100.000 scripts are submitted in USA every year. But on average no more than just 12 are bought by each major studio and only about 3 or 4 make it to pre-production. This is the harsh truth of film business. So for your script to stand a chance of getting on a big screen it’s absolutely necessary to follow the rules listed below. Anyway, if you cross-check them with the movies we all know and love, you’ll see - the majority of them meet the most of these requirements. So here are the traits that any great script must possess:
1. Properly formatted
Producers hire professional readers to save their time. Imagine how many scripts they receive and have to go through!
That’s why a font of 12 Courier and all that goes along is a must. Proper scriptwriting software - makes a writer’s life a lot easier and helps concentrate on the creative part.
2. Fresh concept
It doesn’t have to be a high concept script, meaning it tells a story never ever told before. But it has to be a fresh take on the existing concept if you want to catch a reader’s attention. A great plot can be pitched in a few sentences and leave the audience craving for more.
3. Gripping
After all, it’s all about the story.
It always has a hook - something that keeps you guessing why this or that happened and what is going to happen next. It is well paced, constantly surprising, with sudden plot turns along with a satisfying and unpredictable ending
4. Visual
"Show not tell” - they say this to students in all the film schools for a reason. Yet most rookie films tend to plunge into unnecessary ranting. This, of course, can’t be said about movies based on a solid script. Remember - one good piece of action can replace a thousand words. And action doesn’t necessarily mean the kind of stuff you encounter in any Michael Bay movie.
5. Strong main character
It’s key to have a person who drives the story forward, someone all can root for. All great scripts have them - guys that are easy to relate to, likeable (but not necessarily luscious), with their weaknesses and, most importantly, a goal.
Raising the stakes of him losing gives the story even more power.
6. Escalating conflict
The path to the goal for a hero can never be too easy - otherwise all his efforts will be in vain and leave the audience unimpressed. There must be obstacles that prevent the main character from doing what he needs to do - up to the point of rendering it completely unrealistic.
7. Snappy dialogue
When a script is visual and action-packed, the dialogue is freed from the burden of explaining the events. Here’s where the characters step up and burst with cracking lines that keep the audience entertained. An experienced writer always puts opposing personalities in a confined space, makes them interact and sees what happens.
8. Fat free
An exemplary script is brief and concise. It stays within 90 to 120 pages and doesn’t try to test the audience’s patience. It’s a rule of thumb to convey the idea of what the character is after by the 20-th page and bring the story to resolution no later than page 110. It’s usually a result of not being too attached to every word and following the golden principle:
Сutting out the unnecessary is essential - and it’s amazing how much fat can actually be trimmed!
9. Realistic
Writers who delve too carelessly into their imagination sometimes forget about such a prosy thing as a potential film’s budget. It’s generally a good idea to stay pragmatic and write scripts with achievable production values. And that’s usually what all the succesful filmmakers did before reaching their well-earned glory.
10. X factor
This one as the hardest of all to grasp, because without it even the purest scripts that stay true to the rules above can badly fail. It’s almost impossible to explain, but you’ll see it in every acclaimed movie - something magical, that makes it special. Be it talent, or luck, or years of hard work - this last one is for you to find out. Good luck!
6 Essential Traits of a Great Drama Screenplay
Drama strikes at the heart of what it means to be human.
The “drama” genre has evolved from an all-encompassing understanding of performance art into a more precise manner of storytelling. Despite this narrowing of focus, drama remains a multifaceted genre that draws in viewers from all walks of life. There are many elements of the drama genre that a screenwriter can utilize in order to create a memorable experience for readers.
Recommended blog post: Do you REALLY Know What Genre Your Screenplay Is?
A great drama has the ability to speak universal truths that connect cultures from around the world on an interpersonal level. Wherever these stories are spun, they are tales that transcend boundaries because of their humanistic nature.
ScreenCraft contributor Ken Miyamoto best described drama as “a state, situation, or series of events involving interesting or intense conflict of forces.”
Drama is created when a heightened sense of reality is portrayed through relatable human experience. It’s the performance of our relationship with the world and others. Human history is drama. In Aristotelian thought, drama would be more akin to tragedy, dealing with serious, important, and virtuous people, in contrast to comedy which deals with human weaknesses and foibles.
Since the dawn of Hollywood, great dramas have been celebrated as the pinnacle of cinematic art.
Recommended screenplay competition:
What are some of the most essential traits of great drama screenplays?
1. Conflict
It all begins with conflict.
A hunter tracks down a wounded deer and discovers a drug deal gone wrong. He is met with a choice. He decides to take the money, kicking off a chain reaction of events that leaves a whole lotta death and destruction in its wake. In No Country For Old Men, if Llewelyn Moss had never taken that money, then he would have no conflict — and no story to tell.
This scene is a series of small conflicts that leads the main character from one critical decision to the next. His fate is an accumulation of his decisions.
- Conflict #1: Llewelyn shoots a deer but doesn’t kill it, so he has to track it.
- Conflict #2: Llewelyn finds a separate trail of blood and spots a wounded dog.
- Conflict #3: He tracks the second trail of blood and finds the shoot out. A wounded man asks for water. This leads to more conflict later when Llewelyn makes the decision to honor the request.
- Conflict #4: Llewelyn hunts down the last man standing and takes the money.
Conflict forces the protagonist out of their comfort zone. Everything is hinged on the decisions that the character makes throughout their journey. It’s how the character responds and reacts to conflict that drives the plot forward and ultimately defines them. Usually, it’s the characters’ bad decisions that get them in trouble in the first place.
For Llewelyn, his decision to take the cash creates a trail of blood money that leads a homicidal maniac and a cartel to his front door, tracking him down like a wounded deer. The hunt is on the moment he makes his choice.
2. Character
The most memorable characters connect with audiences on a deeper level because of their vulnerability. Audiences need to care for the characters. Even antiheroes like Walter White garner sympathy despite their increasingly villainous actions.
Audiences want characters to make the right decisions based on real life expectations. As an example of a “pure” character that most audiences adore, let’s look no further than Rudy.
Audiences root for Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger because he always tries to do the right thing. His flaw is something that he can’t change. He’s too small for his big dreams. He’s resigned to follow in the footsteps of his father and brothers and work in a steel mill for the rest of his life. His best friend Pete is the only person who believes in his dream to play football for Notre Dame. When Pete dies in a work accident, Rudy is called into action.
Rudy is a likable underdog character that routinely fails despite his best efforts. The repeated failures only push him to work harder, which endears him even more to audiences. It’s Rudy’s relatability that makes his character so defined. Every hard worker with a dream sees a little bit of themselves in Rudy’s resolve.
3. Character Arc
A character can’t remain stagnant. They have to realize their flaws at some point and make an effort to overcome them. Seeing how it’s usually the character’s main flaw that gets them into hot water in the first place, this becomes what they need to change in order for resolution. Some characters rise to the occasion while others falter. Think of the two characters in Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born, Ally and Jackson Maine.
After discovering Ally’s raw talent in a bar and falling in love with her, country singer Jackson Maine slips deeper into a hole of addiction as his popularity wanes. Meanwhile, Ally’s star rises which creates conflict that jeopardizes Ally’s aspirations and spells ruin for what’s left of Jackson’s stifling career. Ally has to make choices that put her career first, or else she might sink with him — leading to different ends of the character arc spectrum.
One character rises while the other falls, serving as a cautionary tale for our protagonist Ally on the price of fame as she reaches her pinnacle moment. The emotional turmoil of losing her husband leads to her emancipation.
If only it didn’t have to be so hard for our characters to reach their full potential — but it does.
The more your characters overcome, the greater the payoff is at the end of your script. Audiences want that triumphant moment like in The Pursuit of Happyness. For two hours audiences watched Chris Gardner suffer. Two hours of sacrifice and hard work and steady losing. Then, when he finally wins and steps outside after landing the big job, the audience takes that breath of fresh air with him. His tears are their tears. His triumph is theirs too because they were with him every painful step of the way.
4. Blend Genres
An incredibly dazzling display of emotional range can be found in the series Fleabag by super creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge. In the first season, a young woman grieves the death of her best friend the only way she knows how — by sleeping with different men and generally living up to her moniker.
The first season’s running joke is Fleabag’s capacity to seemingly have no limit in her taste for men. Her sexual appetite introduces the audience to great comedic relief characters that are punctuated by Fleabag’s witty introspections and fourth wall breaks.
The punchline of the first season’s running joke is the perfunctory reason behind her best friend’s death. The dramatic reveal leaves the audience feeling a conflicted mix of emotions — knowing that the character flaw that made them laugh all season is the very thing that made them cry.
The ability to manipulate an audience’s emotions from laughter to tears, then back to laughter again is an essential trait of great storytelling. If your story produces the desired emotional effect that you wish to elicit — whether that’s to cry, scare, or laugh — then you are doing your job as the writer.
Life isn’t singular — it’s a vast range of emotions and experiences. To go back to Bharata’s Rasa theory — the principle human feelings are, “delight, laughter, sorrow, anger, energy, fear, disgust, heroism, and astonishment.”
Use them all.
5. Authenticity
The greatest stories ever told are rooted in reality, however fantastic they might be. They speak on uncomfortable truths felt by all but only spoken by the few and the brave. Stories such as Fleabag come across so personally because they’re written with a vivid rawness that is almost autobiographical. Audiences crave stories that are real.
Sure, nonsensical action blockbusters will always be a thing — but with the rise in streaming platforms and the influence of social media — audiences are responding to a new wave of realism with record breaking support. Content has never been more accessible. That means there’s a high demand for new stories told by new voices.
Oftentimes a writer might think, “Whoa, this is way too personal. I can’t possibly include it in my script.”
You should. By being vulnerable with yourself, you are being vulnerable with your audience. This makes your characters more relatable and everything much more layered. Someone out there is going through the very same thing that you are, hoping they are not alone. Show them that they aren’t.
Be true to yourself. Be fearless. Be real.
6. Relevance
This is an often overlooked trait. It’s what will “hook” a producer or development executive who asks “why this, why now?”
How does your screenplay reflect the social dynamics of the setting?
Historical, biopic, military, and other true stories remain popular sub-genres of drama because they cover events and public figures that are already well known by audiences — giving these films the ability to make sales on the subject matter alone. Despite the date or location of your screenplay, all art is reflective of the time in which it is created. Why does your story need to be told right now?
Our favorite hapless hero Forrest Gump exemplifies this. Forrest Gump was released in 1994 on the tail end of the millennium. It was a reflective and nostalgic time that called back to previous eras and subcultures.
Forrest meandered through the greatest milestones of recent American history, depicting the coming of age story of an entire generation that will never get old. History is always relevant.
___
Drama is everywhere.
It’s in the stories we tell our co-workers during break or family members at dinner. It is a fixture of our daily lives. Some people thrive on it. Others don’t want no drama. Regardless, there is no escaping it, so writers channel it into their work whether they realize it or not.
The writer who is able to translate the complexities of being human with empathy and compassion through their own unique point of view is well on their way to writing the next great drama screenplay.
6 Essential Traits of a Great Drama Screenplay
Drama strikes at the heart of what it means to be human.
The “drama” genre has evolved from an all-encompassing understanding of performance art into a more precise manner of storytelling. Despite this narrowing of focus, drama remains a multifaceted genre that draws in viewers from all walks of life. There are many elements of the drama genre that a screenwriter can utilize in order to create a memorable experience for readers.
Recommended blog post: Do you REALLY Know What Genre Your Screenplay Is?
A great drama has the ability to speak universal truths that connect cultures from around the world on an interpersonal level. Wherever these stories are spun, they are tales that transcend boundaries because of their humanistic nature.
ScreenCraft contributor Ken Miyamoto best described drama as “a state, situation, or series of events involving interesting or intense conflict of forces.”
Drama is created when a heightened sense of reality is portrayed through relatable human experience. It’s the performance of our relationship with the world and others. Human history is drama. In Aristotelian thought, drama would be more akin to tragedy, dealing with serious, important, and virtuous people, in contrast to comedy which deals with human weaknesses and foibles.
Since the dawn of Hollywood, great dramas have been celebrated as the pinnacle of cinematic art.
Recommended screenplay competition:
What are some of the most essential traits of great drama screenplays?
1. Conflict
It all begins with conflict.
A hunter tracks down a wounded deer and discovers a drug deal gone wrong. He is met with a choice. He decides to take the money, kicking off a chain reaction of events that leaves a whole lotta death and destruction in its wake. In No Country For Old Men, if Llewelyn Moss had never taken that money, then he would have no conflict — and no story to tell.
This scene is a series of small conflicts that leads the main character from one critical decision to the next. His fate is an accumulation of his decisions.
- Conflict #1: Llewelyn shoots a deer but doesn’t kill it, so he has to track it.
- Conflict #2: Llewelyn finds a separate trail of blood and spots a wounded dog.
- Conflict #3: He tracks the second trail of blood and finds the shoot out. A wounded man asks for water. This leads to more conflict later when Llewelyn makes the decision to honor the request.
- Conflict #4: Llewelyn hunts down the last man standing and takes the money.
Conflict forces the protagonist out of their comfort zone. Everything is hinged on the decisions that the character makes throughout their journey. It’s how the character responds and reacts to conflict that drives the plot forward and ultimately defines them. Usually, it’s the characters’ bad decisions that get them in trouble in the first place.
For Llewelyn, his decision to take the cash creates a trail of blood money that leads a homicidal maniac and a cartel to his front door, tracking him down like a wounded deer. The hunt is on the moment he makes his choice.
2. Character
The most memorable characters connect with audiences on a deeper level because of their vulnerability. Audiences need to care for the characters. Even antiheroes like Walter White garner sympathy despite their increasingly villainous actions.
Audiences want characters to make the right decisions based on real life expectations. As an example of a “pure” character that most audiences adore, let’s look no further than Rudy.
Audiences root for Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger because he always tries to do the right thing. His flaw is something that he can’t change. He’s too small for his big dreams. He’s resigned to follow in the footsteps of his father and brothers and work in a steel mill for the rest of his life. His best friend Pete is the only person who believes in his dream to play football for Notre Dame. When Pete dies in a work accident, Rudy is called into action.
Rudy is a likable underdog character that routinely fails despite his best efforts. The repeated failures only push him to work harder, which endears him even more to audiences. It’s Rudy’s relatability that makes his character so defined. Every hard worker with a dream sees a little bit of themselves in Rudy’s resolve.
3. Character Arc
A character can’t remain stagnant. They have to realize their flaws at some point and make an effort to overcome them. Seeing how it’s usually the character’s main flaw that gets them into hot water in the first place, this becomes what they need to change in order for resolution. Some characters rise to the occasion while others falter. Think of the two characters in Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born, Ally and Jackson Maine.
After discovering Ally’s raw talent in a bar and falling in love with her, country singer Jackson Maine slips deeper into a hole of addiction as his popularity wanes. Meanwhile, Ally’s star rises which creates conflict that jeopardizes Ally’s aspirations and spells ruin for what’s left of Jackson’s stifling career. Ally has to make choices that put her career first, or else she might sink with him — leading to different ends of the character arc spectrum.
One character rises while the other falls, serving as a cautionary tale for our protagonist Ally on the price of fame as she reaches her pinnacle moment. The emotional turmoil of losing her husband leads to her emancipation.
If only it didn’t have to be so hard for our characters to reach their full potential — but it does.
The more your characters overcome, the greater the payoff is at the end of your script. Audiences want that triumphant moment like in The Pursuit of Happyness. For two hours audiences watched Chris Gardner suffer. Two hours of sacrifice and hard work and steady losing. Then, when he finally wins and steps outside after landing the big job, the audience takes that breath of fresh air with him. His tears are their tears. His triumph is theirs too because they were with him every painful step of the way.
4. Blend Genres
An incredibly dazzling display of emotional range can be found in the series Fleabag by super creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge. In the first season, a young woman grieves the death of her best friend the only way she knows how — by sleeping with different men and generally living up to her moniker.
The first season’s running joke is Fleabag’s capacity to seemingly have no limit in her taste for men. Her sexual appetite introduces the audience to great comedic relief characters that are punctuated by Fleabag’s witty introspections and fourth wall breaks.
The punchline of the first season’s running joke is the perfunctory reason behind her best friend’s death. The dramatic reveal leaves the audience feeling a conflicted mix of emotions — knowing that the character flaw that made them laugh all season is the very thing that made them cry.
The ability to manipulate an audience’s emotions from laughter to tears, then back to laughter again is an essential trait of great storytelling. If your story produces the desired emotional effect that you wish to elicit — whether that’s to cry, scare, or laugh — then you are doing your job as the writer.
Life isn’t singular — it’s a vast range of emotions and experiences. To go back to Bharata’s Rasa theory — the principle human feelings are, “delight, laughter, sorrow, anger, energy, fear, disgust, heroism, and astonishment.”
Use them all.
5. Authenticity
The greatest stories ever told are rooted in reality, however fantastic they might be. They speak on uncomfortable truths felt by all but only spoken by the few and the brave. Stories such as Fleabag come across so personally because they’re written with a vivid rawness that is almost autobiographical. Audiences crave stories that are real.
Sure, nonsensical action blockbusters will always be a thing — but with the rise in streaming platforms and the influence of social media — audiences are responding to a new wave of realism with record breaking support. Content has never been more accessible. That means there’s a high demand for new stories told by new voices.
Oftentimes a writer might think, “Whoa, this is way too personal. I can’t possibly include it in my script.”
You should. By being vulnerable with yourself, you are being vulnerable with your audience. This makes your characters more relatable and everything much more layered. Someone out there is going through the very same thing that you are, hoping they are not alone. Show them that they aren’t.
Be true to yourself. Be fearless. Be real.
6. Relevance
This is an often overlooked trait. It’s what will “hook” a producer or development executive who asks “why this, why now?”
How does your screenplay reflect the social dynamics of the setting?
Historical, biopic, military, and other true stories remain popular sub-genres of drama because they cover events and public figures that are already well known by audiences — giving these films the ability to make sales on the subject matter alone. Despite the date or location of your screenplay, all art is reflective of the time in which it is created. Why does your story need to be told right now?
Our favorite hapless hero Forrest Gump exemplifies this. Forrest Gump was released in 1994 on the tail end of the millennium. It was a reflective and nostalgic time that called back to previous eras and subcultures.
Forrest meandered through the greatest milestones of recent American history, depicting the coming of age story of an entire generation that will never get old. History is always relevant.
___
Drama is everywhere.
It’s in the stories we tell our co-workers during break or family members at dinner. It is a fixture of our daily lives. Some people thrive on it. Others don’t want no drama. Regardless, there is no escaping it, so writers channel it into their work whether they realize it or not.
The writer who is able to translate the complexities of being human with empathy and compassion through their own unique point of view is well on their way to writing the next great drama screenplay.
8 Qualities That Make an Average Screenwriter Great
“Greatness is not this wonderful, esoteric, elusive, godlike feature that only the special among us will ever taste, it’s something that truly exists in all of us.” — Will Smith
Hollywood and beyond is full of tens of thousands of screenwriters, most of whom, sadly, will likely never see their dreams come true. Those that do make it often share many of the same qualities. These qualities are the difference makers. They are what takes a novice or average screenwriter and makes them stand out among the crowd of tens of thousands. Below we’ll explore eight of these qualities in detail and showcase how attaining and honing these qualities will make any screenwriter better, and hopefully many more, great.
1. Vision
The ability to see your stories through the mind’s eye before placing any word on paper. Too many writers simply write page to page, plotting out the movie, and make choices strictly to get from point A to point B and beyond. The great writers can SEE the movie already from the perspective of an audience. “Write what you know” is one of the most misleading phrases given to aspiring screenwriters in books, seminars, etc. Better to tell them “Write what you love,” as far as genre, atmosphere, and what you love to see in the movie theater. But as far as vision goes, best to say “Write what you can see.” If you can’t see the scene and eventual compilation of scenes in your head, edited and shot like a film you see in theaters, then best to consider another avenue of expression and certainly another career.
2. Confidence over Ego
It takes time to get to this stage, but screenwriters need to be confident in their work. Writers will always have various forms of self-doubt, but in order to have a career in screenwriting you need the ability to go into a conference call or meeting room, know your story, know your strengths, and be able to communicate on an equal level — rather than looking up with nervous puppy eyes to the executives and powers that be.
That said, you need to know that ego is not confidence. Ego is a facade.
“You need to buy my script because if you don’t, someone else will because my writing is better than anyone out there.”
Ego will get you nowhere. You need to be someone an executive or producer wants to work and collaborate with — not battle with. So throw away your books written by Joe Eszterhas. That’s not what Hollywood wants. They want someone confident in their own work, so they know they can ask for what they need and trust you to deliver the goods.
3. Collaborative Skills
Plain and simple. If you are someone that can absorb notes from producers and studios and understand that in the end, you are hired to do a job, and then find a way for those notes to work within the confines of your own writing wants, you’ll be one step ahead of most. Know when to choose your battles. Know when to back off and accept what you’ve been given. Understand that film is a collaborative effort and while the whole process truly starts with the written word — beyond the spark of the concept in one’s mind — it most certainly does not end with just that.
In short, be someone they can work with and someone that they want to work with. Know that you’re not always right and that others can improve your work. And even when you think what they want is not something you agree with, be able to roll with it anyway and make their notes work.
4. Resilience
You will fail. You WILL fail. You will fail more than you prevail. Even the most successful screenwriters in past and present have failed more than they have prevailed.
If you don’t have thick skin, you won’t make it. If you can’t take notes from others on your writing, you won’t make it. If you can’t take a hit, get up, brush yourself off, and then do the same over and over and over, you won’t make it in this profession.
You need to be able to handle adversity on any given day.
You need to be able to deal with the “sure thing” deal with a studio falling through at the last minute because of some lame reason that has nothing to do with you.
You need to be able to deal with rejection after rejection.
You need to be resilient and have the ability to get back on your feet and jump through the fire again and again until you make it. Sometimes you need to be resilient for years — a decade. Be resilient.
5. Know Your Industry
If you’re an aspiring screenwriter and have no idea what’s going on in the film industry, you won’t make it.
You need to read the trades.
You need to know what movies are being made and who is making them.
You need to know the studios, the executives, the producers, the talent, etc.
You need to know who is a player in the current game.
Every day there are writers that see stars after they get their script to someone of the caliber of, say, Kirk Cameron, and think that their script is going to get made and they’re going to reap the benefits. It’s Kirk Cameron, folks. Growing Pains was awesome, but even back then he couldn’t get a movie greenlit. Take a co-star from any major television series right now — even they can’t get a movie greenlit most of the time.
Know the industry. Know what’s in development, what’s in development hell, what’s being produced, what’s in production, what’s in post, and when those movies are coming out.
Know which films opened big, opened small but grew, bombed, etc. Read Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, IMDBPro, Box Office Mojo, etc.
Know your industry because if you do get to a level where you are talking with agents, managers, execs, producers, and talent, you’ll want to be able to sit down and have a conversation with them.
“Oh, James Cameron is developing Avatar 2 and 3? Awesome!” That won’t play too well.
6. Know the Guidelines and Expectations
This can obviously fall under the above fifth quality but needs to be touched on. Be ready to forget Robert McKee or Blake Snyder, as well as others. It’s all theory. There is no secret formula for success. There are no rules. As William Goldman famously said, “Nobody knows anything.” It’s great food for the brain, and you should explore all angles, knowledge, and perspectives that you can, but in the end, it’s you alone in front of that screen. All you can do is know the guidelines and expectations of the film industry. The rest is up to you and your storytelling abilities.
Even if you can tell a great story, but can’t follow the guidelines and expectations, you’ll go nowhere.
Know that a 145-page screenplay won’t get read on spec.
Know that if you don’t correctly format your script, it probably won’t get read.
Know that if you don’t engage the reader with those first few pages, the script will be tossed aside.
Know that if you don’t keep everything (scene descriptions, scenes, dialogue, etc.) short, sweet, and to the point, your scripts won’t be considered.
The two books that are recommended the most in that respect are The Screenwriter’s Bible and How NOT To Write a Screenplay. That’s all you need. Beyond that, read produced scripts that can be found online, or even through ScreenCraft’s Download 70 Screenplays Legally and Free. You’ll quickly learn the guidelines and expectations from those resources alone.
7. Know How to Handle Any Success
Be ready. Prepare yourself. If you’ve been querying left and right, trying to get somebody to read your script, and then you finally get a bite from a notable player? That’s a successful first venture. But you better have a fantastic script because you’ll burn that bridge with your first step if it’s not.
Thus, you don’t go out and spend a year marketing your first script. Your first script is and will be your worst.
Let’s say your script makes it through the studio walls, you’ve found someone who likes it, and you take a few meetings. The next question they’ll ask is, “What else do you have?” How are you going to be able to handle that successful venture? Do you have any other notable scripts? If not, you’re in trouble.
Furthermore, let’s say you finally nab an option on your script. You get a couple thousand bucks. Great. Now what? How do you handle that success? Do you stop and wait for this project to get made? You better not because there are tens of thousands of projects that have been optioned or purchased and have never seen the light of day.
Keep writing. Keep moving and shaking because obviously you’ve done something right.
Lastly, let’s say you finally get something produced. Excellent. Go celebrate. But what’s next? How are you going to handle the success? What if the film bombs? Will you be resilient enough to get back up and start that whole process over? What if it succeeds? Have you prepared yourself? Is your writing up to par to handle an even bigger project with bigger expectations? Will you let the poison of ego seep into your soul because of said success, or will you be humble and accept your next assignment with confidence while being collaborative and building a reputation of being someone people love to work with?
8. Hope
Without hope, none of the above will matter. You have to believe in the dream. You have to believe enough to overcome disappointment, time, and constant rejection.
You may find that this isn’t for you. Fate may lead you down a different path and in the end, it’ll be the right one that was intended all along. But if you feel it in your heart and gut that this is for you, that you feel confident in your work, and that you’re destined for this career and there is no other, hope is what will get you through the rough times.
Obviously, being able to write is an important quality. You need to know how to craft a great and entertaining story with great and entertaining characters. If you can’t do that, obviously you won’t make it. Find something better because the fates are telling you something. And sure, networking is key too. The ability to network will open doors of opportunity.
But when it comes down to it, the eight qualities listed above will genuinely tip the odds in your favor, and greatness will be just ahead.
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