Development Hell

I am suffering through what writers and producers call, “Development Hell”! That’s complicated tech-talk there so beware!

I have found a title for myself. It’s a temporary title, but its right on-the-nose.

“The Short Attention Span Screenwriter”

"At the end of the day there are two kinds of screenwriters: those who finish the first draft of a screenplay and those who don’t. Some days we can write and some days we all suffer from Short Attention Span Deficit so we stare mindlessly at our monitors or notepads until we give up and find our usual ways to avoid the problem." (Giles)

I recently read a great article with the above title by D.B. Giles. He listed ten reasons why I, The Short Attention Span Screenwriter, am writing but without focus.

Here’s his list:

1. You can’t get started on an idea, any idea. Even an idea you love
2. You have three or four ideas you love, but you can’t decide which one to write first and because of your indecision. Instead of writing you watch TV, rent movies and eat junk food
3. You’ve fallen out of love with what you’ve been writing
4. You can’t get past a certain point
5. You’ve realized as you languish in the middle of Act Two that you have no idea whose story it is so you get discouraged
6. You’ve finally admitted to yourself that you weren’t emotionally connected to your story and that you only started writing it because you thought it was commercial and would be easy to sell and the realization that you’ve wasted four months on the project kicks in your self-loathing mechanism
7. Your idea requires more research than you thought and you hate doing research so you watch TV, rent movies and eat junk food
8. You find out that a major studio release with an A-list director and huge stars has begun production on a film that’s so close to yours that you know you don’t stand a chance so you don’t know whether to stick with it, put it in your drawer for ten years or start something new
9. You showed the 63 pages you’ve toiled over for eight months to someone and got negative feedback that bummed you out and sent you into a tailspin of self doubt
10. You’re nearing the end of your script and you’re afraid to finish because it means you’ll have to show it to someone and it’s safer to just keep working on it because you have a pathological fear of criticism

If you’re lucky, which I’m not, there will be only ONE or NONE that you can identify with. Most writers will identify with three or four. I can pick out ten. And I can add another two or three that applies to me.

It’s a terrible place to be. It ruins every aspect of your daily life. It can drive a writer to places he’ll never get out of. Like uncontrolled OCD, addiction to video games, and possibly a state of walking comatose.

And here’s a list of roadblocks most of us, or I, can identify with based on an unscientific poll of screenwriters.

· You’re spreading yourself too thin with your full-time job, social life, family responsibilities and/or other interests that prevent you from finding enough quality writing time
· You’re working on too many scripts at once. Halfway done with this one, a third of the way with that, stuck with no third Act for another
· You’re so infatuated (or obsessed) with your idea that it’s turning into a creepy little Pygmalion scene or your psychotic Frankenstein monster. You just can’t let it go. You’re constantly tweaking and revising the same scenes over and over again
· You’re spending too much time thinking about the deal you’re convinced you’ll get or making notes about which stars to get the script to
· You get mad at the script, as if it’s a recalcitrant child who won’t listen · You somehow expect the screenplay to fix itself
· You’re waiting for your Muse to do her part and you haven’t realized that she’s like that girl/guy who dumped you and left town without a forwarding address
· You have negative people around you who are discouraging
· You’re just lazy and more of a slacker than you thought

I do spread myself too thin with a boring left-brained job, family responsibilities, recreational sports, and now video games. I do tend to work on too many script ideas at once and it gets all so confusing and cluttered that my mind shuts off and goes completely blank. And yes, I’ve discovered when it comes to screenwriting, I’m a lazy ass slacker! UGH!

But here’s something that I need to keep pounding in my head:

Never forget: a bad first draft is preferable to a brilliant unfinished 49 pages that’s been gnawing away at you for two years. (Giles)

I have identified that my biggest problem is laziness. And just as Giles suggests, I talk more about screenwriting more often than actually doing it and I need a wake up call. But what is the wake up call? What’s the rush? What’s at stake? That, my friends, I have to figure out now or I’ll be lost in my own oblivion of watching TV, renting movies and instead of eating junk food, playing a game on X-BOX.

“At the end of the day there are two kinds of screenwriters: those who finish the first draft of a screenplay and those who don’t. Some days we can write and some days we all suffer from Short Attention Span Deficit so we stare mindlessly at our monitors or notepads until we give up and find our usual ways to avoid the problem.” (Giles)

I’m glad I’m not alone. But I’d like to leave that really cool clique of screenwriters who stare mindlessly at their monitors and get into the nerdy group of wannabe screenwriters that actually write badly but write none-the-less.

I think I may need therapy.

You can read D.B. Giles' here: (“The Short Attention Span Screenwriter”) D.B. Giles is the author of "The Screenwriter Within: How To Turn The Movie In Your Head Into A Salable Screenplay." He teaches in the Undergraduate Film & Television Department at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He is also a Script Consultant and Writing Coach. You can contact him at dbgilles47@aol.com