Mastering screenwriting fundamentals sets both you and your writing free—a crucial step on the road to success.

The Importance of Screenwriting Fundamentals

Many people think that by possessing paper and pen or a computer or an electronic pad or anything with word processing software in it, that they are automatically eligible to write and sell an Oscar-worthy screenplay to Hollywood. Some believe that because they have repetitively watched brilliantly produced movies and TV shows that they can simply and easily do the same.

Some young writers watch movies written and directed by iconoclasts like Quentin Tarantino or the Coen Brothers and think they can equal or better it. Maybe they can. Not likely, though, because the odds are so very heavily stacked against you.

Inexplicably, being a writer is one of those careers that people think they can do at the highest level with little to no training or effort. After all, how hard can it be? It looks like it should be easy to do, doesn’t it? Like everything else of value in life, the act of becoming a screenwriter worthy of being paid to be produced takes a lot more time and far more diligence and effort than most can imagine. However…

It’s important to know that having such a career is quite possible. No screenwriter is ever born with a stack of scripts ready to go. Everyone starts somewhere. And that usually means creating first efforts that are simply not very good.  But with a lot of pounding the keys, a determined writer can and will inevitably get better and better.  And that means you.

So, where should one begin?  Aside from watching and studying a lot of movies and TV (what a burden!), and reading a great big stack of scripts, successful screenwriters and filmmakers must understand and master the fundamentals.  Only then will he or she have earned the right to alter or destroy those fundamentals. You can get there eventually. Many do. But it is likely to take a lot of years of toil.

Putting in the Work: Lessons from Other Professions

Multimillionaire professional baseball players are obliged to attend spring training every single year. They don’t get a free pass merely because they are already well paid, superior athletes. Sports heroes must constantly work on their fundamentals—hitting, fielding, pitching, strategy, working as a team, getting into top physical shape, etc. Being a top-flight, elite athlete is not a given, even if, as a child, you seem to have natural skills. Even before the start of every baseball game each player continues to work on the fundamentals during warm ups.

Great doctors, businesspeople, teachers, lawyers, entertainers, engineers, politicians, airline pilots, chefs, etc., must develop their talents, such as they are. No one is born an expert on anything—except maybe a baby being a baby—and that usually results in a whole lot of crying. Why would anyone expect writers to have it any other way?

According to Malcolm Gladwell in his excellent book, Outliers, mastery of any subject, skill or talent can take at least 10,000 hours of effort — and a seemingly endless amount of struggle. So, if you aren’t prepared to work your butt off writing probably thousands of pages before you sell anything then this may not be the business for you.

And no matter how successful you become, you can’t stop studying and working on the basics. That’s what will keep you sharp and ahead of most of your fellow scribes. Without developing your talents as a writer first through mastering screenwriting fundamentals, you will be guaranteed of only one thing: to lead a life doing something other than writing professionally. Mastering the fundamentals will set both you and your writing free.

Understanding Your Audience: A Key Component of Screenwriting Fundamentals

It also helps if you know and understand your audience. The indispensable Greek philosopher, Aristotle, noted that in order to have a complete artistic work, the artist needs a source (you), a message (your story), and a receiver (the audience). Without at least one listener or viewer — but hopefully millions — the telling of your tale is incomplete.

Embracing Feedback and Growth

There will inevitably come a time in the course of your screenwriting when you must let your baby go. If you are to succeed, you will likely endure this process multiple times. It happens when readers read your pages and give you feedback and notes. If your work is held to be producible, then others will read it and work on making it come to life. Eventually, your work may be offered to the public, perhaps the whole world. This can be thoroughly flop-sweat terrifying for many writers who believe that their new work may be inferior. They fear exposure will result in scorn and derision falling upon their houses for all eternity. Or even worse, that no one will care about the work at all.

Well, get over yourself. To paraphrase a famous Tennyson maxim, it is better to have tried and failed than to not have tried at all.

Being afraid of what others think is all right so long as it doesn’t stop you from honing your skills and acting like a professional. You must want your work to be exposed to the opinions of others. You must learn to accept, ignore, or contend with the notes and comments that you will inevitably receive. You must welcome the scrutiny.

Be brave. Allow others to judge your work. Be prepared to deal with the reactions as they come – and they will come. At some point you must let your work out of its cage and see how it flies. Otherwise, you will have not completed the task.

These are among the necessary screenwriting fundamentals that set you on your way to being a professional writer—in any genre.  So, fire up your computer and get writing!

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