In 2023, I won Scriptapalooza’s Screenwriting Competition. Although I’ll never know exactly what elevated my screenplay over the 3000+ screenplays submitted that year, I do know what I did differently that probably made a huge difference.
Before winning Scriptapalooza’s 2023 Screenwriting Competition, I tried writing full-length screenplays. This is like training to run a marathon by running 26 miles everyday. You could do it, but it’s time-consuming, difficult, and inconvenient.
When runners train for a marathon, they practice far shorter runs. So what I did differently was to practice writing short scripts (5-10 pages) at least once a month, sometimes once a week. This gave me the chance to practice writing complete stories and made it easy for others to give me feedback.
Writing short scripts offers several advantages:
- Few people have time to read and comment on a full-length screenplay, but far more people have the time and willingness to read and comment on a much shorter 5-10 page script. This lets you get rapid feedback.
- Short scripts let you practice writing different styles of stories from horror and romance to comedy and action-thrillers. This lets you practice writing.
- Short scripts are far easier to study so you can identify your flaws and fix them. This makes it easy for you to improve more rapidly as a writer.
- Short scripts let you sharpen your story telling skills because if you can’t write a great scene, you’ll never be able to write a great screenplay since every screenplay consists of scenes. Great screenplays consist of great scenes so the more you’re able to write a great scene, the more likely you’ll eventually write a great screenplay.
- Short scripts are far easier to write than full-length screenplays, which means you’re more likely write them. The more you write, the better you’ll get.
If you learn nothing else from this book, please learn to write short scripts that tell complete stories. You’ll be amazed at how writing short scripts can accelerate your learning and screenwriting skills far faster than banging your head against a wall trying to write full-length screenplays all the time.
If you belong to a writer’s group, stop sharing full-length screenplays and start sharing short scripts. It will make everyone happier and make everyone’s life easier. If you don’t belong to a writer’s group yet, join one or start one and start sharing short scripts with each other.
The key to excellence is practice and the way to rapidly boost your practice is by writing short scripts and getting feedback on them as often as possible, which is simply not possible with evaluating full-length screenplays.
(Updated versions of “The 15-Minute Movie Method“, “Story Starter“, “Emotional Log Lines” and “Writing Scenes For Screenplays” are now available on Amazon.)
