Getting an idea, then getting bored of it... feels like an endless cycle

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flat9safety

Member
Ok this keeps happening to me and I was wondering if anyone else has the same problem.

I will come up with, at the time, is a great idea for a film. I will write some notes down and dwell on the idea for a while. Then a couple days later I come back on it to do some work and it doesn't appeal to me as it did.

I WANT to continue to like the ideas I came up with, but I just keep my interest... any idea?
 
I have an archive of what I thought were great film ideas at the time. Over the years if the idea still seems great it stays and I will eventually develop the idea. If it doesn't seem so great down the road its gone. In thirty years I only have a few dozen ideas still in there. I just recently took the best of one of the genres from the archive and took it from treatment to finished screenplay.
 
I have a nearly opposite experience. I come up with an idea, write it down, then almost instantly dismiss it as not good enough, boring, or most often, not what I want to work on "right now."

But... I can't shake it, and the more details I add to it over the next days and weeks, the more attached to it I get. Then I go and write the script.

I would suggest keeping with it until it sticks. It helps me to know that the next movie I make is never the last movie I'll make.
 
Yeah sometimes this hits me as well, but before I dismiss the idea once and for all I try and work with it a bit. Some of the best films have pretty simple ideas on the outside but it's how the ideas are connected and developed that makes the film so good. I definitely feel the pain on not liking stuff a few days later though.

It's sometimes a good way to filter out the bad stuff, you might be tired at the time when you were thinking up the idea and then a few days later, your head is clear, or you've just watched a really good movie and your idea isn't so hot anymore. Maybe you just haven't hit the dynamite yet. Keep diggin. If you get an idea that feels awesome, then carries on being awesome for the rest of the week and it pisses you off that you haven't started writing - then you've probably got a killer idea. Something you really want people to see.
 
I almost always get the feeling of leaving a screenplay early on.

It has happened to me numerous times, and it happens to writers like Stephen King (Read: On Writing by King). However, you should understand that your not bored with the idea but instead that its your fear of failure that makes you leave your screenplay. In other words, your not really bored with the idea, its just your looking for a way to get out writing the screenplay, and the excuse that you use, which is that you get bored quickly, is the easiest way out.

Telling yourself that you loose interest in your ideas is the least painful way out of having to write your screenplay, after all who really admits to themselves, in a conscious level anyways, that they're writing is not good, not many people. Most people instead look for excuses.

Going back to Stephen King, the same thing that's happening to you happened to him when he was writing his novel Carrie. A quarter way through writing his script, he trashed it, thinking that the idea, storyline, plot, was no good. Luckily for him however, his wife found the script in the trash and picked it out. She read it, liked it and asked him to finish it. The rest as they say is history.

Don't give up. Follow through. If you get bored with the original idea, try to change it and shape it so it becomes more interesting. The writer of Star Wars George Lucas, went through many story ideas for Star Wars before he completed his final draft. If he had given up on the original idea, instead of making it better, one of the greatest films wouldn't have been made.

Don't give up.
 
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flat9safety said:
Ok this keeps happening to me and I was wondering if anyone else has the same problem.

I will come up with, at the time, is a great idea for a film. I will write some notes down and dwell on the idea for a while. Then a couple days later I come back on it to do some work and it doesn't appeal to me as it did.

I WANT to continue to like the ideas I came up with, but I just keep my interest... any idea?
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I know exactly what you mean. Happens to me also.

This is what I do - the first time that I come up with an idea or a story line or a concept for an ad I quickly write it down and give it a score between 1 - 10 depending on how much the idea made me excited. I keep referring to this score if the idea or story becomes less and less appealing to me.
 
It does indeed feel like an endless cycle.

For me it works like this:

I get an image or a sequence, I write it down, and when I finally get the guts to turn it into a screenplay my inspiration and motivation vanishes. Then I get depressed for a day or two and then my next Idea comes along.

What has helped me stay on an Idea is writing "for" something/someone, like a contest for example, www.moviepoet.com is a great website that has given me direction and focus which seems to be the easiest way for me to write than writing on my "own" project with total freedom.

I have no tips though.

Good luck!

/William
 
I have that problem too, after spending hours and hours on a beat sheet, writing some scenes and dialog; then i question myself and think this is just not a high enough concept story. And I could be right.

Here is a tool I have read, but not used nearly enough, that could help you, AND me, and others: maybe the characters are not interesting enough. One tool for that is think extremes and opposites. Someone wants to make money during the Great Depression to survive; okay, make that person a woman, not the stereotypical male reporter; now make that female a kid, not an adult--result: Kitt Kittredge an American Girl. A detective-- instead of middle age male, how about a young girl who dresses in 50s clothing--result: Nancy Drew; or a gossipy snooping old woman--result: Murder She Wrote.

I think stories might take on renewed interest, new problems, new conflicts for the hero to solve, if the character is unusual. Okay I have to follow this advice myself. Just rambling here.
 
Another thought, which I need to take really really seriously myself, is something Michael Hauge has said in his lectures and book: before you start writing a screenplay, first make a list of perhaps TWENTY story ideas (1-2 sentence loglines); because writing a screenplay is a huge investment of time and energy, and you want to pick the best from the twenty before charging in on the first idea. I did this for a romcom I wanted to write, and it worked out. Making a list of 20 ideas for the genre you seek to write, then and only then trod forth to work on it. All too easy to start writing an idea, then realize it is not the best you could have decided to invest a year of your time into-- man I am there right now with a action-horror screenplay, contemplating what to do, to finish a first draft, or just back out and cut my losses.

Also, go for primal themes-- those always touch the human heart (reader, audience). My first feature screenplay still moves me emotionally even after almost two years of tweaking it, on 4th draft.; supernatural horror/thriller, but I have a great emotional character arc between a stepmom and daughter, daughter in jeopardy, stepmom in jeopardy but must save stepdaughter from antagonist; people identify with primal stuff-- like a mother protecting her child, no matter what the genre, even moreso a single mother (in my story the father is killed off)-- in the recent film "Untraceable" the producers rewrote the script to make the FBI agent a single mother, no accident. Think of "Gladiator"--would we have liked the protagonist so much if he had not had a family slaughtered by the antagonist? Primal = Maslow's hierarchy, pyramid base = love, food/starvation, family (Home Alone!), shelter, tribal, community, friends, parent-child, etc.
 
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I apologize for the length of this post, but I have experienced the exact problem that flat9safety is having. Now, I do not claim to be any kind of expert or screenwriting guru of any sort. I will just offer my own experience and how I was able to overcome the problem.

I used to be very picky about my ideas and would throw them out if they didn't sound extremely unique or original. I could always come up with plenty, and still do. Usually I come up with a new idea once or twice a week. Yes some are crap, but some are good, and a few are really great (well, I think they are). Now, what I've done with all my ideas is compile them into a word document I call "The Archive", to give it an official sounding name.

Back to my first statement -- I would be very picky about some ideas. If they sounded even remotely like a book or movie I'd seen or heard about, I would get frustrated and think that the idea is not original enough. Eventually a funny thing happened. The more writing I've done, the better I've become at taking those ideas and shaping them into something, if not mind-blowingly original, something fresh and unique enough and with enough of its own voice to warrant it being worth the time to develop. I think that as you gain experience writing and become more confident in your writing ability, you figure out how to dive into "ideas" and turn them into "stories". It can at times be like a domino effect. One new detail reveals another, then another, and so on. Sometimes it takes awhile to peel back the outer layers of an idea to discover its inner secrets and lies, its soul if you will. Once you gain some momentum though, things can really pick up and you will want to kick yourself in the head for ever thinking of trashing the idea in the first place. Believe me, I've done this many times before (not kicking myself in the head, I'm not flexible enough to do that) only to later have the story rear its head and demand to be written or at least thought about and taken seriously. Most of the time I will eventually grow to love these stories as well.

Another thing that works for me is to let ideas marinate. That might sound strange, but think of it like how you marinate meat. You throw the meat into a bowl or plastic bag with the marinade, then stick it in the fridge for a day or whatever the recipe calls for. Once it has soaked up the flavors you can then take it out and grill it to perfection.

What I do is write down the first few details that come to mind when a new idea hits, then tuck it away and see what happens. Sometimes it takes a day or two, while other story ideas have sat for a year or more, little nuggets exposing themselves spontaneously. I write those down and see what else happens. Eventually there is enough meat to begin breaking into the story and really getting to work. Of course, other times I can see enough of the story to start working on it right after getting the initial spark of the idea.

So, don't let those ideas go so easily. It is tempting to force them out into narrative form, but sometimes you need to give them some time to get clarify. When I would judge an idea prematurely, I now liken this to the effect of "judging a book by its cover." Is it possible that you are not seeing enough of the idea to fairly judge it and condemn it to oblivion?

Another thing to consider is the fear/question of "I love this story, but is it not original enough?" That has crossed my mind plenty. The thing is, a good screenplay is part concept but mostly the actual execution of that concept. So if you are going to spend the time to write a great script, it should be something you love, not something that you merely think is a good idea (which is a pretty subjective thing really).

One thing that has happened within the past two years is that I became tired of constantly worrying about having the "highest concept" and wanted to get on with writing. What's the saying? "Life is too short." "You only live once." I wanted to spend more time writing and less time constantly worrying if my ideas were good enough. If I liked them enough, then that was enough. Any script is a risk. You don't know if anyone will buy it or not. I'd rather spend time creating something that I love and had a blast writing. If it doesn't set the world on fire then so be it. It set me on fire.
 
Get one of those voice recorder things. They are cheap now. Carry it everywhere with you. Most of my ideas come to me when I am driving, so I can be found on an interstate somewhere in the middle of the night doing 90 talking to myself.

When you have an idea, record a quick outline of it. Once you have it all down, shut the recorder down. Listen to your recording the next day. Does it still sound like a good idea? If so, try to develop it a little more by adding on. If it dosent sound like a good idea still, dump the file out of the recorder and burn it to CD or save it. Never throw away ideas, never know when you'll need one.

In the meantime, keep recording ideas and expanding on old ones. Play all your ideas back every few days and add to the ones that need added onto and archive the ones that go on the top shelf for later. Ideas that still sound like good ideas after 5, 10, 15, 20+ addons and refinements are probably good ideas. Start putting fingers to keyboard on them.
 
This might be caused by many things, so here is a grab bag of advice:

1) Make sure you are telling a personal story. You want a great idea, but you want a great idea that has a personal connection to you. That way you have an emotional investment in telling the story. I write high concept action and thrillers, and all of my scripts are about whatever struggles I'm dealing with in my personal life... or have finally gotten over enough to write about.

2) Outline so that you know where your story is going and don't burn out trying to figure out the big stuff on the fly. Just a simple step outline that list all of the scenes is okay. Hey, you can change stuff along the way if you get a better idea.

3) The great thing about an outline is you can break the script up into bite sized pieces. You can write a scene a day, and know what scene you will write tomorrow.

4) When you have a bad day, write your way out of it. Write your scene for the day (or whatever) and don't worry if it sucks. Always remember: Write now, rewrite later. First drafts aren't perfect... they exist to be fixed.

5) Know your characters - and I mean really know them. Screenplays are about people. Your "doorway" into the story isn't the car chase or the clever twist or the funny scene, it is the characters. Know what makes them tick and how they would react and what they need and fear and desire and despise.

After that, it's just one damned word after another!

- Bill
 
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