How many pages a day do you get done?

M

Michael Bay

Member
Say you're working on you're screenplay for at least 3 hours each day. How many pages do you get done per day on average? This can be for 1st draft, revisions, whatever.

I usually get 3 or 4 pages done per day. I usually get a scene done and then I just randomly lose motivation.
 
Before it would take me 8 hours to get 2-3 good pages. The other day I cranked out 11 pages. So I don't think there's an average, it's just how solid the story is in your head.
 
Eh, it depends on how formed the story is for me. I had an outline for the last "feature" I wrote. That was supremely helpful because I knew point A and point B and all the stops in between. I was able to hammer out the whole thing in about a month with some pretty long breaks between writing.

However, the new thing I'm working on has been painstakingly slow. I've got this story in my head, I can see how it starts, and how it ends. I have all of these jumbled and disjointed scenes in between. I've only managed to get about 5 pages done each time I sit down to write before my brain gets fried.

SO, yeah...Get an outline if you're into that kinda thing. It also helped me a lot to have co-writer on my first script that I could bounce ideas off of to get that outline finished.

With an outline and a clear idea of story: maybe 5-10 pages a day. Without, 5 pages if I'm lucky. :D
 
I have a co-writer but we can only work together a few days of the week and she's usually disinterested in helping with the script polishing because she also has the 2nd biggest role in the film. It's a shame because every time she puts her mind to it, she comes up with some of the greatest stuff I've ever heard but she rarely takes the time to think of something great.
 
Twelve to fifteen pages a day on a first draft. Generally a straight seven days of writing if it's a feature. I've done two like that and on a third right after a re-write. I found a personal way to stay motivated once I start, but then again I just like to write in general.

If we're talking two to three hour periods then I'd say ten (10) in a two hour span on a new story/first draft. It's MUCH harder to re-write/crank-out stuff the fourth time around. Second and Third, not so bad, but fourth gets me every time. I think because I begin to lose interest and sight on what I set out to accomplish.
 
djbobbyrhodes said:
Eh, it depends on how formed the story is for me. I had an outline for the last "feature" I wrote. That was supremely helpful because I knew point A and point B and all the stops in between. I was able to hammer out the whole thing in about a month with some pretty long breaks between writing.

However, the new thing I'm working on has been painstakingly slow. I've got this story in my head, I can see how it starts, and how it ends. I have all of these jumbled and disjointed scenes in between. I've only managed to get about 5 pages done each time I sit down to write before my brain gets fried.

SO, yeah...Get an outline if you're into that kinda thing. It also helped me a lot to have co-writer on my first script that I could bounce ideas off of to get that outline finished.

With an outline and a clear idea of story: maybe 5-10 pages a day. Without, 5 pages if I'm lucky. :D
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Yup, I'm with this in general, I write the outline and try to make it detailed, crystal clear, really know my characters, and then when I have every scene outlined and the details written, I start to write. Then it is 5-10 pages per day.

I just finished a 76-page rough draft (my first feature-length screenplay!) in just 8 days, though, like so:

4.5
3.5
8.5
10.5
6
7
15
21

Started out slow, finished very strong. The 21 pages honestly only took 4 hours and 15 minutes of writing. But I wasn't able to get motivated enough that day until late, and my sister called me in the middle (about 9 pages in) because of personal drama, so I gotta be the good brother, ruin my workflow, and talk, lol. But I got it done that day.

I am going to attempt something that should be virtually impossible, and I'm not sure exactly when I'm going to do it, I was hoping I could try Saturday but I don't know if that's realistic, with the way that I feel lately (worn down), my outline not being as close to done as it should be, and other work I have to do. I want to try writing an ENTIRE feature-length screenplay... in a single day. 24 hours, 90-100 pages.

I'm positive it can be done, but I'm also positive that it would take perfect circumstances. I would need to feel excellent that day, I would need lots of energy drinks, food has to be arranged beforehand so it's available without moving too much, and the page rate per hour is about 4. That's quite doable. I've already done better than that during at least that one 4 hour stretch, but the question is could you retain that level of energy for an entire 24 hour period. It would be extremely physically exhausting. And yet, I'm strangely driven to this odd goal, just out of a sense of challenge I guess, I want to see if it's possible. I also know that if I failed, there would still be much success. If you totally failed miserably and got 35 pages done, you'd still have written a huge chunk and you couldn't be THAT depressed about it ;) But... if you succeeded, it would be a feat for the ages.

I think, though, you are telling a story of about 100 minutes let's say, then the key is a perfect outline, something you've already lived and thought through in your mind, like gone over how these people talk, who they are, what happens, every detail. Working from that outline it should be like telling a story to your friend, but with words. After all, the first draft is no more precise than that, it's not in need of being totally brilliant, just having moments of inspiration, getting something on the page that works well, then you fine tune repeatedly over the course of numerous drafts anyway. With the non-fiction books I wrote, 13-16 drafts, so I imagine screenplays are no different, at least they would be equally as many or more. I also type at 103 words per minute, so it shouldn't be overly difficult on a pure writing basis to get the words out, provided I'm mentally there really thinking it over and living the scenes as I write them, connected.

I know that sounds insane, though, I'll let you know how it goes ;)
 
it takes me forever...i write pages in spurs...no idea why...like i busted out 15 pages a while back and now im slowing down...actually started on a whole new third draft haha
 
Haha, that's totally understandable, though. I'm the same way. I will spend a lot of the day just thinking about how to start, rather than actually starting, I just don't feel the motivation. Then suddenly I'll write for 3 hours and have 12 pages, and think, "Umm, ok... what the hell. If I had just started 5 hours ago, I'd have WAY more!" It's frustrating, haha.
 
Two to five pages in two hours. From experience anything I write after five pages or two hours is crap so I stop and save it for the next day. Basically it ends up being a scene a day (maybe two).

A lot of the time is just sitting and thinking. I hate throwing stuff out, so I think through different ways of doing the scene until I come up with what I think is the best at that time. If I don't think I need a scene I won't write it, but keep a note about the scene in case I do need it.

The actual writing only takes a few minutes. When the scene comes I see it all at once, and I type like a madman to get it all down before anything is forgotten.
 
Highly variable, anywhere from one-half to five pages or so, per hour. Action usually comes quicker and takes less revision, than dialog.

I also typically wind up with more than one variant of any given scene, different enough to archive for later reference.
 
I would agree. Action is easier to get right. I usually keep my action really minimal too, sometimes I go through the entire scene with just dialogue, absolutely no action, then add it in after I'm done. Because I just like to feel the flow of the dialogue. I also think from what I've read that as a reader, it can be annoying to see a line or two of action after every single line, because it really never lets you get into the conversation. I'm pretty minimalist when it comes to action. I just put what is really important and what needs to be there for it to make sense as you read it. *shrug* I don't know whether that's the right approach yet, but when I start caring more about all of the bells and whistles I will have read a lot more screenplay books and articles, so hopefully I will know!

The dialogue is a tough one, I can see me going back to entire scenes and just deleting it all. What I write initially is always functional, it moves the scene along, and it isn't just meandering about, there isn't any, "Hi," "Hello, how are you?" "Good, you?" kind of nonsense, but it's just sometimes it doesn't snap like I want it to, or doesn't seem natural enough.
 
Before I started my editing gig at the end of last month, I was cranking out 4-5 pages a day, but there was one weekend I did about 10-15.

Now I try to get 1-2 pages done before I sleep, regardless of how tired I am. It's great to have wireless here in a high school field in the the hot sun, but I make sure the only thing my director sees is Final Cut open. :P
 
my 2 cents:

As you're aware of, Film is about showing not telling, so that means action is king. The writer provides the director of the film with information so they know what to aim their cameras at while filming. If you don't write good description and action then the director will not know what they are to film. Film writing should be mainly about setting and action that expresses inner motivations of characters. Good film often is sparse on dialogue but filled with action and shots that when combined (Kuleshov) mean something to the story in the mind of the audience. The juxtapostion of these shots, action and occassional dialogue leads the audience toward participation where they put the cinematic puzzle pieces together to create meaning. The good film maker leaves out much so the audience can do their work of filling in the gaps.

Dialogue, while often sparse, is what characters say in order to get what they want and/or shield what they truly feel.

I don't see how daily page count matters much in the overall scheme of writing. If I write 10 pages per day is that good? What if it's garbage? What if I write a half page every two days and at the end I have a great compelling story? What method of writing will have been the most productive? The trick is to find what works for you and stick with it.

Don't confuse activity with progress.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Kuleshov
 
I'm finding that my script actually has minimal dialogue in it and is very action heavy. The action may only take a half page on script but could be 3 or 4 minutes on film. This is helping me realize that my script isn't as short as I think it is.
 
It really depends honestly on what type of film you're doing. I can't see that an action movie script would have nearly as much dialogue, or that it would even be possible to write it without tons of action descriptions. That just seems impossible.

But from what I've heard from basically every authority on screenplay writing -- less action the better. It should be brief, it should be to the point, and it shouldn't be long paragraphs of action that distract the reader. Plenty of people have gone so far as to say that if they see huge paragraphs of action, that script gets thrown out into the reject pile.

I would fundamentally disagree with saying that a script is mainly action with a little bit of dialogue. I think most of the action is *not your job* as the screenwriter. That's the director's job, the DPs job, and the actors' jobs, production designer, art department, etc. It's simply not your job to be telling everyone that the room is blue, and that there's a very dirty old couch in the room with a few holes in it, etc. Let a professional figure that out. It will be discussed anyway what makes sense for the character. It makes no sense for you to step all over their jobs when they know better what to do than you do, anyway.

I'm going to assume you didn't actually mean that we should see camera direction in the script. Because we shouldn't. That's a huge no-no. I think what you were trying to say is the scriptwriter tells us what is important, and the director then decides from that what to film and how to position the camera? I'm guessing.

I'd much rather see, and so would apparently most screenplay readers / writers, "He smiled" than something like, "A grin crept across his face as his lips parted, revealing a toothy smile that continued to grow as she talked." No. Save that for a novel. This is not novel writing, this is screenwriting. There's a huge difference.

Obviously I think a screenplay with hardly any action at all is too hard to visualize, like it has to have enough to paint a clear picture of what we're going to see -- film is visual, after all. But what is great about screenplay writing compared to novel writing is that it should be mostly dialogue, not mostly action and description. Novels can go entire pages with no dialogue, just inner thoughts. Then there's a line of dialogue. It doesn't tend to work that way for screenplays, haha.

I totally agree with page counts, though, in the sense that there's little point to writing a ton if you just throw it away because it's bad. That being said, I would say you will find almost every screenplay writer who is successful / teacher / professional tell you that the point is to write as much as possible on the rough draft, get it all out there, before you worry too much about it being perfect.

I may not yet be an authority on screenplay writing, I have a lot to learn, but I am an authority on writing in general and I have been a professional now for ten years, and I have written and published several books, an essay in another book, and written probably by this point more than 1,000 total articles, reviews, etc. The key to writing well and to writing frequently is writing without inhibition first. You can't expect the words to come out perfectly as you write them. It is a process. Great work isn't written, it's re-written. You don't just pour out material and have it be fantastic. It always takes a ton of work and polishing to take it from a rough form to something truly worthy. When I first started, I struggled a lot with finishing the first book because I made the mistake of reading it when I had only 20% or so done and said to myself, "This is not professional work. It doesn't sound good enough. What's wrong with it? Maybe I just am not capable of that quality yet." But I later persisted, and I finished a draft that definitely was not good enough, but it was done. And 15 drafts later, I had a very strong book. That was more work than writing it in the first place.

My last book had 13 drafts, but it was similar. I started writing I believe in early July 2006 and I finished a draft (the book was about 140,000 words) in early September. It may have even been late August, I'm kind of blanking. It was 60 days roughly though I think. I wasn't finished editing until February of the next year.
 
Johnathan, you need to read some produced screenplays. That will explain it better than anything I can say here. Try Indiana Jones and then... when you're done come back and we can talk.
 
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10s said:
I don't see how daily page count matters much in the overall scheme of writing.
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It's only of interest if you plan to complete a given project on some kind of schedule.

10s said:
If I write 10 pages per day is that good?
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Generally speaking, yes.

10s said:
What if it's garbage?
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Then you have ten pages of material to serve as the basis for revision into something that isn't garbage. As opposed to having nothing to revise into anything, at all.

10s said:
What if I write a half page every two days and at the end I have a great compelling story?
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Then you have a great, compelling story. Next?

10s said:
Don't confuse activity with progress.
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Word.
 
JonathanLB said:
It really depends honestly on what type of film you're doing. I can't see that an action movie script would have nearly as much dialogue, or that it would even be possible to write it without tons of action descriptions. That just seems impossible.

I would fundamentally disagree with saying that a script is mainly action with a little bit of dialogue. I think most of the action is *not your job* as the screenwriter. That's the director's job, the DPs job, and the actors' jobs, production designer, art department, etc. It's simply not your job to be telling everyone that the room is blue, and that there's a very dirty old couch in the room with a few holes in it, etc. Let a professional figure that out. It will be discussed anyway what makes sense for the character. It makes no sense for you to step all over their jobs when they know better what to do than you do, anyway.

I'm going to assume you didn't actually mean that we should see camera direction in the script. Because we shouldn't. That's a huge no-no. I think what you were trying to say is the scriptwriter tells us what is important, and the director then decides from that what to film and how to position the camera? I'm guessing.
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If you were talking about me here, I am the director of the movie I'm writing so I am including camera direction and detailed action scenes. Obviously, if I was writing for someone else, I wouldn't be describing the action at all except for key events.
 
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