How much do you write per day?

[ExtremeSleuth]

i usually average 5-10 pages a day. sometimes i get into grooves and write even more than that. sometimes upwards of 25-30 pages (but that ends up getting shortened next time i redraft the script.)


what about you?

 

[Luis Caffesse]

Do thread posts count?


Otherwise...um... way less than I should.

 

[Charli]

I think writing per day is more of an aspiring screenwriter's question, considering this is a film site, I think the better question is how much preproduction work do you do a day?

 

[ExtremeSleuth]

well, we ARE in the SCREENWRITING part of the forum. AND you can't have a film without a script...


anything i usually write ends up getting redrafted, and shortened, so if you count that, its usually 1-2 GOOD pages per day

 

[Zak Forsman]

well, we ARE in the SCREENWRITING part of the forum. AND you can't have a film without a script...


anything i usually write ends up getting redrafted, and shortened, so if you count that, its usually 1-2 GOOD pages per day

took me nine months to write Heart of Now. and that was with the knowledge that we'd ultimately be using it as a guide for rediscovering the scene on set. the script is here. most of that time was writing character bios, weaving thematic threads that would counter and compliment each other, story structure, thematic structure (like how the story moves from urban exteriors, to interior, to natural landscapes). once i got down to writing the screenplay, i probably wrote an average of 3 pages a day. and rewrote them the next day, etc. etc....

 

[mrWr0ng]

i don't write if i don't have anything to say. so most days I'll write nothing. if I do write, then it's about 5 or 10 pages. My best was 50 pages in a day, but I wasn't able to write for about a week so it all built up.

IMO, i don't think it's good to have a minimum amount of writing per day. it's sort of like finishing X number of paintings per day or writing X number of new songs per day. it stops being creative and you start churning for the sake of hitting a goal. I haven't written anything since the 8th when I finished my last screenplay, but I'm almost finished brainstorming the new one and I'll be ready to start on it sometime in the first week of '08, but not before it's ready to come out. That's just my approach, though, it's different for every body.

 

[DeSica]

I haven't written anything for a month or so, and I have a meeting with my director on the 2nd of January.

I wrote 5 pages earlier today...combined with five pages from before...I figure if I can hack out 45 pages tonight and 45 tomorrow, I should be fine for the meeting.

It should go a long way in boosting my average, too...

 

[YaBoyTopher]

This is a tough one... I will go weeks without writing anything and then i will write 20 pages in a day.

But if i were to average it out the i would say 1-2 good pages a day i write more then that but when you count re-drafts and things it comes out to 1 or 2 pages.

 

[Quigon007]

Hey Zak, I browsed through the heart of now, how come there are such big spaces in between some of the scenes? is that necessary? or are you just trying to eat up more pages? Just curious

 

[Zak Forsman]

Hey Zak, I browsed through the heart of now, how come there are such big spaces in between some of the scenes? is that necessary? or are you just trying to eat up more pages? Just curious

heh, no. not trying to "eat up pages". that's a shooting script. pages were locked at each major revision (white, blue, pink, yellow, etc), so that as things were cut, added and changed, page 90 would always be page 90. if I hypothetically did a rewrite on page 89 that would have pushed the contents onto page 90, it instead created page 89A for the spillover so that page 90 wouldn't change. page 89A would necessarily have quite a bit of blank space. scene numbers are handled the same way. it's pretty typical.

you can see this at the beginning of the script. check out pages 1 and 1A, as well as 3 and 3A.

 

[Mark Harris]

heh, no. not trying to "eat up pages". that's a shooting script. pages were locked at each major revision (white, blue, pink, yellow, etc), so that as things were cut, added and changed, page 90 would always be page 90. if I hypothetically did a rewrite on page 89 that would have pushed the contents onto page 90, it instead created page 89A for the spillover so that page 90 wouldn't change. page 89A would necessarily have quite a bit of blank space. scene numbers are handled the same way. it's pretty typical.

you can see this at the beginning of the script. check out pages 1 and 1A, as well as 3 and 3A.

Reading your mission statement, you should listen to this podcast with David Simon, Zak:

http://www-tc.pbs.org/newshour/rss/media/2008/01/02/20080102_wire28.mp3

I tend to write every day, either tweaking or character work, or something. I find it helps keep me limber, so to speak. The more I write, the easier it is to get into writing when I need to.

 

[Zak Forsman]

everyone and there mother has been telling me "check out The Wire, you'll love it." thanks for the link. you just sealed it. season one, here i come...

 

[Turnpike]

I tend (and just try) to write everyday, though it depends on how much I can write. Most of the time, I just sit around, staring blankly at my computer screen, almost wishing the words would start forming themselves. But I know that's not how it works.

When I sat down to finish the first draft of my most recent script, I sat down, wrote all night, punching out about eighty pages. I was also dead tired.

But I try to get about a page or two each day. If I can't do that, it would be pointless to even try.

-Austen.

 

[Ted Spencer]

I average about 5 pages a day when in full script-writing mode (using Final Draft). In freehand/brainstorming mode there's no discernible pattern.

I rewrite the daylights out of it. My last feature script's final file save number was 47, which included all partially completed versions. Hours-wise, it was somewhere between one and two hundred.

 

[karapetkov]

I think writing per day is more of an aspiring screenwriter's question, considering this is a film site, I think the better question is how much preproduction work do you do a day?

So, writing's got nothing to do with filmmaking?

----------

A friend of mine, who's a musician, said something very interesting:

"Sometimes the best of ideas come out of idleness".

... and I think he's right, to a certain degree, cause, IMHO, there's a very important link in the creative chain, which simply cannot be controlled.

It's got something [a lot] to do with the subconscious.

Sometimes you struggle for days, but nothing good comes out. Then you give it a break and an idea just hits you in the face.

Maybe sometimes we need to just let go and listen to what our heart whispers.

Of course, the heart doesn't always whisper, or maybe it is that we're just poor listeners.

I personally don't write every day, at least not pages of the script. But I'm always researching, taking notes, reading what I've written and....

OK, I'm a bit lazy too .

 

[Erik Olson]

I'm simultaneously writing two television pilot scripts. On a very good day, I'm getting three pages a day. The most I've ever written was ten pages over one night when I did a Nash Bridges episode. I attribute that to smoking. Literally one pack between 6pm and 4am. Mmm... smoking.

I have a hard time writing as quickly as I can imagine it. Not because I don't type fast, but because I tend to write in a constant and ongoing revision style. I think most professional writers advise against this.

Problem is, I've got a half dozen one-pagers open at any time for network pitches and myriad treatments due after those.

e

 

[10s]

It's best to outline your story structure before any writing occurs. Given that, the idea of sitting down and writing in hopes that it will magically come together is a common but often unproductive method. It's much better to spend your time working the basics: main character, his goal, the opposition, inciting incidence, turning points, ...the outward journey and then work on the inner journey, character arc...

Work on this every day for an hour or two until the story takes shape and then sit down and write.

 

[seunosewa]

I wish I was that patient. It sure does make sense.

 

[DeSica]

It's best to outline your story structure before any writing occurs ... It's much better to spend your time working the basics: main character, his goal, the opposition, inciting incidence, turning points, ...the outward journey and then work on the inner journey, character arc...

Isn't that just basically like starting with an outline, then doing a treatment and working on character bios while building towards a screenplay?

I'm working from a 13 000 word (48 page) 3rd draft of a treatment right now, and there are days where I still do nothing....a good day is eight or nine pages.

I don't consult the treatment, since I wrote it and know it inside out, but like I said...there are many days when I write nothing, even though the whole thing has been laid out and is waiting to be written.

Got a third of a page done so far today....

 

[10s]

Any approach that gets you to a productive end is good, but there are some methods that just make more sense than others and they produce stories in a less painful method than the 25 rewrite method.

I think of the ingrediants of my story and then determine where they go on the time line. The basics of a story is a hero, a goal and the obsticles that oppose the hero's attempt to reach the goal. Laying these things out visually on a time-line grid is easy to see where they occur and this visual layout also allows me to see gaps and identify sequences ( like mini-stories) I could write volumes on this but this should give you an glimpse of my approach.

Lay out the frame work of the building first, then add the walls, windows, stairs, etc. and finally you can add the wall paper and faucets. To start with the wall paper and then a little foundation and then a little window and then a few walls is crazy.