Hum...10-day Script. Is This Any Worth?

Normally I don't go for these gimmicky looking things but this might have something to it. This offer has a few valid things to consider.

1. Yes, I agree, it's rare but a good script can be written in a short time if one learns to use their own intution and turn off the right brain editor that interrupts the creative flow. Often it's the other way around and it takes a long time to complete a feature screenplay. It's rare, but it can be done. Can this help you accomplish such a feat? Who knows.?

2. They have a 3 month money back deal, they must be confident it'll make customer's happy or in their spare time they live in Nigeria and send out emails on how you can claim your lost inheritance . That's somehing to consider.

3. It's only $49. That's peanuts, even if it only helped you get 1/4 the way through establishing a good productive method. I have around 15 books each costing anywhere from 20 to 50 bucks each on this subject and I've also shelled out a few clams to attend workshops and lectures.
 
Why not just get the guide to writing a screenplay in THREE days?!
http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Scr...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240609616&sr=8-1
Hmm. I think I will write a guide on how to write a screenplay in just ONE day!!! LOL. Here is the secret-- write 120 pages tomorrow, voila! You have a screenplay in just one day! Please send $29.95 to me by PayPal.

Okay all jokes aside, I am curious about the 10 day method, being there is a guarantee. And payment is through PayPal which helps on the guarantee.

But there could be a nefarious angle to this offer-- since only about 1 in 10 people bother to actually jump the hoops to return a product they do not want, and this product is completely electronic via a PDF document, likely all automated, it is possible this 10 day system is more a money making machine counting on the statistics of quick sales, no inventory, few actual returns even from dissatisfied customers, etc. I would love to see someone here on dvxuser, a regular member, make the leap and buy this 10 days system and then give us all some feedback.
 
Kyle, you are the grand master of writing here, having sold a feature screenplay for some nice coinage, are you willing to bite and shell out the paypal virtual money and check out this 10 day screenplay writing system for us, see if it is a scam or perhaps something worth buying?
~r
 
My initial gut reaction... it seems way too good to be true. Especially if you consider that not all of us work the same way creatively. Sure this guide could work for some, but it could be extremely damaging to others who have already found a successful way of tackling screenwriting. Another thing is that they say that it is foolish to spend months to a year writing a script. The question I have is, are they talking about the first draft or the final draft? Sure, the first draft can be done in ten days, but the final draft could take up to a year or more depending on how many rewrites needed as well as how many readers it goes out to between drafts, among other things.

Upon a closer look this program sounds like it could have some merit, but on the other hand, it seems to promise too much. 10s makes some good points though in that it might not measure up to all that they promise, but it could still be helpful in honing the craft. And I agree, at least it is not expensive at 50 bucks with a 3 month money back guarantee (although I haven't read the fine print on the refund policy yet).

The thing I don't like is that the way they advertise it is sort of done in a threatening way. They have a very, "if you don't do it our way you are guaranteed to fail" sort of attitude which makes me feel wary of trying this. I understand that they have to motivate us screenwriters to buy it, that is all part of sales and marketing, but I just don't like the way they've presented things. It is a bit too aggressive.

It also feels too much like a template. I doubt that what they are going to teach in terms of structure and basic theory is much different than what we get in all the various books like: Save the Cat, Screenplay, Story, etc.

Some of the points made do have some merit though. Sometimes being forced to sit down and crank out that first draft under some pressure can really add a nice energy to the writing. Several pieces I've written that I feel are some of my best were written very quickly and under a degree of temporal pressure. The thing is, this is only in reference to the first draft. All the rewriting needed differs from writer to writer and from story to story.

The main thing that interests me is that it seems like a major aspect of this guide is to help discipline the writer to get the writing done on a schedule, in this case ten days. This is something that I struggle with, since I get sidetracked very easily and am always coming up with new story ideas that I like. I could use a little discipline in terms of making deadlines for my current projects.

I don't know though... I am curious about this in terms of it possibly helping me with speeding up the process of spitting out that first draft.

Randall_Oelerich said:
I would love to see someone here on dvxuser, a regular member, make the leap and buy this 10 days system and then give us all some feedback.
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I'm sorta thinking about it, as long as the fine print on the return policy is kosher, I might bite. Problem is I have to wait until I get paid from a couple video edits I did recently before I can spend any cash on this thing. The old bank account is on life support at the moment until these next few checks come in. Ah, the strange paradise of being self employed.

If I do, I'll post a full review of it for everyone, unless somebody else does before I can.
 
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The best bet is to get the Screenwriters Bible and start there. This will solve all sorts of questions and get you going using correct form.
 
I read their fine print. There are some interesting hoops to jump through to get your refund, which I could envision the vendor playing games with to delay or negate a refund. Maybe I will just go google groups about this product, surely somebody has bought it and commented about it on boards similar to dvxuser?
 
Randall_Oelerich said:
I read their fine print. There are some interesting hoops to jump through to get your refund, which I could envision the vendor playing games with to delay or negate a refund.
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That is what I am thinking too. How do they know you didn't print out the PDF or save it to your hard drive or an external memory device?

I have a script that I originally wrote for the first scriptfest that I am sort of itching to finish. It was way too long and there was no way to cut it down to ten pages without completely destroying it completely. The good news is that what I originally wrote at the time actually makes a decent first act to a larger story that I've since envisioned. Basically, I feel like I've could carve out a pretty good feature from the concept.

What I might do is try to write it in ten days (first draft of course), and see how doable this whole ten days method is in theory. If I were to buy this 10 Day writing guide, I would want to have a control variable in this since I would be approaching it as an experiment in writing before deciding whether it is a worthwhile methodology for the long term.

Actually, we could have a ten day feature writing challenge here in the screenwriting forum. Not that it would have to be ten days, we could do twenty days or even a month for the writing period. Bottom line is it could be a fun and beneficial exercise for some of us. It would of course not be an official scriptfest or anything, just a bunch of us taking on the challenge and getting a first draft of a feature written. I'm not a mod so I don't know if this is against the rules or not, but hey, just an idea.
 
What I want to know is does this ten day method come with coupons for the anti inflammatory meds I will need to pop like juju candy at the theater, to keep carpal tunnel RTS at bay as I type out pages by the hour after hour after hour after hour day after day after day for ten days?
 
Randall_Oelerich said:
Kyle, you are the grand master of writing here, having sold a feature screenplay for some nice coinage, are you willing to bite and shell out the paypal virtual money and check out this 10 day screenplay writing system for us, see if it is a scam or perhaps something worth buying?
~r
Click to expand...

Funny you should ask...

I have it already, just never made it through the whole course. I'll look at it again tonight, but my initial impression was that it's all the plot points of any other course, makes you answer certain questions which are NOT unique to the course, and is sparsely written. The key is that it puts you on a schedule with DEADLINES.

I'll be back.

Hey 10s, yes, I am!:Drogar-Happy(DBG):

Nice talking with you guys again. It's been awhile.
 
Kyle, that's just exactly what I was guessing about this miraculous method. Yes, a complete script can be written in 10 days, but that would be only a rough, first darft.
Thanks for you imput and we'll wait for more info about this.
 
Ryan Paige said:
The thing is, though, that if you know how to write a screenplay, you can figure out how to do it in whatever time period you want.
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That is what I am thinking. These types of guides might be good for a beginner, but might not be needed for someone who has already read Syd Field, Robert McKee, Blake Snyder, Joseph Campbell, etc... the list goes on and on.

Everyone is different. One writer might be able to crank out a page per hour of focused writing time. Others might not be able to do that much and will take a little longer to get through a draft. Of course, it all depends on how much time the writer has in their average day. The key is writing every day and sticking with that one script through the first draft and all the rewrites.

Once the basic plot and characters are figured out, even only knocking out two pages per day means that in two months a first draft of approx. 120 pages will be completed. Not a bad way to do things if daily writing time is scarce.
 
Nektonic said:
/// Has anyone read this one? HOW TO WRITE A MOVIE IN 21 DAYS -- http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Mov...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240615935&sr=1-1
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Yes, I read that book and own it. Worth a read. I like the authors approach to some people being Yin and others Yang, realize writers are often one of two types in how they work best writing and then rewriting. Also uses a tight writing schedule.

I think many of these books are worth reading, for a writer to discover his/her writing style, find out what method will work for each of us. For me, I am finding the Rob Turin and Kate Wright approach to work best, but for others here I am sure other methods will work better.
 
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Polanski said:
Kyle, that's just exactly what I was guessing about this miraculous method. Yes, a complete script can be written in 10 days, but that would be only a rough, first darft.
Thanks for you imput and we'll wait for more info about this.
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That rough draft just might be GOLD. I find creations that come from the intutive side are often more creative & fresh than my analytical side. So I like to just blast crap out there and then later scour through it for gems to refine. I try to do this, but often I fall back to being cautious and thoughtful and all that stuff and get bogged down. It takes a degree of boldness to just do it!

Here's something think about: Hopefully I remember this correctly.

This comes from a great little book, The Fear of Art. There was an art teacher who decided on the 1st day of the ceramics class he would offer 1/2 the class an A for making just one fantastic ceramic pot. The other 1/2 of the class was offered an A for turning out the highest number of pots possible.

At the end of the quarter he found something very strange had happened. The students who turned out the large quantity of pots made better pots than those who labored over one pot. It seems the iterative production incrementally refined skill and mastery past those who put their all into one creation. Maybe too much thinking got in the way.

So what could this imply? For me, it suggests that maybe there are other ways to facilitate growth and mastery than the traditional one-pot method. Maybe this could apply to screenwriting. Maybe by just turning out boatloads of this stuff one would naturally gain skill, insight and all the other stuff needed to elevate oneself into a master craftsman.

I have yet to try this, but the evidence is in and this method works. Look at anyone playing sports, they do it all day long. A basketball player doesn't just try once to make a basket -- No, he shoots a million times until the muscles themselves have imbedded memory. Then making a basket becomes merely a toss rather than a highly drawn out & concentrated effort.

Maybe I should write a feature every week, -- seriously! ... and you can call 911 for me!

that's my 3 cents!
 
A good 3 cents 10s.

I think that in terms of writing a screenplay, the most time and nitpicking should be spent in initial plotting, character development, and later in rewriting. The first draft should be knocked out as soon as possible, within reason of course. Personally, I've lately decided that I am just going to have fun with the first draft and get it done really quickly. I wouldn't expect to write a draft in three days unless I was on crack, but as you said a week could be doable unless you already have insane hours at work.

120 pages divided by 7 days = 17 pages per day

That wouldn't necessarily be easy, but I think some could do it. If you can bust out 3 pages per hour and write for 6 hours then you could hit that many per day. I don't really consider myself a fast writer and I can usually do 2 pages per hour if I am focused and don't have any major interruptions.
 
I only said 120 because that seems to be the upper limit for page count on a spec script. It seems silly to me, but I guess it is just not a good idea for an un-produced writer to exceed 120 pages on a spec. God forbid someone writes a script that is 125 pages long, but hey, I don't make the rules.

As for an accelerated writing period, I'm thinking 20 days seems a little more reasonable for most instead of 10 days. It is still a pretty short amount of time to spit out a draft, yet is double the 10 day timeframe in the guide that started this thread. Of course, this is assuming that the writer is working on a spec and is not on a deadline that is shorter than the 20 day period.
 
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