Remembering the purpose of my first screenplay

The purpose of my first screenplay is to learn how screenplays work. Right now this means getting a draft down on paper. Nothing else is important.

I often forget this and it leads to an inability to put words on the page. It leads to frustration, indulging in digital distractions, and starting the day knowing I didn’t do what’s most important to me — work on becoming a screenwriter.

Right now, proper formatting doesn’t matter. Only formatting that’s good enough to make sense of matters. Proper scene structure doesn’t matter. Scenes in any order will do. And memorable characters with rainbow-like development arcs don’t matter. Characters matter.

For instance: Some of my characters have existential anxiety of different forms and I just wasted 15 minutes on a health forum trying to find a proper medical name for their conditions. What a waste of time. This is a fictitious screenplay. I can make up the names of mental conditions. They don’t have to be based on reality.

Again, the purpose of the screenplay is to learn how screenplays work. Facts don’t matter. Creating the story matters. Writing matters. And while facts create more believable characters, they aren’t necessary for this initial project. I just need a story — not a story that is easy to sell to studios. I need something I can touch, something I can share, something that will give me momentum to create something better.

With a story on the page, I can learn how the following works:

1. Proper formatting: I know the basics of screenplay format, but when my story is complete, I can learn the intricacies of it during the editing process.
2. Rewriting: I can pay a few hundred dollars to get notes from a professional screenwriter and then make rewrites based on their feedback.
3. Criticism and networking: I can learn how to receive criticism from other people (screenwriting groups) and, in the process, create connections that will drive my screenwriting career forward.
4. Marketing: Once I have a rewrite that is good enough to send off, I can practice pitching and submitting to different contests. Even if nothing comes of it, I’ll learn a lot in the process.

These are just a few things that I’ll learn, but first I need a draft.

The draft might be a piece of — just like the first novella I wrote in fiction writing school was a piece of shit — but this doesn’t matter. What matters is that I have something on the page, something I can work with and learn from.