Will I Change How I Write?

Almost 20 years ago, I was hired to teach screenwriting at a university.

I had been writing screenplays for 10 years, and had some success, and I wrote some articles about the craft, and this institution hired me.

I saw myself as a creative, open minded, flexible writer who was not tied to any system of development, habit or pattern.

But I was not.

I had a very narrow idea of how to write a screenplay which involved starting an idea with a blank page and writing whatever comes and following the plot from there. I later read in Stephen King’s book that this is how he has written everything, unearthing a buried story from his soul, heart and mind.

Yet I am not Stephen King.

I discovered that I could not write everything the same way.

I thought when I was hired to teach writing that my career as a screenwriter was over—–I was washed up.

The opposite happened—–I continued my own education when I began to teach others.

What I learned was there are many ways to write a beautiful story and none of them are right or bad.

When I knew little about screenwriting, I saw different books on various methods—–some of them became sensations! Very popular. And I derided them as gimmicks and unlike how I wrote.

But as I began to have to explain to people how a good script works, I learned that every method works.

For somebody.

And most importantly, If I stay open to how everything works for all writers, I can learn from it all.

With every screenplay I continue the journey of my life of how to write a screenplay.

Today, I will work on a story that is very painful and raw and personal, and it’s been with me for some time now. I have written some by hand, I have researched, I have prayed. I have written an outline and followed wherever it wants to go, and it’s still early.

Today, I don’t want to fear how the story will change for me and how I might have to change how I am writing.

Isn’t it funny? If I knew how to write a screenplay, why do I always find my way to being completely baffled as to how write the one in front of me? If there’s one thing I know, I will not know what is coming or how to get there.

That does not mean I do not know how to write a movie, despite feeling like I am missing something every day.

Frustration comes when I am unhappy being frustrated!

Stephen King does not appear to have a problem with those changes in what he might have thought was on the horizon.

But I do. I am impatient and want to know what the story is and how to write that story.

Why am I in such a hurry?

Someday long from now I will know I will never be able to write another page. And what I will miss and wish I could do once more.

I will want to try to write a movie. I will wish I was lost and didn’t know how the story ends. I will ask for a character that won’t make sense. I will remember when I could not see the page for the tears in my eyes.

What’s that I hear outside my evening window?

Oh, it’s rain.

The new and unexpected.

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