Writing the great Screenplay?

Question

I have been working on writing a screenplay for a few months now. I have read many books (Robert Mckee especially) and I am just stuck in the rut of coming up with ideas that keep my interest. It seems that one day I come up with a great idea, great characters and interesting subplots, but then I go to sleep and wake up thinking the idea sucks. I have gone through scores of characters, plots, general ideas but they end up dead. Am I being too critical of my work, do I need to just grind through the first stages of the story creation so it will seem more interesting later or do I honestly think my work is bad. Anyone else experience this?

Answer 1

I have exactly the same problem! I have tons of ideas in the night but come morning I get bored.

Write something really, stupidly, simple. The only play I've finished was a very simple story with only 4 present characters.

Answer 2

Luke, a couple things to consider which might well influence your decision.

--First screenplays are almost always utter c**p. Second ones, too. No matter how hard you work at it, no matter how good the concept, no matter how well you write, c**p. Why not get that behind you?

--There's a visible learning curve in writing fiction, including screenplays. If you don't get going, committing yourself to completion, you stay at the bottom.

--Every writer I know has days they think their work or idea is terrible. Only some of them are right. However, consider the number of really terrible movies there are...

Write a good logline for every idea you've got cooking. Pick the most promising, plan out the whole script, and write that sucker!