Oscar-Winning Screenwriter Eric Roth Takes You on a Tour of His Writing Process
If you're going to learn about the process of screenwriting, it might as well be from an Academy Award winner.
Every writer has their own process -- some prefer waking up at the crack of dawn and working in an office, while others prefer working on their couch in their pajamas until the sun comes up. (I like to keep it classy.) You may not know what you prefer, but know, at least, that there's no right or wrong way to write a script. It doesn't matter if you take your time to research and meticulously plan out every scene, or if you become the Zazel of screenwriting and blast yourself into the P.T. Barnum Circus that is your script. The important thing here is finding out what works for you.
In fact, I admire how Roth uses that old DOS program. I'm not a hater of trends or technology or anything, but sometimes the bells and whistles are a little too much for me, at least in the beginning. And I occasionally feel a bit behind the times when I bust out my notebook to write scenes by hand (laptop = mysterious brooding writer; notebook = hormonal angsty teenager), but it helps me get my story on the page more efficiently. Roth embraces his process, which is a great lesson to learn, because in the end, your process exists to accommodate (and even inspire) your creativity, and if it doesn't, well -- you might want to try a new approach.
How/where/when do you write? Share your thoughts on Eric Roth's process as well as your own in the comments below.
Source: Academy Originals
