Inherently Different

The One About Writing for Fun & Profit

Some of you who visit regularly might be aware that I’m entering a screenplay competition in just a few days. I’ve worked on this particular script for months and have been getting decent feedback from my regular screenwriting group. Over the next few days, I’ll post sections here as the mood strikes me.

It has been said that the success of a screenplay, in this case success being the actual production of a screenplay, depends on two things. One, an engaging title and two, a decent opening. A script’s opening 10-20 pages should draw you, as the reader, so deeply into the story, that you can’t put it down. If you can get a reader, producer or actor to read your script beyond the first 20 pages, you’re doing pretty good. This is because most first time screenwriters make so many mistakes in format and pacing that readers usually round file their work in less time than it takes to write “FADE IN:” on a blank sheet of paper.

So, without further preamble… The first 15 pages of “The Hard Side of Nothing.”

3 thoughts on “The One About Writing for Fun & Profit”

  1. Great start! It has kind of a neo-noir feel to it. The dialogue, of course, is great, and I liked how your characters think like real people, specifically, when one of them gets “deep” and sappy, the other reacts like we would. I also like the juxtaposition of the Los Gatos utopia with the gritty streets of SF. I can almost see that opening scene in a kind of technicolor haze–everything a little bit yellow and faded, the surroundings and the people just a little to perfect to have ever been real.

    I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you!

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