And I've got some screenplays and plays ready to dip into when I need to.
When writing screenplays, it's a matter of remembering to leave off the page anything and everything that doesn't appear on the screen.
Screenplays I didn't really care about, journalism, travel books, getting my writer friends to write about their dreams or something. I just determined to write the books I had to write.
I've always said that movies are kind of like love affairs. Two people come together, and if they're at the right place at the right time and it's the right situation, it clicks. I've always felt that I've connected with screenplays. It's the romantic in me.
It's intuitive in terms of when I read a piece of material or I hear about a project. I'm a writer, so I've written movies. I've read at this point thousands and thousands and thousands of screenplays. So if something gets me, then I don't ignore that.
All screenwriting books are bullshit, all. Watch movies, read screenplays. Let them be your guide.
I've come to find more satisfaction and enjoyment in writing screenplays over the years because that's what I do primarily now.
I don't card out my screenplays ever. I just have an idea I just sit down and write I don't edit. Sometimes the first draft will come out at 200 pages. I think and think and I go, "um this story is about the brother that appears on page 178. " I go back and I rewrite.
I find reading screenplays difficult, as they're only a roadmap for what a movie might end up being.
When I moved to Los Angeles, I wrote spec screenplays. I was really poor, and I thought I was just gonna do this for a while to make a little money so I could write novels. I thought movies were a second-class art form. I condescended to it - I didn't know enough to know it was really gonna be hard.
I actually think I'm probably more interested in structure than most people who write screenplays, because I think about it.
No screenplay is possible, unless you get some attachment from somebody who's going to get it made.
I really just love to open a blank document and spew, whereas with a screenplay I have to be more judicious.
Most directors, I discovered, need to be convinced that the screenplay they're going to direct has something to do with them. And this is a tricky thing if you write screenplays where women have parts that are equal to or greater than the male part. And I thought, 'Why am I out there looking for directors?' - because you look at a list of directors, it's all boys. It certainly was when I started as a screenwriter. So I thought, 'I'm just gonna become a director and that'll make it easier. '
Movies are not the book. Movies are not even the screenplay. They are the movie.
I set out to write a screenplay but, since my early 20s, had dreamed of writing a novel.
I do have some theatrical background. I've written plays and seen plays and read plays. But I also read novels. One thing I don't read is screenplays.