The Spec Life

Last year, I needed to crank out another original one-hour sample for a potential rep. Fast. I already had the show’s basic premise, characters, arcs, and theme in mind…but I knew I wouldn’t have as much polish time once I pounded out the first draft as I’m used to. And (as I’ve mentioned before) those rewrites are where I really find my scripts come alive.

So, once I hammered out that first draft, I opened up a special document where I’ve been stashing little pieces of awesome for close to a decade. Great stories I overheard, cool dialogue parted out from abandoned projects, unique characters I’d imagined but not utilized yet, etc. …it’s basically where I bury the babies I’m forced to kill – but plan on reanimating at the right moment.

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I’m a serial rewriter – when I’m in the middle of a script, I can’t stop myself from reading back over what I’ve accomplished in prior sessions and doing a little polish work. Of course, this means I’m rewriting all of my scenes multiple times before finishing the first draft.

And it still sucks. Always.

This used to get me down because of all the work I’d put into that first draft. What I didn’t realize was that, despite it’s first drafty-ness, I’d done most of the heavy lifting. Which is to say I’d written everything down – front, middle, and end. Now, I can go about making it actually good.

Which is why I’m writing this post. Forget Hemingway, EVERY writer I’ve ever heard interviewed or spoken with directly has emphasized that the first draft is the first effort – and that it should never see the light of day. It’s quite simple to identify missteps when you have an entire story to contrast it against – not so much if you only have part of the whole and don’t know where you’re headed.

So I guess the long and short of this thought is: don’t be afraid to be bad. Because we all are. It’s how you work the rough shape that helps add a distinct voice and focus to the script you will show other folks.