Screenwriting : How Many Rewrites until you get it right by Raymond J. Negron

It's different with every script. Sometimes, I think I'm done then realize I'm not and, half a year later, make major changes.

I tend to write two rewrites and a final polish.

About three more than I currently am.

I believe in preparing, not rewriting.

I tend to rewrite a lot as I write. That being said - as many as it takes. Depends how good first write was and where its at. Won’t stop on a number - just till its good enough.

Hey everybody, well said. Thank you for your great feedback.

I agree Laura. Writing constantly makes us a better writer.

12 rewrites, 7 of them were page one rewrites...its starting to be less now as I improve my craft. But is there really ever a "final" draft?

Gotta agree with Bryon Q.. Even when I look at my books or screenplays much-much later, I can find something I have to tweek.

If'n it ain't sold, it aint right yet.

This is all refreshing. I thought it was me. Several rewrites were critiques of just a few pages and not even past 10. But I'm getting stronger and better. Thanks!

Hi Raymond. Apologies for the delay in forwarding this. I guess my scripts are like an artist painting - I commence - touch-up - touch-up … and so on. Each time I pitch or enter a Festival... I touch-up... and so it goes until, as Doug says... it's sold. I've 7 scripts - some I commenced in 2013 - 5 years ago and still haven't managed to hook the person to whom it tweaks. It's difficult to know what precisely execs are looking for and whether you are just wasting your money on some. But, unless you have the financial backing to make your own film...? Then you have to sell it to the world. I'd prefer someone like it enough to invest - shows someone other than me likes it. Good luck with yours.

I rewrite it until whoever hired me to write it is happy or it gets sold.

Wal - WOW - no rewrites - subject matter must be clear and constant - any room for following threads?... Perhaps just paid-writing? I've just taken one of my 'thriller' scripts to 'Horror'. Tried to avoid it but, that's where it has now taken me.

Laura, I think what you're really saying here is that if you're not repped - you just don't make it -- or, unless vetted by a rep it's not marketable. Well then, I think for most, pitching to execs and entering festivals is just a waste of money - one should just concentrate on getting representation. Would this be your view?

Joseph Conrad once said something like "A novel is never finished, it is merely abandoned," and I think the same could be said of screenplays.

I rarely change the structure. I tend to spend two rewrites sharpening dialogue. One looking for plot holes. Since I write sci-fi, I spend a lot of time getting it right. Don't ever let a science geek find you used a magnetic overthruster when you should have fired up the ion engine.

No excuse but perhaps writings based on true stories are not so easily plotted but I stand to be corrected.

A lot of production companies will only accept submissions from a WGA Agent or someone they know. That is why people should never stop trying to get one. Until you land one you have no choice but to market them yourself. Entering your screenplays isn’t a waste of time if you get good results you could use to convince more people they should read your screenplay.

Umpteen - no more, no less.

A lot :) But usually I'll try to do no more then 8.

As many as it takes.

All of them. As I've progressed, I've needed fewer to get a script to where I feel good about it. However, that doesn't mean that anyone else will like it!

Years of rewrites. Sometimes, I have to let the script go, and maybe come back to it after a week...month...year, whatever time frame that it takes for me to see what I need to do to make it marketable again.

Depends on the project. I have a script I recently finished A TRIP TO ROME where I literally wrote and rewrote for about three years and the script is better for it. There are other scripts that I wrote where 3 to 6 drafts seemed to lock it. And others where somewhere around 14 drafts was where it was at. It can be hard to know when "it's done" but instinct kicks in after awhile. Recently I picked up an old script that was "finished" - it had been shopped and even set-up - until it fell apart. And am now reworking that feature into a television pilot and discovering new corners to the story.

I never get it right.

The short I wrote "Unholy Swap", a 'gazillion' rewrites, and it's only starting to look a bit better.

I never get it right. I give it to people to read and I get reamed. Sometimes it feels like self-mutilation.

I had the most amazing experience this summer. When the story is all laid out I format and tweak it a bit. But this time there was an electricity in the scenes that would get weaker the second I touched any of it. I had to step back and leave it perhaps slightly underwritten.

I started my Screenwriting journey with a workshop with Gordy Hoffman from Blue cat. I wanted to learn so badly that I reached out to blue cat on Twitter and found him a place in South Florida where they could hold the workshop for free if he would just have one here and I advertised for the participants. It was invaluable and I’m so glad because the first thing he taught us is the importance of rewriting it until you get it right. No set number. We’re all different and at different levels of experience. Someone doing this for years knows how to jump into that rewrite and sculpt their story in less time. I have rewritten love is free will eight times before I entered it into the Nicholls and Page awards this year and I made quarterfinalist in both.

As many as it takes

You mean there's a limit out there? I've never read my screenplay without rewriting something :)

I accidentally found that when using Final Draft - under Tools - that you can assign a voice to characters then listen to your script being read. Misspellings jump out.. since the words don't ring true. If I sit there with a headset on, eyes closed, I can picture the movie as it is being told to me and whenever dialogue seems too wordy or the right word isn't being used, I can catch it. Whatever is being "read" is highlighted so you can stop the recording and correct it right then and there. Only problem is the reading can take forever - about 2 hrs + for a 120 page script, but it is worth it. This has really cut down on the number of times I have to reread for editing as well as rewriting.

Kathaleen, I hope you read this. I tried the character voice assignment tab and chose the voice. Now how do I listen to it?

Heidi. On the toolbar you should see an [add and remove button] so click that. On the drop-down menu click on [customize]. Click on it and chose customize then click on [tools]. Under commands you’ll see icons that like [stop] [play] [rewind] etc. Chose the one(s) you want and slide it to where you want it to appear on your toolbar. When you finished and want to read your screenplay just click where you want to start and hit [play].

Interesting question. There are two things to consider.... 1> brand new writers that are still learning the craft - there probably will be no limit to the number of drafts needed. 2> Skilled writers that are working with a solid concept - several drafts to get it in the right direction, send to colleagues for feedback, several more drafts until it's solid, then producers/directors/studios/distributors will chime in with notes.

For me, if I stop thinking, it will be done, but as long as I think, have new experiences, think of scenes in different ways, read something that inspires me and makes me think of some deeper aspect of one of my characters, I will re-write it until it's published, filmed or performed. I might not even stop then. Now, how many times during all of those re-writes was it at it's peak? Probably ten or fifteen times, but I could just move to another peak with different scenery, but it would probably never make it better. It just might appeal to someone in a new iteration that it didn't in a previous. Does that mean that what got published or produced was better than a previous iteration? I don't think so. I think once it is at its peak, it searches for someone standing on the same peak, if there is no one there, one has to write something for a different peak is all. Eventually, you find someone else standing on the same peak you have just found.