8 week from what? From a pitch to a first draft? From a fully realized, completed outline to first draft? Etc, etc.

8 weeks from scratch (or a loose pitch) to completion is a little much. 8 weeks from a completed outline is reasonable.

I’m a former production company exec turned full time (and I might add, broke writer). As an exec it was not fun to have a studio exec yelling at me wondering where the pages where. Then I would have to call the writer and have “that conversation”.

I spend the first two weeks on the character breakdowns, the outline, writing out major beats, and some dialogue. When I start my first draft I write between 5-15 pages a day, seven days a week. Once I’m done I take a day or two off from that project then start rewrite #1. Depending on the draft I might have a writer friend look at it or wait until draft 3 or 4, then I send it off to my manager for his notes.

I find writing the outline and very in depth character breakdowns really helps me. Once I start writing I don’t want to get bogged down with major structure or story problems. I want to focus on the dialogue and pace.

That first draft comes out fast and then it’s all about re-writing. That is the part of the process I really love.

The reason you need to be able to deliver on time (or something close to it) is because it’s the professional thing to do.

Is Hollywood a sweet, gentle environment? No. But neither is it as bleak as you portray. If your post can be helpful, it’s in helping people realize that not everyone has the temperament for this business. For those who have yet to make the trek from the Midwest, this is something worth considering before they set out.

What John’s OP is speaking to is the ability to create an external sense of urgency when none is there. When Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and a crew of hundreds are waiting for your pages, it’s not real hard to feel the urgency. But for the rest of us mere mortals, where does it come from?

Deadlines? Sure. I’m down with that.

When you get hired by a studio, you might imagine that the calculus becomes simple, right? You finish by the deadline because that’s your job. And if you do your job well you will be rewarded with success and money and a pony.

Ahh… not so fast.

All working writers have experienced the phone call that John outlined above. But what he omitted was that in 90 percent of studio development, after the phone calls and the noodges and threats and ultimatums, when you turn your script in, you will hear nothing for weeks on end. Months, even. But at least several weeks. “What’s wrong with it?” you’ll ask yourself. “I did what they told me to do. I held up my end. Were my pages that bad? Just tell me, for God sakes! Tell me I’m a talentless hack! At least that’s better than radio silence!” And still the tumbleweeds blow by.

You will quickly realize when working within the studio system that the deadlines are just as arbitrary as they were when you were writing specs, and often cynically so. And the reasons that you care about doing your work quickly and well will be used to manipulate you in perverse ways. It’s a job — yes. But instead of Michael Scott, your office manager is Franz Kafka.

I’m speaking about feature development, of course. This is the very reason why Trey Parker and Matt Stone, two hugely creative and successful dudes, have sworn off making movies altogether. It’s a screwed up, byzantine system. If ONLY it were like technical writing. If only.

What you will find, by and large, is a distressing lack of urgency. A distressing lack of situations where Tim Burton will need your script in three weeks. Terry Rossio has written about how most of the time, studios buy scripts not to produce them, but to control them. Within this environment, creative executives — especially the lower level ones — will toy with you like a kitten with a bedazzled sock because they can. They must! They need to justify their jobs.

Although it doesn’t seem like it at all, I swear I’m trying to be helpful. Because I noticed in John’s post a fairly simplistic causal connection between writing quickly on demand and being successful as a professional screenwriter (although I don’t think he truly meant it that way).

I don’t think it can be said often enough that success is not that simple, and it comes about for ridiculous reasons that are often disconnected from the nuts and bolts of what we do.

But — BUT! The ability to write quickly on demand is a hallmark of many people who are comfortable in themselves and in their craft. That’s the goal.

We write, and keep writing, not for the pony, but for the principle.

It’s like the old advice, “Wanna make a movie? Go out and spend $5,000 on film, and put it in your fridge, knowing you’ve got one year to use it. Then see what happens.”

What’s so bad about prostitution? While I agree with everything else you wrote in your post, please leave sex workers out of this. Thank you.

You (not you you, but the proverbial you) gotta…

A. Have some perspective. You can support your family and sometimes get a movie made that you’re proud of (and btw, even if you got your way 100% of the time, the sometimes rule would still apply).

B. If you want to be precious, write something else (say, a Novel, a la David Beniof) or be so singularly brilliant that the usual rules don’t apply to you (think Charlie Kaufman).

It helps to remember that it’s a job, albeit a pretty great one.

I can attest that, having worked inside a studio, these perverse deadlines were often in force. I remember one tent-pole movie being filmed in Chicago where the production office was waiting on daily faxed pages from the $200K-a-week script doctors so that they could inform the actors what roles they would be playing. No matter, the movie was based on a best-seller and it opened at #1 on its weekend — a gullible audience was rooked out of its cash.

When one of the creative execs at that studio learned that I wanted to be a screenwriter, he gave me this sage advice: “Here’s what you need to understand about screenwriting: Every day, Idiots are paid millions to write shit. Those things are true separately and collectively: Every Day. Idiots. Millions. Shit.”

John opines that the ability to write quickly is an important skill.

I would add to that in order to continue to write quickly as a working writer, you cannot be precious about your work. 23 year old D-Girls will tear your work to shreds and you will be asked to start on page 1 and deliver in eight weeks AGAIN — but this time, incorporating everyone’s notes. With a smile! Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

If you ask the Producers “Do you want it fast or do you want it good?” you will sound like a scold and will be on the fast track to having no career. I was fired from a rewrite job for saying that in order to do the script justice (since it was being fast-tracked to production), a rewrite would take six weeks. No matter that after I was canned, the producers hired six more writers after me in two-week increments. It didn’t matter, I still lost the job.

The problem, I would argue, is that if you are a truly great writer, you have to employ some version of a moral worldview, and the extent to which you have to prostitute your craft and your scruples in this perverse business will eventually cause you to hate yourself at some level. Ever seen Oscar-winner Steve Zaillian, one of the biggest script doctors in Hollywood, in person? He always looks miserable. Like he wants to swallow Ajax. “Hangdog” doesn’t begin to describe it.

It’s a horrible, miserable profession and it murders the soul.

I’m kidding. It’s easy… you’ll love it.

Great blog John!