Screenwriter

In practice

A screenwriter's job is mostly rewriting. The first draft of an original script may take months; the drafts after it respond to notes from producers, executives, directors and actors, often on deadlines of a few weeks. Writers who keep working are the ones who can take a note, find the problem underneath it, and solve that problem better than the note did.

Screenwriters work in two main ways. On spec, they write a script nobody has paid for and try to sell it or use it as a writing sample. On assignment, they are hired to write a script from someone else's idea, a book, a true story or an existing property, or to rewrite a script already in development. Most film work is assignment work, and most assignments go to writers whose specs got them noticed.

Television runs differently. A series is written by a staff in a writers' room led by a showrunner, who is usually a writer too. Staff writers break story together, write individual episodes, and rewrite each other's drafts, climbing a ladder of titles from staff writer to executive producer. Many screenwriters move between film and television over a career.

The job, in one meeting

The note as given would break the story; the problem underneath it is real. The audience does not understand the mother, so they do not believe her. Lena keeps the conflict and solves the actual problem. That habit of hearing the note behind the note is most of a working screenwriter's craft.

What a screenwriter does

Before pages, a screenwriter develops the story: a logline, a treatment or outline, and often a pitch to sell the idea before it is written. On a paid project, the outline itself may be a delivery the studio approves before the writer moves to a first draft. Then come the drafts, each followed by notes, and polishes that address smaller problems.

Much of the job is meetings. Writers pitch their own ideas, take general meetings with producers and executives to build relationships, and compete for open assignments by pitching their take on a project. Once a film goes into production, a writer may be asked for revisions during prep or shooting, though on many films the original writer has moved on by then.

In television, the work is collaborative from the start. A room breaks the season's stories together on a board, each episode is assigned to a writer to outline and draft, and the showrunner or senior writers rewrite. Writers on a staff may also produce their episodes, attending casting, prep and the edit.

How to become a screenwriter

Write finished scripts. Representatives, contests and producers all ask to read something, so the entry ticket is a writing sample: usually two or three polished feature scripts or original pilots that show a distinct voice in a genre you want to work in. Read produced screenplays alongside your own to learn what a professional page looks like.

Get your work read. Screenplay competitions and fellowships such as the Academy Nicholl Fellowships, the Austin Film Festival and the Sundance labs are the most open doors, and placing well in one gives a query letter something to say. Writers also reach managers and agents through referrals from other writers, query letters, and professional script listings.

Many television writers start in support jobs, as a writers' assistant, a script coordinator or a showrunner's assistant, where they learn how a room works and are in the building when a staff writer job opens. Living in or near Los Angeles helps for television; feature writers have more freedom to live elsewhere, though meetings and relationships still cluster there and in London, New York and Toronto.

A degree is not required. Film school can give you deadlines, feedback and a network, but no buyer asks for a diploma; they ask for the script. What every working screenwriter shares is volume: they finished many scripts before one sold.

How screenwriters are paid

A spec earns nothing until someone options or buys it. An option pays a smaller fee for the exclusive right to buy the script within a set period; a purchase pays the full price, often with bonuses if the writer receives credit and the film is made. Assignment work is paid in steps, such as a treatment, a first draft, a rewrite and a polish, and a studio can stop after any step.

Work for a company that has signed the Writers Guild's agreement is covered by the Guild's minimums, which set a floor for each kind of deal, along with health and pension contributions and residuals when the work is reused. Inkwell's screenwriter pay guide tabulates the current published minimums and the earnings data behind the usual salary questions.

Screenwriter credits

On Writers Guild films, the Guild, not the studio, determines final writing credit. "Written by" means the credited writers wrote both the story and the screenplay. "Screenplay by" is used when the story came from someone else or from source material, such as a novel, which then gets its own credit.

An ampersand between names means the writers worked as a team; the word "and" means they worked separately, typically one rewriting the other. That is why a credit like "Screenplay by A & B and C" tells you that a team wrote a draft and a third writer rewrote it.

Common questions