Video

Maybe one of the most important things I realized in the process of becoming a screenwriter, or a writer in general, is that we have to read other great stories. They provide sounding boards and models for us in going forward, and if you can't set a target for what you want your work to look like, how are you going to build a path to get there and to achieve it? You know, one of my favorite analogies of all time is how Aristotle describes, at the beginning of the Ethics, the archer who goes out into the woods. He says that in order to figure out what the “good” looks like, we have to talk about it and if we go out and we just start, you know, drawing arrows and shooting them off into space, we likely won't bring anything home for dinner. So we have to build the target. We have to think about what we want to accomplish. I find it particularly useful to read great authors. I don't think that this means only reading great scripts. I’m a big fan of reading plays as well. Plays provide a lot of insight into the world of dialogue. They also provide a lot of insight into the tradition from which movies have emerged. And then great books, also. But at the end of the day, if you’re going to settle for one thing and you're like, “I'm not much of a reader, I don't want to read books or plays,” although I hope to change your mind about that, you're going to have to read a great script if you really want to write a great script. It’s impossible to become a great writer without learning from those who have blazed that trail before you. So what do I do? Well, I sit down, I mean, in the first few years that I was learning screenwriting I literally read at least one script a week and that's on a light week.

Oh my gosh, I have learned so much from reading other scripts. I've learned the economy of words, I’ve learned how to make dialogue tight, but most of all I think that in the beginning, what I really learned from reading the writing of others is the cadenza, the sort of musicality in which a scene turns. There's almost this unspoken rhythm to a great scene that you encounter from script to script, whether you're talking about an animated fish or someone who wakes up and has lost their memory and turns out to be a secret agent. What I'm getting at here is that by reading and being exposed to great scripts, it's kind of like the same process that artists used to go through. You know, you studied the masters, you imitated the masters, and then you became a master yourself. Today, in our culture of immediacy, that might seem like a constraint and a demand, but it is an investment. It's an investment that's well worth your time. So for me, the greatest lesson I've learned from reading a great script: it's that instinct, that ability to blink and know what makes a scene great.

So I selected a few scripts in the course that you can read. You’re welcome to pick anything else. The reason I have chosen these scripts is that they've been particularly instrumental in teaching me how to write a great script. I think it's very important also to read across genres. Just because you're writing an epic doesn't mean that you shouldn't read an animation. Just because you're writing a rom-com doesn't mean you shouldn't read a great sci-fi story. At the end of the day, the DNA that story shares is the same and what I want you to do is be conversant with the great writers who have come before you. Show a little bit of respect for that tradition, much like the masters in training who studied the ancient masters in painting did a long time ago. You know, by learning from our predecessors, we can see further than they do.

I really want you to learn to commit to the story, so pick a script, stick with that script and even if you're thinking, “It's not the best script for my story,” or “It’s different than what I want,” or “This is a script I'm not particularly enjoying,” read it all the way through and ask yourself, “What can I learn from the script and why was it successful, even if it looks different than something I want to do?” I think that's very important to understand that stories build in their integrity. They also have to function in their small parts, but if you don't follow the script through to completion, you're not going to learn from it, so stick with it and I think you'll be inspired. 

And if you happen to live in LA or are visiting, you should stop by the Writers Guild library or you can stop by the Academy Library as well, where they file copies of all the scripts and all of their different drafts, and that will give you a great opportunity to copy them, to ship them back home, and to build your library.

© SJ Murray, 2018