Writing a Screenplay

I’ve just finished my first screenplay (cue the applause, please). After penning numerous books, articles, and novels, I can say that this was unequivocally the most taxing job in terms of the technical aspect, as may be gleaned by the picture above. Unlike non-fiction, which requires hours of research, or journalistic writing, which requires hours of transcription, putting together a screenplay is most definitely a pain in the ass when it comes to how you stylize the thing. Does content matter? Obviously. But it goes far past that when actually writing the thing.

I will now be submitting A Father’s Son to the Daryl Duke Foundation for its annual Daryl Duke Prize for first-time screenplay writers.

Although you’re supposed to purchase Final Draft software to write a screenplay (roughly $100), you can get around it like me if you do all the technical work yourself in Word and then convert it to PDF format.

There are a lot of websites out there which offer advice on how to write a screenplay, but you can also download screenplays from  established writers. Study them, learn from them, and then go for the gold.