Quoted from Parker Inspiration is getting harder to find... even harder if you don't try and look for it.

I'm totally wrong for saying that up above...

Pia is right, inspiration is everywhere. Flick on the TV and it's amazing how much inspiration can come from one TV show, a film, a piece of dialogue or scene, even an advert/commercial.

Inspiration usually comes when I least expect it, however.

Pia, Cindy, thanks for the inputs.

Pia, is there a particular story or event that inspired what you consider to be your best work?

And I totally agree with you guys about being observant. Also being a good listener. Hear what people have to say, how they express their feelings. This beats the best psycology class, much better than the one my psychiatrist recommended!..

Hmm...Bert..Lesbian...uh, no comment!!

Thats some good advice Pia, but if i was to do that successfully i'd need a pad near by at all times because i'm very forgetful, i've forgotten some of the best story ideas...

Most of my stories are either based on something I've seen or something I thought would be cool if... A lot of my earlier works have very, very long stories behind them, but I'll condense. Here's a few.

The Fempiror Chronicles -- very obviously based on the vampire legends and such, but I wanted to make then real, so I pondered how to take them out of the fantasy world and make them realistic giving realistic explanations to not only their characteristics, but explaining some of the stuff that isn't realistic and more fantasy. That shaped the world and the stories.

Vengeance -- I was in a store during Halloween time and saw the faceless mask hood. I thought it would be cool if there was a killer who dressed in that with a black outfit. Faceless people are spooky.

Armor of Belial -- The trailer for the video game Vexx. This cracked Bert up when I linked to it. Imagine my surprise after I wrote the script in its entirety and found one of the game's characters had the same name as one of my script's. Complete coincidence.

Old Friends -- inspired by an ex-girlfriend's actual relationship with her "unofficial" foster sister

A Perfect Plan -- Dial M For Murder + A Tell Tale Heart. Mix with a little paprika and chili powder. Boil for 20 minutes.

Most everything else is just me pondering weird things.

Another thing that is kind of enjoyable as well as filling you with inspiration is simple people watching.  If you are ever on a train just listen to ther peoples conversations, they are usually a goldmine, and you can easily base a character off of them after listening to just one conversation.

-Tyler

Lately I've been having an issue within myself about writing. I've not been either inspired or my mental energy, focus is not there. It's not exactly writer's block but more lack of effort. I'll try to sit down and force myself to write something but I'll end up getting frustrated even though I should try. My mind is just not entirely into writing right now but my heart is. What can I do to assist this lack of effort and should I still try to force myself?

I say yes, absolutely.  Write random scenes, three page shorts, whatever.  Keep writing.

When I get in this state I try to flesh out ideas that I have for stories I plan to write later.  Or if I feel especially uncreative as well then I go over old scripts and proof read them again.  I also review other peoples work when I am having down time.  Sometimes this inspires me again.

Set yourself the goal of writing one page per day. This is an achievable goal that won't set you up for failure. Once your start doing this, you'll find that you'll have days where you'll write even more.  

I'd say yeah, just force yourself to just start writing.  Kinda like how Sean Connery said in Finding Forrester.  Just write....you can always go back and edit later.  He was speaking more in terms of books and short stories, but I think it applies here as well.  Put a couple people in a room and just have them talking to each other.  You'd be surprised where it goes.

I've actually had this problem myself before, and I'm kinda going through it right now.  For me, it's usually brought on by the fact that I can't get as excited or interested in writing other's ideas as I would with my own, but once I get to work on it, things usually start to flow.

Another problem I have is getting an idea, something very basic, and then trying to flesh it out into a full script.  I'll start off kinda stagnant, trying t figure out what I'm doing, but as the writing process goes on, I usually figure out whether it'll be a short or a feature, and I take it from there.  I came up with an idea like this earlier today, and now I'm trying to see what I can do with it cause I think the concept is absolutely hilarious, and given that I may be able to cross genres I might be able to do a feature.

Just write.  There's nothing that says what you come up with has to be shown to anybody.

Another problem is Im trying to avoid writing scripts and instead working on character development for said script. For example, right now Im working on a short film script thats being heavily looked at and rather than going back to write additional scene(s) I want to focus more on character development and story development than the story itself, at least for right now. Is this a good idea?

This might be a dumb question, but I want to see what you guys think. Do you guys think it's better for someone new to screenwriting to start off writing a lot of shorts before getting into a full length script? Or did you guys go right into a full length script your first time?

Eh, I'm asking because, I started writing a feature as my first script and about 15 pages in, as much as I loved the idea, I figured I was in way over my head. I'm still intent on finishing it, but I thought it would be better to get better by writing shorts and getting feedback on those before I go and screw up my feature.

I don't know. What did you guys do for your first couple of scripts and in hindsight, what do you wish you did?

The first thing I ever wrote was a feature.  I had enough material to fill it in and then some.  So much so, that I ended up finding a lot of redundancies when I went back to rewrite it, and I pretty much cut it in half.  Yeah, it was that long.

I don't think it makes much of a difference either way, although you would be able to experiment with things and what not, and probably get better/more feedback from a short since features don't seem to be looked at all too often anymore.

I think when you start out features are more exciting. I know when I first started writing I started on 12 features. I never finished any one of them, because I found structure problems after page 30.

then I wrote shorts for about a year and now I'm almost done with my first feature. I think shorts help you figure out what's important to the story and what's excess fat.