When did you first start writing screenplays? I began on my 1st screenplay in my early 20s. Throughout my teen years I was a musician. I got married young, moved out of my folks house and into an apartment, had a baby and had to put the guitar on hold. My buddy, who is about 5 years older than me, moved into the apt. across the hall. He too was a former-musician with a young family.

In order to release our creative juices we decided to collaborate on a screenplay. We would drive out to a truck stop around 11PM every other Friday night and write! It was probably the best time I ever had writing a script. It wasn't long until we had the wait staff believing that we were famous screenwriters working on our next "big" movie. They even set us up in the reserved section of the diner so we would not be disturbed  :)  

Anyhow, it took about 3 years to finish the script (and learn the craft). We even had it professionally analyzed for $200. Best money I ever spent. Surprisingly enough we had a lot of bites on it from agents and indie moviemakers. Unfortunately it never sold. We even started a writers group that met at a coffee house that lasted for about 7 years. Our last meeting was in December of 2008.

What's your story?

-Wtrailer

I think it was around the tail end of 2006. I had been very sick in 2004. It got so bad that I had no control over my hands. I was in a hospital bed for almost two years.

Now, things are becoming clear as to the problem-- Staph Aureus. It's a bacteria that everyone has, but if it gets a foothold in the system, it can be really bad. For me, it got into my nervous system and so I had a heart beat of 120 while just lying in bed... It was a nightmare, but along the way, I met people that were seriously suffering and although I felt that the whole experience was so very weird for me, it was more than weird. Why? Because...

At first, I thought I could fight it. I said to myself, "This isn't going to beat me!!!" I was sick and yet still, I climbed on treadmills and God knows what I did, but it wouldn't let up no matter my efforts.

Long story short, I've learned that things are things. The way things are, are the way things are. We can't change it no more than we can change our hair color, but...

But.... we can engage with what's happening. This, I believe is the third element that exists above any duality that we feel as good or bad in our senses.

Sandra

I think like some people here, writing a script is something that appeals to the challenging side of them.

I live to learn new things.

Without detailing them, I have enjoyed learning several new things in my life for the sheer challenge of seeing if I could do it.

Screenwriting is one of them. But unlike some of my past passions, I don't see myself so easily just making it to the top of this endeavor.

In short, I found a challenge that I don't see a  moment where I can say, there I did it.

And I dig that.

Shawn.....><

I started writing when I was 15 after a year or so of learning how. I made several feeble attempts to write features, mostly based on video games. Of course, none of them panned out. The first script I ever tried to write was based on Clive Barker's Undying, one of the most underrated games of all time. I made more progress on that script than any of the ones that followed. If anyone made a movie of that game today, I still think it would be awesome.

I wrote my first feature, an original zombie movie, in 2005 when I was 18. I posted it on SimplyScripts and the rest was history. There's still elements of that script I liked but if anyone offered to produce it, I'd refuse for the sake of not wanting my name attached to it for the world to see.

I have never wanted to be anything other than a writer (well, I can't remember wanting to be anything else). My mother was a published writer, and indeed met my father while researching a book. Which she never wrote. So I was brought up in a literary household. (I should say that my day job is as an academic librarian).

When I read the republished scripts for the classic 1950s TV serials by Nigel Kneale, featuring "Quatermass" in 1979, I knew that I knew I wanted to be a scriptwriter. I was a bit of a movie buff before then, but funnily enough it never occured to me that someone wrote them!

I started reading books on scriptwriting - not as easy then as it is now, and scripts (ditto - no internet to download free screenplays). In 1980 I sent storylines to a British TV show called "Doctor Who", for which a 17 year old fan had just written, and got a very encouraging letter from the then script editor (who went onto become an award winning producer).

My first script of any kind was written for the charity I worked for in 1986 - the plan being they could film it and use it as a promo video. It never happened, of course - though years later they had an ad on TV that bore more than a passing resemblence to one of the scenes in it.

I began writing seriously on 22nd September 1988. I had just be made redundant, was a couple of days past my 23rd birthday, and decided it was time to get going. I started with shorts (and I mean shorts - one or two pages at most), and gradually worked my way up to features.

The first feature length screenplay I wrote was called "Still Waters", and was a ghost story - quite a good one, I keep meaning to revisit it - and I wrote it in a month, in the run up to Christmas/New Year 1988. I immediately wrote a second, another ghost story, in January 1989.

21 years. It's a bit shocking, thinking about it like that.

I still haven't given up hope yet though. They say that a professional is just an amateur who doesn't give up. Well, I've no plans to give up just yet.

For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted to write. In fact, for as long as I can remember, I have written. Just stupid little short stories, but it was always something. I had other ideas in my early teens, but it always reverted back to wanting to write. I wrote my first novel at age 14, and my first screenplay at 15. I'm 21 now, and I've still got a lot to learn, but there's no giving up in me.

I really started in 1992 during my senior year of high school. I've always had a knack for it, even to the point that a teacher accused me of plagiarizing a book report, only because it was so well written, not because they could prove a source. I was a bit of a slacker otherwise...

My start was writing music, though I did concoct a few home movies with some friends where I improvised the story as we went along. I wish I could find that tape, but I suspect it ended up in an old girlfriend's house and I'll never see it again. :( Anyway, I composed rather extensively in high school, and once I graduated, I went into the Army and then discovered musicals. In high school, I had some story ideas, and even created an entire fictional city that I still use for a backdrop occasionally. The foundation of my writing life was slowly being laid.

After a few years of concentrating on musicals, I ran across a playwrights group in 1998 where I presented my musicals (I had all the music sequenced and I sang through it all to show it off) and got some really good feedback. I wrote a couple of plays with this group and a one act was presented in a sort of festival at the theater that sponsored the group. Also, during this time, I ran across a guy in Sweden who was about as prolific with lyrics as I was with music at the time, and we started working together to clean up a musical he'd written. That musical, that I ended up with book, music, and lyrics credits on, was presented at a theatre at his college in Stockholm (or maybe Haninge, I was never sure), Sweden.

It was about that time in 2001 that I discovered screenwriting. Up to then, my musicals were written specifically to avoid the dreaded "scene change music" that always annoyed me about the older shows. A lot of modern musicals do something in the foreground while the scene is changed behind them, so I wanted to make sure my stuff was written so the action could move continuously, even though a lot of my ideas were almost too big for the stage. Movies seemed like a better idea to present them.

I dived in and wrote a 20 page short for a single set play setting based on an Edgar Allen Poe story and an Alfred Hitchcock movie that I thought was terribly clever. It's called A Perfect Plan, and you can actually read it on SimplyScripts. Then, having seen Rope and some Brian DePalma, I was determined to write a story that could be done in one shot, so I wrote Forgotten, which I think is also on SimplyScripts. It was 45 pages and written basically to be shot in one take, but would be difficult to do on a stage because of "off-camera" stuff that would need to happen.

Then, already having a penchant for horror movies that a lot of screenwriters tend to have, I decided to write a stereotypical horror film, and found I had two ideas to write down. That's when I wrote both Vengeance and The Soul Keeper within a month's time. They were rough around the edges, and sometimes a bit contrived, but they were decent overall.

It wasn't until 2004 that I found SimplyScripts to post these two jewels online, and then I found the discussion board, and that's when I really took off in writing. Shortly thereafter, I found other online writing communities, and I wrote for a few virtual series, got some requests to write on some other people's stories. 2004-2006 was a crazy writing time frame for me. I wrote probably 40-50 scripts during that time. I even wrote an episode of The Lunchroom before it ended its run. I've scaled back considerably since, though I continue to write.

That was long winded, but that's who I am. I've probably told this story before too. I've been around long enough.

Quoted from Niles_Crane I have never wanted to be anything other than a writer (well, I can't remember wanting to be anything else). My mother was a published writer, and indeed met my father while researching a book. Which she never wrote. So I was brought up in a literary household. (I should say that my day job is as an academic librarian). When I read the republished scripts for the classic 1950s TV serials by Nigel Kneale, featuring "Quatermass" in 1979, I knew that I knew I wanted to be a scriptwriter. I was a bit of a movie buff before then, but funnily enough it never occured to me that someone wrote them! I started reading books on scriptwriting - not as easy then as it is now, and scripts (ditto - no internet to download free screenplays). In 1980 I sent storylines to a British TV show called "Doctor Who", for which a 17 year old fan had just written, and got a very encouraging letter from the then script editor (who went onto become an award winning producer). My first script of any kind was written for the charity I worked for in 1986 - the plan being they could film it and use it as a promo video. It never happened, of course - though years later they had an ad on TV that bore more than a passing resemblence to one of the scenes in it. I began writing seriously on 22nd September 1988. I had just be made redundant, was a couple of days past my 23rd birthday, and decided it was time to get going. I started with shorts (and I mean shorts - one or two pages at most), and gradually worked my way up to features. The first feature length screenplay I wrote was called "Still Waters", and was a ghost story - quite a good one, I keep meaning to revisit it - and I wrote it in a month, in the run up to Christmas/New Year 1988. I immediately wrote a second, another ghost story, in January 1989. 21 years. It's a bit shocking, thinking about it like that. I still haven't given up hope yet though. They say that a professional is just an amateur who doesn't give up. Well, I've no plans to give up just yet.

Good for you, Niles! Never say never. Shoot, I just said never twice. Actually, now three times! Whoah!  ;D

Sandra

I only started a year past October, a few months after my 21st birthday. I've learned so much in that short time which is pleasing as I left school at 16 and English class was never my favourite. If someone told me back then that I'd be writing screenplays in a few years, I would have laughed in their faces.

I started writing for fun when I was a kid.

In the sixties I was involved in the music industry and wrote song lyrics, with little success.  

In the seventies and eighties I moved into poetry and had several poems published but my then building up a business was my main priority.

That lasted until I reach 60 in 2005.  I retired from business and decided I would write screenplays because I have always liked film.

Since March 2005 I have written 19 feature screenplays including five with writing partners, plus eight commissioned feature screenplays, six short scripts and one TV play.

I really wish I had started writing screenplays earlier.

I wrote my first screenplay in 2005, in my Junior year of high school. It was called "Scythe" and it was terrible. The format all kinds of wrong and it was just lame.

Since then, I've written seven screenplays. The last one I wrote was Battle Royale, which I finished a year ago. I try to go back to revise all of them at least once a year.

I start writing in 1 february 2007, this is the date that my first draft of my first script has on it. I start without knowing the craft, my format was a mess and i finish in 60 pages thinking that i wrote a masterpiece.

Since then i wrote 4 features ( not even one complete) and now im writing my 5th. But all this time i was writing for fun , i never consider to sell them or produce them. I start to be serious in 21/9/2009 when i start my 1000 days project ( i will complete my 3 features , from my first 4 and write 2 more). Since then i work in daily base.

During my incubatory months, I storyboarded a one act play on the inner lining of my mothers womb using nothing but the sharpened cuticle of my pinky. Every time the cursed woman stretched I lost an evening's work. Of course I didn't posses the mental faculties back then to remember what I had wrote (vague memories of INT. VESSEL - NIGHT occasionally breach my thoughts nowadays akin to an acid flashback, however, the actual plot continually escapes me) so I had to start from scratch over and over again until I was abruptly pulled out by the legs on day 273.  

Now...beat that :P

I've been writing for a long time, but only obsessively since 2003. February 15th, specifically. It just happened. One day, I decided I wanted to re-write one of my brother's old stories. To this day, I haven't finished it, and I probably never will.

During that stretch of time, I've done many other ideas. However, I've found that my favorite topic to write about seems to be zombies. I think I like it mainly because they usually show the fall of civilization and what people turn into when they know that help isn't coming.

I've never collaborated with anyone and I don't think I ever will. I'm hapyp writing by myself, because I tend to not work well with other people.

That's pretty much all that needs to be told about when I started writing.

Quoted from Colkurtz8 Now...beat that

My short called 'The Race' is actually my first memory, I wrote it there and then.  I think that means I beat you Col lol.  :)

As a kid I suffered from a disease known as "A Plastic Anemia";I had a bone marrow transplant. Which kinda changed a lot of things for me. I remember writing a story of a dead kid on my hospital bed----my first story.
All this made me a hyper-sensitive kid. Writing was the only window where I could express my feelings.

I ,in pursuit of imitating my father started writing poetry and never touched fiction for a long time..I kept on perusing my dream of compiling my first book of poems.

When I went to a Engineering university I was already quite good at poetry.We here in Pakistan have a poetic gathering called a "mushaira",where poets recite their poems.I went to alot of such gatherings  and I was appreciated by many known poets.
It was until 2006 that I was sent by the university to attend an All-Pakistan  short story competition;as my university was an Engineering university, they were short of people who were interested in art. I astonishingly won the competition(not to mention a lot of people from top art schools were attending the competition). It was after that when I  seriously started writing fiction. I have written a few short stories since then. I , fortunately, was asked by a director to write a short film in 2008. She was interested in filming one of my short story. She filmed it with the name " Unknown".

To cut the story short :
I have been writing for 12 years now but screen writing is rather new to me. I am still learning the art. I would love to leave my day job at some point of my life and start writing professionally.

Razi

Quoted from Colkurtz8 During my incubatory months, I storyboarded a one act play on the inner lining of my mothers womb using nothing but the sharpened cuticle of my pinky. Every time the cursed woman stretched I lost an evening's work. Of course I didn't posses the mental faculties back then to remember what I had wrote (vague memories of INT. VESSEL - NIGHT occasionally breach my thoughts nowadays akin to an acid flashback, however, the actual plot continually escapes me) so I had to start from scratch over and over again until I was abruptly pulled out by the legs on day 273.   Now...beat that :P

hahah lol :P ... thats what you call a born writer

"My short called 'The Race' is actually my first memory, I wrote it there and then.  I think that means I beat you Col lol."

-- This is a sulking, thunder-less me :'(

First of all, hello everybody! I say that with such deliberate intention because this is my first post on simplyscripts. As I've started writing my first script, I needed to know the proper format and I found this place through a search. It was exactly what I needed and much thanks to the admin., regulars and the powers-that-be in general behind the site.
As to the thread subject: I started writing when I was fourteen because my older brother dabbled in the art of poetry so I thought it made me precocious and erudite to do likewise. Anyhow, he quit a looooooong time ago and I'm still at it. I branched out from poetry when I was in college and I have written 4 novels and one three act play in the 25 years since my humble and incipient days of imitating my brother's pursuits. I have a novel published with a small (now defunct) press and it is, nonetheless, available on amazon (fyi, Macky Dunn's Got Nothing To Lose). Two of my other novels I would not want in print. But, that painful admission being made, my last novel is a masterpiece-in-waiting. The reaction to it from several devoted readers (one of whom has a Masters in Eng. lit.) around me has been outstanding and cause for quite a healthy tailwind in my devotion to the only thing I've ever loved doing. In that regard, I'm diligently pursuing a lit. agent right now in my life. As well, I've just started writing essays on film and literature in the past 6 months and have found this divergent discipline to be very unique and satisfying with regards to territory of my mind as yet untapped.
I've read my poetry in various places across the country: Seattle, Chicago, Boston, New York, etc. and I've got a collection entered into the 2010 Yale Younger Poet competition. I've just assumed my entry fee to be a donation but somebody's got to win and my stuff is good enough... It's just a matter of the taste of the judges.
Well, that's my story. Sorry to make it so brief  ;) but I've got writing to do.
Again, thanks to whoever has put their time into simplyscripts. Your site is a godsend and a wonderful find for a newbie to the art of the manuscript.
  

i started writing because of simply scripts, this site has had such a huge impact on me! i've always made movies and had ideas flowing through me for as long as i can remember, but i never even thought to write them down or develop a screenplay. when i came across this site i immediately wrote one as fast as i could because well i was twelve and thought i was the shit! haha, but i wrote it because the reviewing aspect appealed to me so much, i knew nothing about screenplays! after that the writing never stopped, from the sloppy script that i first sent in i learned how to fully format a script, all from this website! this still surprises me because people have taken classes to learn to screen write but i just grew into it because of this website! this post has really got me thinking now hahah - thanks don!!!

Quoted from razi As a kid I suffered from a disease known as "A Plastic Anemia";I had a bone marrow transplant. Which kinda changed a lot of things for me. I remember writing a story of a dead kid on my hospital bed----my first story. All this made me a hyper-sensitive kid. Writing was the only window where I could express my feelings. I ,in pursuit of imitating my father started writing poetry and never touched fiction for a long time..I kept on perusing my dream of compiling my first book of poems. When I went to a Engineering university I was already quite good at poetry.We here in Pakistan have a poetic gathering called a "mushaira",where poets recite their poems.I went to alot of such gatherings  and I was appreciated by many known poets. It was until 2006 that I was sent by the university to attend an All-Pakistan  short story competition;as my university was an Engineering university, they were short of people who were interested in art. I astonishingly won the competition(not to mention a lot of people from top art schools were attending the competition). It was after that when I  seriously started writing fiction. I have written a few short stories since then. I , fortunately, was asked by a director to write a short film in 2008. She was interested in filming one of my short story. She filmed it with the name " Unknown". To cut the story short : I have been writing for 12 years now but screen writing is rather new to me. I am still learning the art. I would love to leave my day job at some point of my life and start writing professionally. Razi

Razi,

Your story is very interesting to me.

I'm often drawn to people and their stories, outside of our typical "how we came to writing stories".

This last Christmas, 2009, I was enjoying Bower Place Mall for the first time during "the season".

There was a man. He was doing "sand art". You may or may not have ever seen this before.

It's a kind of art where the sand is sprinkled through a kind of faucet into a vessel. The vessele might be like a typical vase, or it might be more flat-- it doesn't matter the shape.

I looked at this gentleman, and I really needed to ask him:

"When did you start doing this? What prompted you?"

His answer was this:

His father used to work in a construction kind of business where he delivered sand.

As a kid, he started playing with it.

The interesting thing was that he said, he couldn't sketch worth a darn. He said his son could, but he couldn't. Ask him to draw something and he said he was useless, but his son had that talent.

When I talked with the family, I learned they were from Jerusalem. I still don't know today if they were here on some kind of work permit or not, but I do know...

I felt a wonderful connection that I can't explain.

I really want to say that I appreciate hearing your story and within myself, I have this desire to connect with people across the world.

I don't know what it is, but I love to learn other languages as do my children.

All in all, it's a blessing. I know that.

;D Even though I'm fighting to remember the bathroom question in Spanish.

:)

Sandra