The book will write itself

Screenwriting Tricks for Authors

• Do you have a completed or partial manuscript sitting around in a drawer or under your bed that you think isn’t good enough to finish or submit?

• Are you wondering how you could possibly think you’re good enough to make it as an author when so many other people started so much earlier than you did?

I got a question from a writer this week that warrants a bigger discussion of these issues. So let me get right to it.

All writers doubt themselves. Constantly. Of course we don’t feel up to the formidable, awesome task of writing a book. Of course it often seems like a miracle that only a chosen few are able to perform.

It’s so normal to feel doubt. But if it is keeping you from doing your daily writing—which obviously is what you have to be doing to get the book written, right? —

I would submit that maybe - MAYBE - this is a problem of self-centeredness to the point of self-sabotage.

And I would suggest this mind shift:

It’s NOT ABOUT YOU.

Actually, YOU have very, very, little to do with it, other than actually showing up every day to do the work.

You need to stop thinking about YOU (especially all this nonsense about how inadequate you are), and start thinking about THE BOOK.

Because THE BOOK is its own entity. It is a life force. Once you commit to it, THE BOOK starts to become a vortex that draws all kinds of things to it. Characters. Settings. Dialogue. Themes. The books you need to read. The authors you need to follow and interact with. The chatty law enforcement professionals or whatever chatty professionals your story happens to need. Contests to enter. Beta readers. Writing fellowships.

In some ways it is a terrible, monstrous, hungry thing, a book. It has a ferocious will to live. As it grows and that vortex becomes bigger and hungrier, you will have no time to think about how inadequate you are. You will have all you can do just scrambling to keep up with it.

The BOOK will tell you what you need to do next. Always.

And I think that some people never get a book written because they’re not willing - or too scared - to submit to the book in a way a book demands submission.

We all fight like hell to retain our own egos, and THE BOOK doesn’t give a flying fuck about your ego. It demands the sacrifice of your entire existence to service it.

I’m not saying this is easy - but there’s a kind of freedom in submitting to that vision/reality of it, because you’re not alone in this job, and you’re not fully responsible for getting it done. The book does a LOT of its own work. Sometimes you’re just trying to hold on and keep from being left behind.

All of the above may sound like total insanity to some of you or even most. But I swear to you, there is a lot of mysticism involved in this whole book thing. And doesn’t it sound tempting to let go of having to do everything yourself, and activate this awesome force?

Try these simple mind shifts.

• You’re not organizing your day around writing, you’re organizing it around The Book.

• Your goal is not to write, your goal is to Write The Book.

• You’re not asking, What am I going to write today? You’re asking What does The Book need from me today?

The shift is from the vague and general verb writing to the specific noun, The Book.

And if that book has been lying abandoned in some drawer or under your bed or in some obscure corner of your laptop, it might take a few days or weeks work to coax it back to life. But it’s not dead. Start feeding it and it will tell you what you need to do.

So if you have that abandoned manuscript, take it out. Read it through, when you have time and space to really spend quality time with it.

What is it trying to say to you? What parts of it feel alive? What characters deserve to be out there interacting with readers?

Don’t focus on what’s missing. Focus on what’s there.

What is THE BOOK telling you to do next?

Maybe it’s not what you could call a book, yet, but more like an outline or a treatment. So take what’s there, and start from the beginning of the steps. Work your way through the TABLE OF CONTENTS here:

Or grab one of the workbooks and do it that way!

• Stealing Hollywood

• Writing Love

Use the steps in order or in whatever order makes sense to you.

Do INDEX CARDS. Identify the ACTION LINE of your story. Write a new SYNOPSIS. Work out the STORY ELEMENTS of each Act. Identify your SIX TENTPOLE SCENES.

Work one step at a time until THE BOOK leaps to life and starts doing the heavy lifting for you.

Because it will.

We don’t do this alone. Trust in the magic of your book.

Also this week, to illustrate the Six Tentpole Scenes of Your Book we talked about last week, I’ve broken them out in Sense & Sensibility here, along with a breakdown of Act I.

—Alex

All material ©Alexandra Sokoloff

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Need some help? The Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workshop is available online, as a self-paced course with all the videos, assignments, movie breakdowns and personalized feedback you need to get that book written this year, 15 minutes at time.

In three parts, and you only pay for what you use.

Get the workbooks:

• Stealing Hollywood ebook, $4.99, also available as print workbook

• Writing Love ebook, $2.99

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