There are a lot of tremendous books on the subject of crafting story and building characters for both screen and television manuscripts. I could recommend some of my favorites and probably will but while it is essential from the start of every project to understand your characters and the direction of your script, I believe a lot of writers get lost in the forest and forget about each individual tree. And that is why I focus on fourteen particular skills that I use that when put together ensure that you have magnificent individual scenes.
 
I call this writing "Electrifying Scenes" and it is important that you, as a writer, understand the difference between a bad scene, a good scene, and a great one. If you aren't writing great scenes then you are likely boring the reader, or at the very least, not impressing the reader, and this means that the job you are competing for -- someone else is going to get it. And when I say job I mean, sometimes you really are up for a job as script editor or as writer of at least one draft, and they are reading your original work as a sample. This is extremely common in the industry.
 
Sometimes they are reading your original script to see if they want to buy it or in the case of television, agree to help you convince a network executive to air it. And in this situation, if your script isn't crackling with greatness, guess what? No sale. And they won't even tell you why. They will just take a pass. Sometimes they won't even know why. They just know they weren't impressed with your overall writing style. It wasn't "for them." You'll find that frustrating but the truth is, it is not their fault. If you aren't taking an extraordinary amount of time to hone your craft and work over each scene in your manuscript until it reaches a level beyond ordinary, beyond just good, then you will probably not do well in your career.
 
And that's what makes being a writer tiresome to the point of frustration sometimes. Because you always start off with your first draft and your first draft is, more often then not, atrocious. And that's not you. That's all of us. I don't even bother to spell check my first draft because nobody is going to see it because it's awful. Really awful. And the effort to get the material from awful to good is, well, it's a lot of work. It takes three or four drafts sometimes to get it from awful to good, especially if you try out something in your second draft that doesn't work at all, which is often the case.
 
So your script is awful, and you've worked hard, really hard, to make each scene acceptable. To make it good. And you are now exhausted. You are sick of looking at this script. You've got three other script ideas and you want to get started on one of those. You figure, this is good enough now. I'll put it in some contests, give it to some of my professional contacts. I'll shop it now.
 
And that's a mistake. A huge mistake. What you put out there is what people think you can do. It's the top level of what you can do in their mind. And if you are putting a script out there just because you are exhausted from looking at it, then well, shame on you. That's you putting good work out there when you have the capacity to show the world you are a great writer, which frankly is what it takes in order to get work.
 
So you really have two options here, and only two, as I see it. And both are acceptable, as long as you are not under contract with this particular work. If you have no deadline.
 
Option 1: Keep Working
 
When most writers get their manuscript from awful to acceptable. From lousy to good, they feel they are now done. They can put down the pen. Not me. This is where I start to get excited about the project. I've done the hard work! Now I can get into each scene and give it more depth. I can flesh out the theme or the characters. I can add another joke into a funny scene or ramp up an action scene or create more emotion in a dramatic scene.
 
I can make little things happen in the background as the main event of the scene happens in the foreground. I can enhance my dialogue. I can make the bland cardboard minor characters into colorful interesting characters. I can work on ambience. I can ensure consistency in tone. I can ensure that every character has his or her own voice.
 
I can ramp up the stakes and put my characters in greater peril! I can make sure that the most powerful words in every sentence are near or at the end of every sentence to create the most impact!
 
The work to get  an individual scene from good to great is slow, long, hard work. But it's exciting! If you aren't excited about taking an already good scene and making it into a great scene then retire from writing.
 
Syd Field who knows a lot about this, likes to talk a lot in his books about how writing is re-writing. If Syd Field is saying it repeatedly, that's because he wants to enforce it in my head, and in your head. If you haven't read Syd Field's books then shame on you also. Go read them all now, in succession. Not as an excuse to not write though. Read a couple of pages of his books, of Blake Snyder's Save the Cat Series, and all the other great industry books you can find. Read a few pages a day, grab a jewel or three of new information a day to inspire you or educate you or add a few new tricks to your bag.
 
And get back to your script. Keep working, even though you want to move on to something else. Even though you want so badly to just be done with this script. Be positive, make it a game in your own head. Have fun. Reward yourself for getting pages completed or scenes completed or acts completed. Use all of the psychology you can to keep yourself excited, happy, and motivated to be working on the script.
 
And though it will take a lot of time and energy, the script you will behold when you are done will be so much better. It will show off every writing skill that you didn't even know you had. And that's how you show off your skills so that you can get work in this industry. It's how you can show off your skills so that you can sell a script in this industry. It's how you convince producers they can trust you to get a job done, and cause them to want to hire you.
 
By making sure your pages are great, not good, you do yourself and your manuscript a huge service, rather than the previous disservice you did by being content with only good.
 
Option 2: Take a break
It's okay to step away from your script after a complete draft is done. Sometimes you can step away for a week, sometimes up to a month, and that's totally fine. Nothing wrong with it. Just as long as you understand that the script isn't done yet. It's not ready for prime time. Don't put it out there, as that will hurt your reputation.
 
You can take a writing vacation or you can work on one of those other ideas you are suddenly so passionate about for a little bit. This is totally okay under the following circumstances:
 
I know writers that have eight to ten different scripts "in progress" and nothing that is at a level of greatness and ready to showcase. That's not how you do it.
 
It's fine though to have a couple scripts in progress simultaneously, going from one to the other between drafts if that's how you prefer to work. When you get back to your script that is at the good level and you want to make it great you may have more perspective on what's wrong with it or new ideas that you can incorporate into it by having stepped away from it.
 
It is amazing how the subconscious mind works. And so if you step away from your script between when it's good and when you want to make it great, sometimes when you come back to it your mind will be overflowing with ideas that your subconscious has been cooking up and stockpiling while you've been on vacation or working on a different script. So now you can jump back in there. And now everything I wrote in the first option still applies. Do all of that.
 
I talk about there being fourteen different skills that I personally utilize to make my scenes great. I am not going to go into all of them in this blog. I will wait until the next one to lightly outline each of them. I am also going to write an actual book on all of them. That's one of my projects for later this year on my own personal slate.
 
So how, you ask, do I get my pages from good to great? Focus on getting into every scene as late as you can. Eliminate all clutter. Make sure all of your scenes are about the event in the scene. Eliminate all dialogue that isn't about the specific event of the scene. If you have a scene that is all dialogue? Get rid of it and replace it with a scene in which there is an event. Move all of the powerful words in your sentences to the end of each sentence to ensure that you create the most emotion. End the scene as soon as you accomplish the goal of the scene. Don't have any scenes longer than two pages. Keep things moving! Ramp up the stakes. Ramp up the action. Ramp up the comedy.
 
These are some quick tips on how to make scenes great. Remember that each scene should be a roller coaster ride unto itself. Start a scene happy and end it sad. Start a scene angry and end it joyfully. Manipulate the emotional states of your characters within the scene and you will do the same thing to your audience. If a scene starts scary and ends scary, maybe nothing important happened in the scene. If a scene starts scary and ends happy, something definitely happened in the scene. That's the skill of polarity. One of my fourteen. One of the most important ones.
 
Trim the fat. If a character doesn't really serve a purpose in your script, eliminate the character from the script. Combine that character with another one that is more useful. Trim the fat!
 
Do your research. Make sure everything is accurate. Make sure that one hole in your plot that you hoped nobody is going to notice but secretly fear everybody is going to notice is taken care of. Take care of it! Re-write it so there is no plot hole. There's a solution, you just have to think about it for awhile. Think about it, make a list of possible solutions, pick the one you think is the most interesting that will fit well in your manuscript, then use it. Maybe as a result you'll have to change things on thirty other pages. Do that.
 
Writing is re-writing. Syd Field says so. I say so also. Cause Mr. Field is right and so am I, and if you don't want to fix everything in your script that is broken then don't blame me when your script gets another "pass" when it could have been a sale. Cause I told you so.
 
In other words, don't settle for a good, acceptable script. Everybody can get there. Literally every other writer in the world can get there. But not everybody will get from good to great. Everyone takes the time to do what I label as the fast work of writing the first atrocious draft and then re-crafts it to when its good, likely around the third or the fourth draft.
 
But you need to be better than that. Your script needs to be great. Keep going. Don't give up. Make it fun in your own head. Love being a writer and love your manuscript.
 
Make it great!