Why Am I Always Getting Stuck in My Screenplay?

Day after day, I see posts on Screenwriting Reddit and Twitter, and I get emails from people wondering why they’re always getting stuck in their screenplays.

I talked to a guy last week who said he’d written half a dozen first acts, but never made it past page 40.

Many people want to attribute this to writer’s block, which is understandable.

But I think it’s a lack of preparation.

So today, we’re going to tackle why people get stuck in their screenplays and talk about how to solve that problem.

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Why Am I Always Getting Stuck Writing?

The reason you’re always getting stuck when trying to write is that you haven’t done enough preparation.

You got excited by your idea and you dove into your screenwriting software immediately.

That is noble—you want to be excited about what you’re writing and you want to take that fervor and bring it to the page.

But you get stuck because that always dies out.

No matter how much excitement many people go into their drafts withm it burns out when things get tough. To borrow a line from Match Point, “You’re learning the difference between love and lust.”

And lust can only get you so far, you have to love your idea to take it to the end.

How Can I Stop Getting Stuck in My Writing? 

Look, the way to not get stuck is to actually outline. You are not preparing enough. I know this sounds trite, but when you have that urge to write, you should spend a lot more time outlining.

The way I do it, which ensures I finish my first draft fast, is that I spend way more time on pre-writing.

I sit and I write my idea out as a film treatment. It’s basically a word document that tells the whole story. Once I get through the beginning, middle, and end, I then use that document to make an even more detailed beat sheet.

That means laying out all the beats of the story in every act.

One I have that, I open Final Draft and make an outline. I legitimately take all those beats and go through and write scene headers for each. Then I write in the action, a brief description of what happens in the scene.

This can take me a while, because I try to do at least 10 beats per act of the movie.

Once all of that is done, I make a copy of the outline, and then I start filling in those beats, turning them into scenes.

I’m aware that this stringent outlining process can take a ton of time, but it means I could then finish the writing part of the screenplay in like a week.

If you spend way more time outlining and creating the beats of the movies, for ever act, then you will not get stuck in the actual creation of story pages.

Of course, to be a writer, means you will get stuck at different points. It will happen, but if you start writing out the beats prior, it’s better to be stick there than mid scene. Especially because a lot of times this means the beats need to be switched around.

Also, I never write anything I don’t know the ending of, so a lot of times, the real work is figuring out the middle of the script. And that I find MUCH EASIER if I am just tossing beats or notecards out, and not just writing naked and hoping my passion for the idea doesn’t stop.

I know this all sounds simple, but it still is a pain. Doing this pre-writing can be tedious, especially when you want to jump into a draft.

Still, I do think this is the best way to avoid being stuck – you have a map you can follow, and it gets you through your first draft very fast.

Hopefully, this will help you with your next spec script.

Let me know what you think in the comments.