The last draft, not the final one...

Why? Because 'writing is rewriting until it's written'.

I honestly believe that until the script or blueprint of the fictitious world we create or real world we capture is properly written, it will not produce life for the subject being presented. It may be produced, but I don't believe it will produce at as great a rate. This is not to discount the technical and creative assistance of above-the-line players who bring it from script to screen. I'm talking about writer's method: "what brilliance [one] might have achieved had [s/he] taken greater pains. For the inside-out method is a way of working that's both disciplined and free, designed to encourage your finest work." --Robert McKee

Today I'll finish drafting a screenplay I drafted a "surrogate treatment" of five years ago using the outside-in method. The phrase "surrogate treatment" is borrowed from Mr. McKee's discussion on A Writer's Method. Here's what he wrote about the "inside-out method":

"Writing a screenplay from a thorough treatment is a joy and often runs at a clip of five to ten pages per day. We now convert treatment description to screen description and add dialogue. And dialogue written at this point is invariably the finest dialogue we've ever written." He goes on to say, "If you shortcut the process and rush straight to screenplay from outline, the truth is that your first draft is not a screenplay, it's a surrogate treatment - a narrow, unexplored, unimprovised, tissue-thin treatment." Of course he cautions that one must find their own method.

What's especially exciting about editing my "surrogate treatment" is that the above-statement confirms the maturity I experienced through the process - I hadn't read Story until after I "wrote" the script. The next scripts I wrote, using a developed method, are far better and resulted in a process that works well for me: I am a better screenwriter today than I was four years ago.

So today as I was preparing to complete a final edit of the last draft, I browsed Facebook and came across Robert McKee's Storylogue Official YouTube Channel and viewed this clip on the "10 traits of weak faulty dialogue" which reminded me of the importance of the Word.

Happy Writing,
GM

Writing is rewriting until it's written!