Writing is your business, so why not treat it like one? Never miss another deadline with these simple tricks to stay motivated, organized, and ahead of the competition.
There are many writing sites and software tools out there that help writers draft a script and even more articles about which of those sites are best. Today, I want to talk about the tools that writers need that are outside the draft itself.
Because, let's face it, gone are the days when being a screenwriter meant locking yourself away in a secluded cabin to bang out a draft, just to hand it off to a manager or agent and be done with it. Today's screenwriters need to have the skills to manage and pitch their own work.
And it is work.
So, let's think about it less as a creative outlet or hobby and more like the business that it is. If you want any hope of selling your screenplay or working in a professional writer's room, you'll need to have organization skills, time management skills, and even some design skills to keep up with this ever-changing industry.
Organization
No matter what level you're at in your career, staying organized benefits your writing. There was a recent debate on Twitter about whether outlining was necessary or beneficial. I understand for some it's not part of their process, but there's no world in which outlining wouldn't help you as a writer. And if you're trying to be a professional TV writer, there's no world in which you won't outline in the writer's room. So you might as well get good at it.
In addition to outlining, creating a content calendar can supercharge your writing. More often used in marketing, content and editorial calendars help teams organize and visualize their work over several months to stay on track for publishing. In the screenwriting world, content calendars can be used to divide your writing into smaller, more manageable tasks, to track progress on a script, to track contest and festival submissions, and to keep you accountable for your writing.
Creating a content calendar helps you in so many ways. It lets you see each and every task that you need to complete both before and after the screenplay is finished. Tasks can be as simple as outlining or as complex as a comedy pass for a particular character. It also pushes you to work on days you might otherwise feel disinclined to do so. For me personally, I need to have items to check off throughout my day or I get overwhelmed in the vast cloud of possibilities. I recommend creating a lot of tasks upfront to get you started. You can assign deadlines and add more tasks as you go along. My content calendar shows me what my priorities are and gives me a deadline that holds me accountable for myself.
Have you ever struggled to make time for your writing because everything else you do in a day seems to come first?
Time Management
Whether you're working on multiple projects at once, or you're trying to squeeze screenwriting into your already hectic life, time management tools are essential to prioritizing your screenwriting career. I use a time tracking software for my freelance copywriting work. It helps me track billable hours for different clients and projects, but I soon realized it would also work for my screenwriting.
Have you ever struggled to make time for your writing because everything else you do in a day seems to come first? In addition to creating a content calendar, the act of sitting down at your computer and turning on the time tracker will help you commit to getting started with your writing. And once your start, you're more likely to spend at least an hour at your task. This tool tricks your brain into getting into "work mode." For more tools about tricking your brain into writing, check out this post.
You may not think you need to keep a record of every minute spent writing, but oftentimes it can be rewarding to be able to look back and see how productive you were over the course of a week or a year. It can also help you set goals for improving your time to completion. When starting out, writing is a numbers game. Every script you write will improve your skills, so you want to be able to write and edit quickly and move on to the next project. With a time tracker, you'll see exactly where you spend the most time and where you should be spending more time.
Design
More and more often, writers are taking ownership of the pitching process once their script is completed. Whether you're creating posters, pitch decks, and show bibles or putting together pitch videos for festivals, competitions, or representation you can no longer rely on writing alone to sell your story. Luckily, there are several free tools online to help you create stunning visual materials that look professional and don't require a degree in graphic design. For more information on creating TV bibles, check out my blog post Creating an Entertaining TV Show Bible, where I go into more detail on how to put your bible together.
Pitch decks provide an even more visual approach. You can let images be the focus of your project, supplementing with shorter text where needed. Design tools help you assemble beautiful, high-resolution images that help sell your story while giving a better sense of its tone. You can use the same programs to create movie posters that stand out. Easily drag and drop images and text into place, adjust the background and add overlapping graphics to create texture.
While you don't need to be a design expert, I do recommend getting familiar with the program you're using to get the most from it. Play around with templates and try out each and every feature to get to know how everything works. Most programs even have videos on how to use their software. You could learn some useful tricks that you didn't even realize existed.
Five Free Tools To Get You Started
While there are several dozen tools out there that will help you stay organized and accountable for your work, here are my current favorites:
Google Calendar
Google Calendar is a simple way to keep yourself on schedule when it comes to writing. You can create a separate color-coded calendar just for your work in progress and divide out tasks by date and time. It's also easy to rearrange those tasks if you're not feeling like working on a certain project one day. Just drag the project to another day. It fits in seamlessly with your other calendar activities, so you can see if there are any conflicts, but it doesn't offer some of the more complex tools of other content management software. For example, you can't create a list of tasks that are yet to be completed. Every calendar item must be assigned a date.
Trello
Trello is an amazing resource. It's more robust than Google Calendar, letting you create a project board and add cards for each task to be completed. You can set deadlines, create checklists, color-code tasks with tags, and even link documents to each task. Besides the visual board view, you can see your tasks in the calendar view and track your writing time using their Power-Ups feature. Similar to Google Docs Add-Ons, Power-Ups lets you add helpful tools right to your Trello board and vice versa. The Time Camp Power-Up works as a time tracker right from Trello, so you don't need a separate program. Trello even allows you to work with a writing partner through their team integrations. You can assign tasks to team members and see what each person is currently working on.
Toggl Track
Toggl Track is an easy-to-use time tracking tool that lets you create projects and separate your writing tasks by tag. It's got a simple design and allows you to either track your time by pushing the play button or entering your time manually. You can create tags for each project you're working on. At any point, you can create reports to see how much time you spent on projects; divided up by tag, project, user, or client. Their free version even allows you to add up to 5 users, so your writing partner(s) can join in and track their progress with you.
Google Sheets
Google Sheets is one of the easiest ways to track competition and festival submissions. I highly recommend tracking your submissions for several reasons. First, as this is your business, you want to be able to analyze data like the number of submissions, cost of submissions, and outcomes. Especially in the beginning, it can be useful to know how much you're spending and what kind of return on investment (or ROI) you're getting for your work.
A spreadsheet can show you your submission-to-placement ratio. It can show you which competitions and festivals bring you more success. Remember, it's a numbers game. You want to see some progression from script to script as a sign that your writing is improving. You can go crazy color-coding your spreadsheet and adding extra features, but if you're submitting to contests, or even managers and agents, you should have a visual way to track your progress. For more information on how to create your submission tracking spreadsheet, click here.
Canva
I've previously written about simple design tools like Google Docs, Google Slides, and Mac's built-in program called Pages for creating entertaining bibles and pitch decks. Check out this post for more on that process. But more recently, Canva has become my favorite free design tool. Canva lets you create stunning projects with ease. They have hundreds of templates to get you started, and thousands of images, graphics, and even high-quality video to make your designs stand out. If you're new to design, you can use their templates and font families to get you started quickly. Everything is customizable, to a certain extent.
Some of their more advanced features and images require a paid subscription, but you can upload your own photos from free sites like Unsplash (bonus tool!), which have amazing high-resolution photos and videos. You can also upload your own photos and videos to create simple, yet beautiful pitch videos and proofs of concept. Their video editing is very basic, but you can download your design to the editing software or your choice for more advanced editing.
All of these tools will help take your writing career to the next level, but I'd like to add that you should be realistic with your goals. If you're the kind of person who can sneak in 30 minutes of writing between soccer practice and recitals, then schedule it. If you know you need a solid 5 hours of time to work uninterrupted, make sure you have the time for it in your calendar. If you create goals that don't fit into your lifestyle, you will only be disappointed when you don't reach them. The idea is to create a habit of consistent work that brings you closer to selling your scripts.
If you have any questions or would like me to go into further details about any section of this story, don't be afraid to reach out! And if you have other resources that you find helpful, by all means, let me know! I'm always learning new tips and tricks to better my writing and my business.
Good luck out there!
Holly Holstein is a Los Angeles-based writer with over ten years creating content. She writes independent reviews and articles and is not compensated for her posts. If you enjoy her articles, please sign up to become a member!
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