MFJF map · UK
Screenwriting, from idea to screen: the career of a script writer
A screenwriter writes the film before it exists: the story, the scenes, every line, in a form a crew of a hundred can build from. The architect draws the building; other people put it up. There is no single road in, and almost nobody used only one. Read left to right: what the job is, the two distinctions that shape it, the routes with their years, who reads you, and the honest distance to the first cheque.
What the job isThe script before the film
A screenplay describes only what an audience will see and hear, present tense, in a fixed format: a page is roughly a minute of screen time.
Spec or commissionThe first distinction
Almost every screenwriting career in Britain begins with a spec, and almost every working writer keeps writing them between paid jobs.
Film or televisionThe second distinction
Television is by some distance the larger employer of writers in this country.
The routesTwo lanes, not six
Pick two: one that produces pages and one that produces people. Someone can read scripts by day, write a feature by night and put ten minutes on at a scratch night in the same year.
Who reads youDevelopment, and the chain
A feature does not get made because a producer loves it. It reaches the producer because a reader gave it a Consider and an assistant passed it on. Your first ten pages compete for that Consider.
The honest distanceYears, money and the day job
Three to seven years from a first finished script to a first paid writing job is normal. Most people who say they were quicker had a script that was already their third.
