Script Frenzy is Coming: The Online Screen Play Writing Site Looks to Make Dreams Come True

Ever dreamed of writing the next great Hollywood screenplay? While not as common a goal as writing the Great American Novel, many writers have at some point thought to themselves "I should write a screenplay." This thought becomes more acute after seeing a really poorly written film actually make it to the screen. Starting June 1^st, you can start the process of making the dream of writing a screenplay a reality.

On June 1, Script Frenzy will begin. It is run by the same writing lunatics who began National Novel Writing Month eight years ago and built that "noveling contest" into a national phenomenon. The premise is similar to NaNoWriMo: write a rough draft of a script in 31 days. Also in keeping with the original model, they give you a target word count you must achieve in order to get a winner's certificate: 20,000 words. Page count is the more typical way of measuring progress with a screenplay, but the Script Frenzy folks believe tracking word count is a better motivator.

Here are the 5 Basic Rules of Script Frenzy direct from their website, www.scriptfrenzy.org:

1. To be crowned an official Script Frenzy winner, you must write a script of at least 20,000 words and verify this word count on ScriptFrenzy.org.

2. You may write individually or in teams of two. Writer teams will have a 20,000 total word goal for their single co-written script.

3. Script writing may begin no earlier than 12:00:01 AM on June 1 and must cease no later than 11:59:59 PM on June 30, local time.

4. You may write either a screenplay or a stage play.

5. You must, at some point, have ridiculous amounts of fun.

Sounds pretty easy, doesn't it? And that's what could trip up a number of participants, especially those who have completed National Novel Writing Month one or more times. The word-count requirement for NaNoWriMo is 50,000 words in 30 days, or 1,667 words per day. The 20,000 in 31 days required by Script Frenzy is 646 words per day, less than half the WriMo amount, and about equal to the word count of the average Associated Content article.

The difference is that novels allow for a good deal of meandering wordiness. Even the best of them may run off on the occasional rabbit-trail with no ill effect on the overall story. Not so with a screenplay. In a screenplay every word matters, whether it is dialogue or description or camera direction. Of course you can write a rambling, wordy script (the British do it all the time), but good luck getting anyone to take a serious look at it.

I am not trying to discourage anyone from taking this challenge; my whole purpose in writing this article is to encourage people to participate. Half the fun of NaNoWriMo is the sense of community that develops knowing that people all over the world are writing at the exact same time you are. Rather, I want to encourage everyone who participates to know at least a little about the screenwriting process before things kick off in June. There are hundreds of books that will give you the basics, but there is one in particular that I recommend. Writing Movies, from the acclaimed Gotham Writers' Workshop is the best one-volume book on screenwriting I have found to date. It is as informative about the screenwriting process as their Writing Fiction is for novels.

So if you want to write a screenplay, registration starts May 1^st. You can go to the Script Frenzy website now, enter your e-mail address, and they will send you a reminder when registration begins. It should be a great month of writing, and even if you want to write only novels or short stories, the brevity demanded by a screenplay can at least be an exercise in how to tighten up your writing.

And just in case you were counting, this article ended up at 667 words, even without camera directions. Good luck.