In a perfect world, we’d all have unlimited time to work on our scripts. Studying for school, working to pay the bills, and family obligations would be taken care of, and there would be plenty of free time consisting of nothing more than you, your laptop, and the worlds and characters you create. 

But it’s not a perfect world, and we have responsibilities to attend to. Even if you become a professional screenwriter, you’ll still need to balance your writing with social engagements, health objectives and family duties. Part of any job is learning to balance that job with this thing we call life. So whether you’re a beginner or professional, it’s essential to learn how to balance your life with your writing. 

Below we’ll discuss various methods and ways of thinking that can help you find the time to write your screenplay. 

Train Yourself To Write Under Industry Deadlines

Before we get into how you can find the time, let’s first talk about the screenwriting time goals you should be shooting for as you evolve as a screenwriter. 

If you really want to become a screenwriting pro who writes cinematic stories for a living, you’re going to need to train yourself to write under pro contract deadlines. The days of taking months upon months — or even years upon years — of writing a single script need to be left in your rearview mirror. 

In the film industry, most professional writing assignments give you roughly 2 and a half months to finish a first draft of a screenplay. The thought of having to finish a screenplay within that limited time might shock many newcomers, but it’s not as daunting as it sounds. In fact, once you get used to working within deadlines, you’ll find it helps you to hone your craft and finish scripts easier. You won’t have any time to procrastinate or make excuses: you have a deadline to meet!

Writing Doesn’t Always Entail Typing — Visualization Is Key   

When you’re writing for a visual medium like film or television — especially amidst the highly specific format of screenplays — it’s important to visualize your scenes before you put fingers to keys.

Writing doesn’t always entail typing. You can and should be writing in your head before you type a single word. This is where you can create extra writing time throughout your day. You can visualize/daydream as you:

• Get ready for school or work
• Drive/Walk/Bike to school or work
• Have free time during breaks and lunch
• Workout at the gym
• Walk/Run/Bike for workouts
• Lay down for bed 

Visualizing is writing. 

• Prepare yourself for your next writing session (more on that below)
• Know what scenes you’re going to be working on
• Visualize scenes sequentially to maintain consistent flow and pacing

After a day or night of visualizing, once you get to your keyboard most of the work will be done for you in your head, allowing you more time to fine-tune and problem-solve. 

Speaking of prep work…

Screenplay Outlines Are Your Friend 

If you’re training yourself to write like a pro under pro contract deadlines, you should learn how to outline your script as well. Outlines are the best prep work you can do as a screenwriter. They help you to organize your thoughts, visuals, scenes, sequences, and ideas for your stories and characters. 

If you’ve read screenwriting books or have watched interviews with Oscar-winning or successful screenwriters, you might know the note card approach where the screenwriter uses index cards or sticky notes to write down story beats and ideas for scenes. They’ll then place those notes onto a beat board they create — oftentimes on a wall — moving the notes as needed to create a general outline of a script. 

You can also do this digitally and within the same program you’re using to write your screenplay via Final Draft’s Beat Board feature, which allows you to create virtual note cards that you can edit, move around a virtual beat board and eventually send to the Outline Editor tool and finally to your script.

Once you have all your scenes written down and arranged, you can simply expand them into a rough draft of your screenplay.

Forget About Writing Time — Think in Writing Sessions 

This is the game-changer for any screenwriter when it comes to worrying about finding the time to write. Forget about time. Focus on writing sessions and the pages you can write during those sessions. 

When you’ve done the prep work of visualization and outlining, it’s fairly easy to write 10 pages in a single writing session. 

But forget about time. Focus on the page count. 

10 pages per writing session equals 100 pages in 10 writing sessions. That’s a screenplay, folks! 90 to 110 pages is the average screenplay length. It doesn’t matter if it takes you 4 hours or 1 hour to get 10 pages. Focus on the page count per writing session and you’ll take away the anxiety of worrying about time. 

Pro screenwriters rarely write for 8 hours straight per day. A large chunk of their time is usually spent staring out into nothing and thinking. A pro screenwriter may allot a whole day to write, but when it comes to actually putting fingers to keys, they mostly write for a couple of hours and not always continuously.

Yet again, forget about time. Focus on page goals. 

If you break it down to 10 pages per writing session, you can finish a first draft within just 10 writing sessions!

• Maybe that’s 10 straight days where you write for just a couple hours
• Maybe it’s you writing every other day for whatever amount of hours 
• Maybe it’s you writing on your days off of school or work   

It doesn’t matter how much time you give yourself. Inspiration and imagination comes in spurts. You can adapt this process as well. 

• If you’re on a roll or need to meet a tighter deadline, do 20 pages per writing session  
• If you have a busy week outside of your screenwriting, do just 5 pages per writing session for that week

Anything is possible. Stop worrying about filling an hours quota. What really matters in the end is that you have the pages. 

You can also use Final Draft’s Writing Stats to keep track of your productivity. By tracking how many pages you finish per session, you’ll learn more about your writing habits and it’ll help you to schedule around them.

Rewrite As You Go

Here’s another way to save yourself time. If you’re focused on making page goals, you can create a rewrite-as-you-go process to each writing session. 

• After you’ve written your first 10 pages, on the next writing session, start by reading those 10 pages first and tweak them as you go (editing description and dialogue, fixing formatting, taking care of spelling and grammar errors, etc.)
• Then continue writing your next 10 pages
• For your next writing session, read your now-20 pages and rewrite them as you go 
• Then continue writing your next 10 pages

Do this with every writing session until you’re done with your script. What are the benefits?

• You’ll have a first draft that reads more like a third draft 
• You’ll have a more focused and streamlined script
• You’ll have a script that is more consistent because you’re always on the “same page” with your past, present and future self 
• You’ll save hours upon hours of time (or writing session upon writing session) when you get to the rewrite phase (which most pro contracts only give you two weeks per rewrite draft)

Writing Sessions Can Be Scheduled at Any Time

Whether you’ve got a full day to write, or late into a night, or just an hour here and there, finding writing session slots within your otherwise busy schedule is much easier than trying to find multiple 8 hour blocks. 

With the proper prep in visualizing and outlining, you’ll be pleasantly surprised how many pages you can write in an hour or two. It’s life changing! 

Another helpful and fun Final Draft tool is the Sprint Timer, which encourages you to write in quick bursts of inspiration. You’ll stir a competitiveness with yourself: Can you finish 10 pages in even less time tomorrow?

Leave Yourself Aching to Write More After Each Session

Don’t write until you’ve got nothing left in the tank with each session. When you’ve reached your writing session page goal, don’t go beyond it, even if you’re on a roll. Leave yourself wanting to write more. 

Why? Because finding those time slots for writing sessions won’t seem so daunting. Instead, you’ll go above and beyond to find the time, not because you need to keep writing, but because you’ll want to keep writing. 

Writing Time Is Relevant

Time is not just a linear progression — it can be influenced by many factors as to how we perceive and experience it. You can choose to make time this stressful part of your screenwriting experience and process, or you can redefine time by instead focusing on goals you make per writing session. 

And every amount of prep work you do (outlines and visualization before each writing session) can shave off more and more time necessary to accomplish your screenwriting goals.

You got this! Have fun. Embrace the challenges. 

Now that you know time isn’t the adversary you thought it was, get that script done and move onto the next with a bit more ease.