By Olga Agafonova
Over the last year, I’ve used miscellaneous tools to
keep in touch and work on a screenplay with my co-author and I’d like to share some
observations about that experience.
First, I want to point out that Cheron and I met in
person two years ago through a mutual friend. We would not have known about
each other or be comfortable enough with one another without that real,
physical connection. I have seen online invitations for screenwriters to work together
remotely and that is too much of a shot in the dark for me. There is a lot we
do when we begin getting to know someone: we appraise someone’s character and
establish trust with that person. With
writing, of course we must also consider if our writing styles mesh well
together.
This brings me to my second point: Cheron and I took
time to discuss her vision for the screenplay and what she wanted the characters
to be like. We negotiated the number of primary characters and then I briefly
outlined what I thought each character was going to do throughout the film.
This was sufficient to begin writing the first draft.
We kept in touch every few weeks by email and via
WhatsApp, which gives us more immediate access to each other throughout the day
than email. Initially, we used different free programs to work on the
screenplay but eventually converged on Final Draft. At $249.99 per license,
this was expensive but since we both plan on writing screenplays in the future,
it is worth the investment. Critically, Final Draft has a simultaneous
collaboration feature where multiple authors can work on the same version of
the draft in real time. The auto-formatting features for dialogue, action and
other screenplay parts have been indispensable as well.
Would I have preferred a weekly get-together in a
cafĂ© to go over the details of our work? Absolutely. Listening to someone’s
feedback, their tone of voice and the language they choose, being able to read
their body language – all these things are important to good communication. By
that standard, however, I could not have participated in this project. Cheron
lives on the West Coast and flying out there regularly is of course out of
question for financial reasons.
So, would I recommend writing with someone remotely?
Yes, if you feel comfortable with that person and your ideas about the work are
compatible. For me, that means meeting the person in the real world first and
seeing what they are like. Others may be more adventurous but the bottom line
is the same: you must be comfortable with one another as people to begin and
sustain your collaboration.
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