Is sitting down by yourself to write causing you physical pain? I feel you.

This week I want to talk about co-writing, the act of writing with another person. And how it helped me and Vincent complete the script for Wild Boys in record time:

• It made it more fun
• It created built-in accountability
• It creates quick feedback loops

Most filmmakers and screenwriters think of writing as a solitary task. Ideally done in a remote cabin without access to the internet. I used to think so too. But after writing Wild Boys with someone else, I’ve become a believer in the power of collaboration in the writing process. Today we’re breaking down the three big benefits of writing with a partner, and how it can help you unlock your creative potential (especially if you’re a director who fears the blank page and the blinking cursor.)

Let’s roll.

Optimize for fun

One of my main goals when making Wild Boys was to have fun along the way.

Making a living in the film industry I was starting to feel a bit disillusioned with the whole filmmaking life. The magic had faded and it started to feel like just another job.

I still loved making movies, and do to this day, but I wasn’t making movies in my day to day. Or at least it didn’t feel that way. I wanted to find the joy I’d had making movies with my friends as a kid.

That started with the writing process.

From the get-go me and Vincent were always going to write the movie together. But we had no idea if we could. We’d never worked together before. Neither of us had written a feature with a partner. We had one feature script between the two of us before we got started.

It could have been a disaster.

It turned out to be the most fun I’d had in years. We had good chemistry while bouncing ideas off each other. We both contributed to the story, and we both listened. Creating a safe space for ideas of any kind to come forth was key to our success.

It can be scary to voice an idea when you don’t feel comfortable with the people around you. Luckily we were able to have A LOT of bad ideas, and through the process find a lot of good ones too.

Having fun helped us go from idea to first draft in six weeks, while working full time.

The power of built-in accountability

The second benefit of having a writing partner is the built-in accountability. When I write by myself I tend to be a world class procrastinator. I miss deadlines, drafts linger, and it takes forever to finish something.

Writing Wild Boys was the opposite.

We would meet in my office after work and spend a few hours brainstorming and shaping the story. Between every meeting we’d have goals and tasks we needed to get done. We also had a tight deadline. We wanted to shoot before our location got too hot for the Summer, which meant we had less than two months to get a script ready.

Neither of us wanted to let the other one down, so we hustled.

The other part of the accountability benefit was our commitment to making something we were proud of. When we finished a draft we were each other’s harshest critics, and we went deep to make sure we wrote the best script we could.

Faster feedback - faster results

The final big benefit of working with a writing partner is the speed you’re able to iterate at.

When working a lone it’s easy to be gripped by self doubt. If you want feedback you first have to write the thing, send it to a trusted friend, and then wait for them to read and give their thoughts.

Working with a partner I loved the speed we were able to achieve by going back and forth, and constantly testing ideas. And this isn’t just on a finished draft level. All the way from brainstorming character ideas, to outlines, to beat sheets we were able to give each other feedback on the spot, or worst case the next day.

Because our feedback loops were so short we were able to be agile in the way we developed the story. We could test an idea, and if it didn’t work we knew we didn’t need to waste weeks on it. We never ran into problems with writer's block, because we always had someone to figure out the problems with.

How we did it

In order to get these benefits from writing with a partner there are a couple of things that need to be present.

• When the story gets better you both win. Ditch the ego, be committed to solving problems together.
• Listen, listen listen.
• Don’t shut down ideas in their infancy. A good tool to borrow is from improv. If you’re writing partner has an idea, answer with “yes, and” to help build on the idea, rather than strangle it before you’ve properly tested it.
• Talk about how you’d like to work together. Each writing team is different. Having an open dialog is key for finding a flow that works for you.

Looking back, writing Wild Boys was intense, hectic, and incredibly rewarding. It was the start of our process, and it set the tone for how we wanted the entire filmmaking process to be.

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