I had just finished a film when I got the opportunity to make another one. There was only one problem: I had less than four weeks to come up with the story.

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I had wrapped my previous film and gone through postproduction. The film passed QC, I had all the reports in hand, and the elements on my deliverables list were packed up and ready to go. We had screened the final product, and the distributors were on board with how the project turned out.

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The only thing left was to finalize the distribution deal, but we weren't in a hurry because we knew the distributor was totally on board. Things were moving along smoothly, and I was thinking about taking a few weeks off before starting another project. I had been working twelve- to fourteen-hour days for several months developing, producing, supervising postproduction, and finalizing matters on the project I had just completed.

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I was thinking about taking a trip up to Big Bear, renting a cabin, and hanging out there for a while.

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My plans took a 180-degree turn after I got off the phone with my producing and financial partner. He was so pleased with how our most recent film turned out that he was ready to finance another one. But there was a time issue.

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If we were going to get it done that year, we had to start production before the end of summer, before the TV shows came back for a new season.

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Why was that important?

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During the TV hiatus, equipment rental houses can sometimes be more agreeable to making deals because demand for production equipment may be lower than during the season when television shows are in production. Another reason was that TV actors might still be available to work during hiatus. We might have a shot at booking recognizable names for a week or two before they had to return to work on their studio and network productions.

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Another good reason to shoot back-to-back was that our crew might be willing to stay on for another production if they didn't have better offers.

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If we wanted to get it done that year, cast recognizable TV actors, work with the same crew as we did on the previous shoot, and save on equipment rental, we'd have to get back to work right away.

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For an independent filmmaker like me, it was a good problem to have, but it was stressful at the same time because all of a sudden I had to come up with a story to produce.

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This is one reason why, for a filmmaker who's also a screenwriter, it's always good to have a portfolio of stories ready to go at a moment's notice.

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Besides, writers write. Whether you get paid for it or you write on spec, keep writing.

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Being the prepared filmmaker I thought I was, I had a few possibilities on my completed screenplay roster. But I had to decide which story made sense and aligned with what the market demanded at the time.

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For an independent budget, the go-to, of course, is always horror. It's cheap, it's fast, it's easy.

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I had written a quasi-horror script a few years earlier, and it was the only one left in my portfolio that lent itself to the proposed budget.

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The story was supposed to be scary, but it wasn't hardcore horror. Let's call it supernatural rather than horror. After doing my due diligence and checking out the market, I soon realized that the market was saturated with the genre, and I decided it would be a bad idea to take a chance on it.

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The film I had just completed was in the action/espionage genre. I didn't want to make another one exactly like that, but the market suggested that action was very much in demand among buyers from around the world.

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My supernatural script had two main characters: a cop and his autistic brother. I was thinking along the lines of Fallen. So I started chopping up my supernatural script until I ended up with just the two characters.

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I kept the cop and his brother relationship and threw everything else away.

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If you recall my previous article, I talked about what buyers want to see in a movie. Now I had to follow my own advice and put my story to the test.

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I had to have action sprinkled throughout the script. I had to stay away from talking-head scenes and put my characters on their feet. I had to open with cinematic images of a major U.S. city. The story had to be engaging. I needed an inciting incident and a story reversal midway through the movie.

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I needed conflict, including life-and-death decisions—think Sophie's Choice. And I needed a chase in Act Three.

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Oh, and by the way, I had less than four weeks to write it.

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I'm not complaining. Again, for a filmmaker, it's a phenomenal problem to have.

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Start With Your Passion

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Selecting a story starts with your passion.

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What are you passionate about? What subject do you feel compelled to explore and spend the next year of your life developing, writing, producing, and marketing?

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What drives you?

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My interests and real-life experiences before my indie film career involved law enforcement and the justice system in general. For that reason, I naturally gravitated toward stories involving police, spies, lawyers, politicians, and other subjects in that world.

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Since I had already completed an espionage movie, I decided to go with the cop and his brother this time.

It was something I was confident I could write quickly. I wouldn't have to spend a lot of time researching the world because I knew and understood it, and action was selling like hotcakes.

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But what was the conflict?

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I workshopped the storyline of a cop investigating a string of murders in Los Angeles. Nothing out of the ordinary—we've all seen that movie before, right?

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I introduced another character: the cop's partner. It worked for the story and also gave me an opportunity to cast two notable actors in the lead roles instead of one. Some refer to those types of movies as "buddy movies."

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Great. So far, the formula was formulating like you wouldn't believe.

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But what do I do with the brother?

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In the supernatural version of the screenplay, the brother was autistic and much younger, but that storyline wouldn't work for the new screenplay. I had to make a choice.

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Do I eliminate the brother, or do I reinvent the character?

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I chose to make the brother a little older. He's an adult who's always down on his luck and has a sordid past. He's been in trouble with the law and even served time in prison.

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Now I had to create conflict between the police investigators—the partners.

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I decided to go with the idea that my main character's police partner was responsible for putting the brother in prison.

All of a sudden, the brother became an important element of the story and a leading character. That opened the door to cast a third recognizable actor.

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The conflict triangle formed nicely between the three principal characters. It opened the door to secondary storylines, created opportunities for quirky characters, and ultimately allowed me to cast the film with some incredibly talented professionals in Los Angeles. It was a pleasure working with the cast and crew.

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I don't have enough space here to describe all the next steps I took in creating that screenplay, but I want to make an important point: the creative decisions I made also had to support the elements needed to make the story marketable to domestic and foreign film buyers.

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Ask "What If?"

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When you start thinking about what story to write, I have a suggestion: ask the "what if?" question.

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For example, in the scenario I described above, my first "what if?" question was:

 

What if two L.A. detectives investigating a string of murders come to blows when one of the detective's brothers, who has a criminal record, becomes their number-one suspect?

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Then:

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What if the reason the detective's brother went to prison before is because the detective's partner arrested him and testified against him?

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And:

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What if at some point in the story, the detective must choose between saving his brother or one of his brother's victims?

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Then ask yourself: after the detective makes his choice to either save or kill his own brother, will the brother end up being the serial killer? Or is there an opportunity for a story reversal?

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Is this the end of the film, or are we just getting to the end of Act Two?

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These are examples of asking the "what if?" question.

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It's make-believe. It's pretending. When we were kids, we pretended and played and made up stories all the time.

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This is no different.

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When you sit down to write or rewrite your story, make sure your creative decisions also work with the business side of the equation.

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Select a story that works for your budget. Understand the marketplace you're trying to enter. When appropriate, get the perspective of a distributor or sales agent on your story idea or screenplay.

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And protect your work. A screenplay is protected by copyright as a creative work, and registering your completed screenplay with the U.S. Copyright Office can provide an important record of your claim to the work.

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Ultimately, selecting the right story isn't simply about finding an idea that sounds good.

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It's about finding a story that you care about, that you understand, that you can realistically make, and that has the potential to connect with an audience and a marketplace.

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That's where the creative and business sides of filmmaking come together.

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About the Author

Luc Saber is a filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, director, author, and story and production consultant with more than 30 years of experience in the film business. Through Aspiring Hollywood, he shares practical insights, advice, and stories about screenwriting, filmmaking, and the entertainment industry. For more information click here.

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