How Do I Know My Script is Finished?

“Am I done?” Some writers might argue that a script is never truly finished. But, like it or not, we live by deadlines—our own and those imposed by others. At a certain point, you have to tear your eyes away and hit send. How do you know when you have reached that point? TV writer-producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach (whose credits include The Witcher and Lost  and The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance) weighs in.
 
Q: From a creative standpoint, how do you know when your script is finished and ready to be turned in?

Javier Grillo-Marxuach: While it makes me feel deeply inferior to writers who truly have a discipline of the "wake-up-at-six AM-and-write-for-four-hours-no-matter-what-and-then-garden-and-be-a-functioning-member-of-society" variety, I must admit that I don't have a particularly rigorous or well-defined creative process. In fact, it’s chaos: absolute diagnosed-with-ADHD/parent-of-little-children/flaming-brain-that's-constantly-interrupted-by-intrusive-thoughts chaos.

There’s only one constant. I write when I either want or have to.

For that reason, I don’t have a specific method for what comes after. I finish a draft. I let it rest a few days. I maybe give it to someone to read. After a while I open the script and start rewriting on page one until... it’s better? Sometimes I do this for months. Sometimes I just send it to whoever may be waiting for it.

I do, however, have an informal mental checklist that must be completed, even if unconsciously, before I let a script leave my desk. These are the questions that must pass muster, even in a mind as disorganized as mine, before converting the document to PDF and hitting "send.” They may work for you too:

Has the reader/protagonist gone on a one-way trip? 

Whether in a feature film, a chapter of a serialized drama, or an anthology or procedural, your main character can never be the same after these events of the play. Otherwise you have work to do. Similarly, your reader (or even you-as-the-reader) must feel satisfied at the conclusion of the read that they have been through a sufficiently eventful, thoughtful, and considered journey.

Does every scene lead inevitably to the next? 

This is a good vantage point from which to identify the widows, babies, and leftovers, and sniper them with extreme prejudice. Every scene in a script needs to “earn its freight” as part of a forward-moving story. Scenes are about the clash of desires. Just as the end of your script signifies the conclusion of a one-way journey, so must every scene end in a way that indicates change and asks questions that can only be answered by forward motion into the next scene.

Is every line special? 

Does every word of dialogue represent the most impactful and efficient way for that character to say that thing at that time? Are they using too many/too few words? Does their choice of words appropriately indicate their mental state? Does the dialogue represent a cohesive set of choices that describes how people speak in the world you have created? If that all sounds too academic, here it is plain and simple: “Do I want to hear people say this shit?”

Is the prose part of the show?

Do I find myself skimming the descriptions to get to the dialogue on the center of the page? Does every sentence describe an action that propels the reader into the dialogue? Does the prose need more—or less—of my personal voice in order to best render the tone of this individual piece? Is this a bunch of dialogue occasionally interrupted by blocks of text, or is the prose in my script integral to the reader getting the experience of seeing this film or series even though it only exists as toner on paper? 

These questions get pretty heavy, and can be a launchpad to a whole new world, or an express elevator to endless rewrite hell. The answers are subjective, and you have to determine where to put the finish line. While I use them as guidelines, I find that answering these questions before releasing the work is valid because it never fails that whenever I give myself a “gimme” and let something slide, all my beta readers wind up flagging it as a problem.

Of course, there is one additional question writers have to ask themselves before letting a piece of material leave their desk. It is the hardest one, transcending mere artisanal concerns, and even the debate as to whether the issues in your script are evident only to you or to anyone else who reads it. I leave this question in conclusion, and hope that it doesn’t drive every one of the neurotic, overthinking lot of us who do this job into a paroxysm of creative and existential paralysis...

Can I put this out into the world without shame, fear, or guilt?