This is Zach Cregger’s approach to first drafts as a screenwriter. It’s called “elfing”. He’s right. ✍🏼

even for a rough draft $10 is not a fair wage for that elf I'm sorry

This is why Hermione fought for Dobby.

Damn why is Zach so bigoted against elves?

Listen, Arwen made us feel things.

Why not just get a bit drunk & have a doobie before banging out your first draft? Become the Elf!

This is roughly my approach, yes. 🥴

I like the idea of this method, but I'm really stumbling over his use of the elf. Elves are super smart and cunning; an elf would kick ass on that first draft. Ooo, unless the elf was trying to mess him up. A trickster elf!

I mostly picture this dude.

@JuliaBlakestory Right on brother

@JuliaBlakestory It worked for Stephen King!

Yea, writing is hard, rewriting is easy. Just finish the draft. Good luck everyone.

Sybille Pearson, one of the lyric-writing teachers in my grad program, called this "writing the bad play version". If you need to write song lyrics, first write the most blunt, on-the-nose, poetry-less "bad play" version, just to get the ideas out. Then refine from there

The elf that writes for me...

This explains the numerous plot holes and logical inconsistencies in Weapons.

Over 30,000 likes on this. Insane. I didn’t realize how many of you were writers. If you are, follow?

*John Swartzwelder's approach, but yes it absolutely works

"Finish writing"?? Did he see Barbarian? It's like he made it up as he went along.

Writers will say this is genius and then scoff at the idea of using AI to aid a blitz through similar barf / “elf” drafts.

@aaronschultzart This is how I’ve always written too. Usually have a first draft of a feature in 15-20 hours of writing.

@aaronschultzart Impressive! How many scripts do you have? How do you handle your second drafts?

So that’s why Barbarian fucking sucked and made no sense…

You may just be old-fashioned in your movie tastes. New horror voices can be fun.

I did this for all my college papers, I didn't think of myself as an elf though... Just start writing. Write anything, just start.

Speaking of elves … when is this going to be made into a movie?

His elf is AI. “Grok write me a thing” then you have to make it good

WEAPONS felt fresh and yet flawed to me. No AI detected.

This is incredible advice for almost any creative medium.

dude reaaally hoping nobody watching has heard of john swartzwelder

Tell us more. I love to learn. ✍🏼

This is like the songwriting through humming and gibberish idea. Gets you the feel of the melody and structure and maybe a few golden words or a hook comes out. After that you edit, flesh it and structure the melody.

This is brilliant advice. My favorite author, Ray Bradbury, did something very similar with his writing. He often said that he'd just sit at his typewriter and let something, anything really, come out and hit the keyboard. Many draft revisions later, he'd have gold.

i do the same thing except i call it "headsmashing" just smash your face on the keyboard repeatedly explode your mind onto the page vomit everything you have and even what you didnt know you had pure flow of consciousness do this once a day, and edit once a day.

Check out our amazing discussion with Cregger where we celebrate ADAPTATION!!

I knew this guy looked familiar! He was in Whitest Kids U' Know!

around the elves, watch yourselves

true detective writer nic pizzolatto said in an interview: “my scripts are all bad the first time – i’ll bust through a bad first draft” i’ve always loved that framing: set your goal to write a bad first draft

It's kinda crazy that like 90% of what he says about the elf sounds like how AI bros talk about AI, the difference being that final 10% where you're actually using your own brain, and that's what makes all the difference in the final product.

Wait, the whitest kid I know made weapons?

@Delicious_Tacos When the elven writers guild find this, you’re all going to have a huge copyright problem.

Interesting. All I do is turn the TV on in my head and write down everything I see and hear. I rewind, FF, pause…all that. The more I write, the clearer the picture/sound becomes. Everyone’s got a unique process and it’s cool discovering others.

The what?!

This really is a good approach. Takes your fear of failing.

"Write when drunk, edit when sober"

This is NaNaWriMo strategy. Just bash out a draft. Can’t worry about polishing the turd until you get that shit on the page.

My 50,000-word “novella” from 2007 is unreadable. The only thing I learned was discipline. ✍🏼