The Script Frenzy is over. For those of you who never knew that it began, it was a month-long challenge to writers around the world. 30 days, 100 pages of scripted material (a screenplay, stageplay, television script). Every writer who successfully uploaded 30 pages on April 30th was instantly named a winner. There were 1,273 of them, and no, I was not among them. I am not so much surprised by my failure (although Me from a few years ago probably would be), as I am by the way in which this venture tested my ethics.
My high horse had to be parked in the giant barn for a couple of days as I sweated out the question of whether or not to sneak across the finish line. I rode around all semester braying at my students for using Spark Notes and including text verbatim from Wikipedia on their exams and in their papers. Then, there I was, plotting not how to get from Act 2 to Act 3, but how to get from page 92 to 100 without writing 8 more pages. I had all the excuses: two jobs, a conference to attend, a visit from friends, a wedding to be in, and even a flu that sent me to the hospital. But as much as excuses have to do with deadlines, they should have nothing to do with ethics.
I never considered plagiarizing someone else’s script. Not even for a second. And even though I read that some people copy the same sentence over and over to get to 100 pages, that never struck me as a worthwhile endeavor. I did, however, move chunks of text that I planned to edit out of my script to the end of it so that I could still count them as part of the pages written in April. Then I began including scenes that I had written before April, justifying their inclusion by the extent to which I had rewritten them. And that’s where the rules began to bend. Wasn’t this like turning in the same paper for credit in two different classes?
Winners of the Frenzy receive no prize other than pride and satisfaction. It’s a bit absurd, then, that people (like me) would have even the slightest desire to cross the finish line illegitimately– unmet by any accolades. My students actually seem more sane (if still lacking integrity) in contrast by going after a tangible thing, such as a grade that they didn’t deserve, when they increase their margins or steal text from the random guy who mixed up Arthur Miller and Aristotle in writing about tragic heroes on Wikipedia.
I was approaching this epiphany, nearly recovering my principles, when the Script Frenzy website informed me, “You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘IN (‘308′)) )…” I tried to upload my script, albeit still 92 pages long, but received another error message. And another. And another. Whether I rushed through writing the last 8 pages or cheated my way to the end, there was no way to upload my work and therefore, no way to get credit for it. I relinquished and watched the Office instead, relieved in a way and also disappointed that I had come so close to becoming a con artist.
Tags: Deadline, Screenwriting, Script Frenzy
Thanks so much for your super transparent analysis of your state of mind around this Cristina. For me there is such a fine line b/w forced writing (making myself work even when I have zero inspiration), which almost always turns out bad, and willing myself to focus and commit to putting words on paper when I’ve avoiding it b/c of laziness, fear etc. I think you made a wise choice.
I agree. It’s so tough to reconcile the fact that the only way I’ll write many times is if I have a deadline hanging over my head, but the kind of writing I enjoy is not forced by an external pressure but is more of an internal/inspired compulsion. And I think that the latter leads to better results.