Beats me. Really, how can you say for sure that the 115 pages of awesome you have spent the last 6 months writing is finished? I don’t think you can really say for sure when something is finished. Could it be improved? Probably. Could it be expanded upon? Possibly, but you run the risk of expanding your universe to the point of Star Wars and we all know how that ended.
I think the best thing to do is reach a point where you (and this is a good reason to have a partner, so you can debate between the two of you) feel that adding more isn’t adding more. Does the story make sense? Do the characters arch at some point? If so then you are probably close to calling it done.
Done also means different things depending on what you want to do with your script. Are you writing it with the intent to sell it to a studio? Then you can be “finished” and ready to shop it around sooner than you think. You are in no way done with all the rewrites to come, but for this step you can be done fairly quickly. Are you writing with the intent to shoot your own film? Then you will never be done writing the thing. The best you can do is finalize a script to use to raise money, and then rewrite everything as you go along, even doing “rewrites” in post production.
So the best advice I guess would be to just trust your gut. If it tells the story you imagine, then you can’t go wrong.
How do you call a script done? Let us know in the comments.
Travis Berry
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Nice work Travis. I like your writing style and I really like that you and Wes are working on writing. It is very important professionally and can earn extra money.
Keep up the great work!