How Can You Tell When Your Screenplay Is Finished?

The screenwriting process can be a long journey. But it doesn’t have to be as long as you would think. 

One of the pinnacle talents a screenwriter can develop is the ability to know when a script is finished, avoiding months upon months of rewriting and the self-doubt, insecurity, uncertainty that follows. 

With that in mind, here we break down five helpful ways that can help determine whether or not your screenplay is done.

Before we get into the ways you can tell when your screenplay is finished, it’s important to understand and realize that screenplays are never really done. 

When you’re writing on spec (under speculation that someone will buy and produce your script), if you’re a newcomer you can find yourself working on a single screenplay for months - sometimes years. You need to apply the five lessons below to make sure that you’re finishing your initial work on the script while knowing that there’s more work that will need to be done, even after finishing. 

But even when you option or sell your script to Hollywood, the work begins again. You’ll need to take notes from the buyers and apply their wants and needs in a collaborative manner. Once that script development process continues for multiple drafts, you won’t exactly be finished yet. 

Then, production drafts call for screenwriters to make updates based specifically on production elements like available (or unavailable) locations, actors, and budget. The location manager may have found a parking lot instead of the parking garage you had written for a key scene in your script. Budget restrictions may force you to need to cut, condense, or merge scenes. 

So understand that when we’re discussing how you can tell when your screenplay is finished, we’re speaking primarily about your spec scripts, and the importance of ensuring that you do, in fact, have an end game for each script so you can move onto the next.

Let’s continue on with the five ways you can tell when your script is (or should be) done.

One of the greatest approaches you can take early on in your screenwriting journey is learning how to write like a pro. 

Professional screenwriters hired to write a script for a production company, studio, network, or streamer don’t have the luxury of open-ended deadlines. They are contracted to finish a screenplay by a strict deadline date. 

• One month for most entry-level contracts. 
• Two and a half months for bigger studio/network/streamer Writers Guild contracts.

Those two deadlines may be shocking for most newcomers at first. Most screenwriters are used to deadlines of six months to a year when they’re first starting out. 

If you want to learn how you can truly tell when a script is finished, you should try to learn how to write under professional deadlines. If you’re not yet ready or able to commit to one or two month deadlines, you at least need to make a concrete deadline that you’re going to stick with without exception. 

So, it’s fairly simple. Set a deadline date. And then understand that you need to showcase self-discipline and self-guidance to make that deadline. When that date hits, you should be typing THE END or FADE TO BLACK sometime that day. 

You know it’s done - at least that draft - because you have the discipline to set, respect, and deliver on that deadline. 

When you meet your strict deadline, it’s time to lock that screenplay away. If you’re writing on spec, lock it away for a whole month. No less. No more.

• Don’t think about it. 
• Don’t talk about it. 
• Don’t market it. 
• Don’t share it with anyone. 

Take a vacation from your script. Celebrate the fact that you finished it. Enjoy the time off. Start some early development work for your next script. 

Understand that for the last few months, you’ve put everything into your script. Every spare moment of thought and imagination has likely been dedicated to it. You either think it’s a masterpiece, or you think you’ve failed drastically. It’s usually one or the other. Either way, it’s time to take a break away from your script. 

Lock it away for a month. This will help you move on from it. You’ll cut the cord, so to speak - a cord that has many emotional and process-linked connections that have encapsulated your life for however long you’ve been developing and writing your script. 

It’s a much-needed break to help you disengage and move on - for now.    

THEN, when a month has passed, open a PDF version of your script (or a hard copy if you’re old school) and read it cover-to-cover.

Here’s a great trick you can utilize as a fail-safe method to ensure that what you are calling “finished” is truly finished. 

Here’s the thing - you want to make sure that what you label as “finished” is the best possible version of your script you can offer. If it’s finished, it’s ready to be submitted to major screenplay contests, networking contacts, and cold query marketing campaigns.

When you read your script cover-to-cover after a month-long break, here’s what will happen:

• You will see every flaw, even if you previously thought it was near-flawless.
• You will see every strength, even if you previously thought it was a failure.

Each flaw and each strength - big and small - will stick out with so much clarity and ease now that you’ve been away from your initial emotional investment in the script. Those active cords that maybe excused flaws and accentuated strengths have been cut since you stepped away from the script a month ago.  

Now you’re reading it as more of a script reader. Now you will be able to do your final fail-safe rewrite, ensuring that your script is, in fact, finished. For now, at least. 

“But, wait, you said it was finished.”

This may seem redundant, but redundancy is vital to getting to a draft that is truly finished and ready for industry insiders to read, consider, and greenlight to contract and production. Again, you want to put forth the best possible draft you can. 

Writing a polish draft is like a five-star restaurant cutting the final bits of fat from the prime piece of meat, and then dressing the plate with style and amazing aesthetics before it is taken out to the customer. 

With each line of scene description, each line of dialogue, each scene, each sequence, and each plot point, you need to ask yourself, “Does this need to be in there?”

• Be a perfectionist
• Be as obsessive/compulsive as you can
• Make sure every bit and piece of your script is there for a reason

This isn’t about major rewrites or killing your darlings. You’ve already done that in your original writing process. This is about making the read of your script - both aesthetically and structurally - as pleasing to the eye and mind as possible. 

Lock down your format, your spelling, and your grammar as well - to the point where you can “close” the script knowing that, yes…

The true sign of a pro is the ability to know when you’ve done all you can with a script. It’s not easy. It’s something you’ll work towards in your screenwriting career by making the mistakes you need to make, and learning from them. And also learning from the things you’ve done correctly, finding your strengths and building on them. 

You need to learn that you, the screenwriter, have to make that final call. You need to gain the necessary confidence and trust in yourself. 

• You’re failing yourself if you leave it open-ended.
• You’re letting yourself down if you continue to do rewrite after rewrite. 

It’s time to step up, rise to the occasion, take charge, and say, “I’m done.”     

Try your best to avoid the unending pitfall of over-reliance on feedback and notes from peers, writing groups, script consultants, industry contacts, friends, and family. 

Early on in your screenwriting journey, feedback is great. It’s always good to get extra sets of eyes on your work when you first start out. However, there comes a time where relying on such feedback can be detrimental to your screenwriting career aspirations.

Why? Because when you finally get the chance to work under professional contracts where you’re being paid to write screenplays for Hollywood, you don’t have the luxury of going to others for feedback. 

The only feedback and notes you’ll get is when you hand in a contracted draft to a development executive or producer. That is why you need to learn how to get to a stage in your screenwriting process where you don’t go to others for feedback and notes. You need to learn when your script is finished. You need to build that trust and confidence in yourself. 

The issue with relying on peers, writing groups, script consultants, friends, and family is that each round of feedback and notes they offer represents nothing more than a single subjective opinion. Each one of them will bring in their own pre-determined likes, dislikes, preferences, turn-ons, turn-offs, wants, and needs. 

If you continue to go to others to make decisions, there is no way to come to one clear and precise consensus on whether or not your script is done and ready to be submitted. 

Get to a point where you can trust yourself to determine when you’re done with a script, and remember that there’s a true sense of accomplishment when you can stand up, look at your script, smile, and say, “This screenplay is finished.”