Rules? There's no rules here.

Rules are a double-edged sword.

Screenwriting isn't an easy gig, vocation, pastime or hobby. It is however very satisfying when it works.  Ideas come and go and come again. Characters mutate many time before they hit the page  and dialogue is just the most organic thing, even the most meticulously laid out scene can be turned on its head once the dialogue starts rolling in.

So, for a lot of people there is a lot of hard work just getting their story together, planned and onto a finished  hundred or so pages that end with FADE OUT. 

Then of course there's 'the rules', rules about structure, rules about pacing, rules about plots, rules about characters, genders, roles, journeys and cats. The list is seemingly endless, for a writer starting out in the format they are tripwires laid across the path to greatness, most of them are common sense and a lot can be circumvented by reading other screenplays from all levels of success. While some mistakes are forgivable and others fixable a few can be confused or coloured by the one rule that rules them all.

The rule that will make a gatekeeper look up over their trench and sniff the air, the rule that will open the golden door. Find your 'voice', use your 'voice', have a unique 'voice'. 

All well and good, but a nervous writer that is trying so hard to not trip up on all the tripwires along their pathway to glory can easily forget they ever had a 'voice' and be shackled by restraint. Yes rules are there for the greater good and for the most part they lead to well structured writing, but when they are used as a yardstick to beat the inexperienced, well you have to wonder.

So write, write the story you want to write, with the characters you dreamt up ironing your shirts. If you are capable you will get it on the page, if you really care about the end result you will learn how to fix those problems in the rewrite, because there will be a rewrite.

It's all about learning how to get up again, isn't it Mr Wayne?