So just how comparable is writing a screenplay to being a chef preparing a meal?
Pretty favorable, as I hope to extrapolate on in this post.
Truth be told I'm not much of chef. Was never trained to cook. On the occasions I do cook it's always off someone else's recipe. And I'm VERY GRATEFUL that there are many who proceeded me who combined foods in a pleasurable way that makes eating them a delight. To date the most ambitious things I've attempted to cook/make is manicotti (cheese stuffed pasta) and lemon meringue pie. Manicotti was made by following instructions off a Barilla pasta box, lemon meringue pie off an on-line recipe to a men's bible study. So it's not like I'm a Gordon Ramsey or Guy Fierie.
Offering the audience a plate of food this guy doesn't seem so intimidating, does he? Meet Gordon Ramsey of Hell's Kitchen fame
First thing to point out is that I like GOOD food: tastes good and is showcased in professional manner. No, you don't hafta always eat a five-star restaurant to appreciate a meal that's given to you with some level of pride in their work and flare. McDonald's ain't got no creme brulees, remember?
Though I don't cook very often I have done it many times in the past, and when I do, do it -- I want it done right! That's right, even when I do something like prepare a meal to eat, I want it look good in presentation, and taste the way it's supposed to.
Typical dinner made by E.C. Henry: Hardly! But I do give it my best.
This carries over into my writing life. Trust me I know I have holes in my game. I'm a pretty bad speller. I was struck down and forced to go to a remedial English class when I attended a community college that was below 100 level. The flowery part of creative writing seldomly comes easy to me. YET despite these oftentimes glaring weaknesses I persist in this creative writing endeavor. Why?
Because playing in the kitchen is fun!
That's right I said it, writing creatively can be compared to go to the kitchen and trying to have fun while you make a meal. This begs the question, can playing in the kitchen ever be fun? Maybe not if you envision yourself being hounded by an asshole like Gordon Ramsey while you're trying your hand at that's for sure!
But if you take a step back, breathe, and realize that in one's own kitchen or before one's own personal computer; it's just you, the raw ingredients --and vision that you're trying to achieve. A good meal if you're cooking. A good story if you're writing. They're not so different in creation after all.
Checklist: good meal to good story comparison:
- Good ingredients. In cooking you need good meat, and the appropriate spices. In screenwriting you need good plot points, characters, and scenes.
- They need the right mix. In cooking you need to make sure you don't use too much or too little sugar, vanilla, salt, and milk. In screenwriting you need scenes that play off each other the right way.
- Cooked to perfection. In cooking got make sure what comes out of the oven or is grilled on stove isn't under-cooked or burnt. In screenwriting you need an edited script where the individual scenes are edited to perfection; it's that balance where the scene is a good as a writer can make it which stays neither too long (over-baked) nor found to be lacking and in need of further rewrites or to be outright deleted (under-baked)
- Presentation matters. In cooking balanced meals are celebrated. Even with something as simple as breakfast. Gotta have a main dish like pancakes, an omelette or even a bowl of cereal which is then accented by a cup of orange juice and a breakfast meat to round it out. In screenwriting how your text appears on the page matter and you've gotta take great pride in that or you shouldn't bother anyone with reading your stuff. Presentation in terms of following proper screenwriting conventions, not having the raw page look bad or the same. For me these days I include a dosing of lit expression " icing ", but that is not the end-all of how I grade out my own writing and how I want it to look on the page. There's also brevity, and flow to consider.
These days I'm grinding through my latest spec. script, which will be about a duckling's journey and character arc after his family leaves him behind in a park as they partake in their southern migration. Been in the kitchen on this one since December of 2022, when I committed to this story and really started working on it in earnest. Three months is a long time to be "in the kitchen" and not have a first draft of a story completed.
There is one key way writing is NOT like cooking, and that's in how you can erase mistakes. In cooking once a dish is the oven and started to cook, there's no time left to try to fix it, EXCEPT maybe after it's out of the over cover up your screw up with icing or gravy or something exterior food covering. In the batter stage sometimes it's possible to change the mix depending on the error made. If taste something in batter and it's not to your like sometimes you can more sugar or milk to change the taste or consistency. But in screenwriting ALL is editable. Even after a story is quote, unquote "finished", a given author can always reopen the digital document and change things to his or her liking.
Ahh putting the finishing touches on creme brulee ; my favorite off all deserts. BUT it must be served hot, and with a good Scotch! The screenwriting equivalent of this is when a writer is doing final edits on his script and he or she KNOWS that it's going to be good; the writer is happy with their prose and thinks the story is well-constructed.
Update: Monday, February 27, 2023; Finished the 1st draft of Ducky Goes on Holiday at 4:00 p.m. EST! Yay, to this worthwhile, milestone event!