I personally think that there’s something miraculous about the way screenwriters find their ideas for an upcoming screenplay. That ‘something’ is what gives the screenwriters their special voice. I believe there is no 100% original idea. All our ideas are an outcome of experiences, knowledge, environment, tastes, music, books, artworks, news, opinions, and traumas. Almost all the themes and the existential questions were tackled and asked in the film history, but the one differentiator always is the angle you decide to tackle the story from.
Whenever I go through a writer’s block, I often visit the places I would love to tell stories about, and I admire the type of characters at. I go to hair saloons, little coffeeshops, bookstores, tailor-shops. I talk to strangers and I write mental notes about things and people. Sometimes, I book a ticket to the last metro station, and sit in the train, observe the way lights come across the windows, contemplate the faces in the metro and put on a detective hat and ask myself questions like: what can I tell about them? their clothes? their hairstyles? their choices of shoes? their skin tones? are they sick? are they in love? are they religious? who’s she talking to on the phone? who’s he getting the flowers for? is this her child? is that his bicycle? Other times, I read poetry, I attend family events (something I do not do so often), I socialize with people who are in total contrast to my character and beliefs. I might end up writing something strikingly different from the things I was going through and looking at, however, my writing muscle gets better in the peak of human interactions.
The most important thing in my opinion is to eventually find your voice as a writer, know what kind of stories you like to tell, what kind of characters you can write sincerely about, what kind of films you feel like writing. The most fascinating thing about finding your voice, that it becomes more clear with time and experience. In other words, when you sit yourself free and start writing, these thoughts that really haunt you at night come across every single time in a new shape and in a different color. For example, I wrote multiple shorts, series and a feature film, and after years of doing that, I realized that no matter how different the storylines, how distinct the environments surrounding them, how various the characters are, there is always a thought about the nature of ‘death’ and the impact of ‘memory’ in each and every script I wrote, including the comedies. Most of the times, I was totally unaware of it, as it just came out in the flow of my thoughts.
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