Last night I reached page 103 of the screenplay. I can probably reach an end by page 120, and then hopefully pare it down to about 112 in the first edit. The final pages usually come in a burst, so it’s fair to say that during one of the next four times I sit down to work on this thing, I will type the words “Fade Out….The End”. That ought to prompt some drinking.
I stumbled a bit around 90, and I think that’s typical, because that’s around the time you have to make a major shift in mindset. You spend so long during the body of the script searching for new obstacles, new details, new places to pack the powder. It’s exhausting, but it’s also mesmerizing. It takes effort to accept that suddenly it’s time to stop adding and reclaim those mental resources you’ve dedicated all this time. By this time, everything you need to know is already there, now you just need to light it up and follow where it goes.
It’s a weird headspace to be in, resisting the end because you’re in denial about there not actually being much work left to do in order to finish a first draft. But it’s one of those things that budding screenwriters would probably like to know is normal.